Scottish Catholic Observer

Although most Catholics are very aware of their own parishes and the diocese to which they belong, less familiar to many is the idea of the deanery. Dioceses are divided up into smaller geographical districts presided over by deans who are usually, but not always, the senior priests in the area. The deanery covering Inverclyde consists of 11 parishes and we gathered last week for our twice-yearly deanery meeting. These meetings are held at the request of the Bishop and he provides us with a series of questions to debate and discuss with a view to offering him advice on local or national issues.

I don’t think it’s telling any tales out of school to say that not many priests punch the air with excitement when notification of a deanery meeting comes in. This lack of enthusiasm is seldom due to the agenda itself, having rather more to do with what happens when priests get together. Chairing a deanery meeting is definitely an acquired skill and has many points of overlap with the herding of cats. Unless the dean is ruthless, it is not unheard of for pent-up priests to chip in their ‘tuppence worth,’ only for it to turn into ‘several quids’ worth’ as they warm to their theme.

In fact, on a few occasions I have undergone what some people refer to as an ‘out-of-body experience’ during the deanery meeting. After several minutes of trying really hard to pay attention, I have felt my consciousness detach from my body and felt myself floating upwards.

From this vantage point, I have been able to look down at myself and the others gathered in the room, watching the lips of an impassioned colleague move wordlessly, while in my head I can hear a celestial choir or the theme tune to The Magic Roundabout. Then I am usually snapped back into my body as the dean asks me a question or invites me to go on a committee. This is frankly unfair, as our deanery usually only nominates priests who have sent in apologies to do the dirty work.

Anyway, our latest meeting was very efficiently managed by one of our local canons and the agenda items were ticked off at a fair rate of knots. Thereafter we were offered the hospitality of St Laurence’s Parish and we were plied with lentil soup and sandwiches by the lovely housekeepers, Jean and Rachel. Rachel’s soup is justly celebrated throughout the deanery but even the simple fact of accepting hospitality is complicated by diplomacy. You see, I wanted to praise the lentil soup in the most fulsome terms but I also had to be mindful of the equally wonderful lentil soup made by my own recently-retired housekeeper, Jeanie. Although she has hung up her apron, Jeanie still pops in on a regular basis to leave gifts of milk, scones and, of course, soup.

Now both the deanery and the world of church housekeeping are small enough to ensure that any comparison of these soups would get back more or less immediately to the respective chefs—to say nothing of the other housekeepers in St Joseph’s. Before you know where you are, a casually used superlative in a compliment could give rise to a maelstrom of recrimination, tears or worse. Few people realise just how skilled housekeepers are at jujitsu and the other martial arts. In the end, I simply handed back my plate to Rachel and said: “That was the nicest soup I’ve had all day.”

Advent is well under way: the children of Primary 7 in St Joseph’s were enrolled for Confirmation at the weekend and the lower school in St Columba’s have started their pre-Christmas visits to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It would be nice to think that the recently concluded Year of Mercy will have some enduring legacy in making Confession more meaningful to our young people. Thanks to the help of colleagues in the neighbouring parishes, we will also have an additional lunchtime Mass on the Thursdays of Advent. It’s great to have this extra support as a chaplain to ensure that Advent is a time of ‘pre-prayering’ for the Christmas season.

We had a funeral at the start of the week which, for me at least, brought a lot of the SCO’s ongoing Dementia Awareness campaign into sharp focus. As it happens, St Joseph’s works closely with the Alzheimer Scotland centre across the road; indeed the centre’s clients are coming to our hall for their Christmas lunch next week. The centre also has a key to the church, allowing them to let themselves in during the day if one of the clients wants to pay a visit, to pray or simply light a candle. So, although there isn’t a formal chaplaincy relationship between parish and centre, I think there is a spiritual neighbourliness which suits us both.

The funeral we celebrated was for a gentleman who had been affected by dementia these past few years. Sadly, his wife has been similarly affected and both have been living in the same care home but as strangers or, as the family put it, ‘passing like ships in the night.’ Although it is a physical condition, dementia is a spiritual challenge too. To use a computer analogy, although the ‘hardware’ of our brains is a fundamental part of who we are, the ‘software’ of the soul cannot simply be reduced to the physical processes which give rise to memory and understanding. But how do we accompany those who are slipping away from us, bit by bit and, just as importantly, how do we articulate in the language of Faith the anguish and frustration of those who must endure that incremental loss of a loved one? In other words, ‘who will roll away the stone for us?’ (Mark 16:3).

Perhaps unusually for a funeral, but maybe less so given the season, our recessional hymn was Come, O Divine Messiah. That was a cheering note on which to end our celebration, ‘when hope shall sing its triumph and sadness flee away.’ I have no doubt that the family who came to hand back their Dad and Grandad to God have been doing some very hands-on theology over the years: as the Advent hymn reminds us: “All clothed in human weakness, shall we your Godhead see.” Maybe more so than any other illness, the weakness of our human condition is laid bare in those living with dementia and that is why we need to look for—and find—the face of Christ, the Godhead, in them.