Scottish Catholic Observer

Today is wee Peter’s 80th birthday. Peter is one of that dedicated band of older gentlemen, present in every parish throughout the land, who continue to serve Mass with the same fervour as they did in their youth.

Not only can he be relied upon to minister at the altar, Peter also keeps me well stocked with cod liver oil capsules to ensure my joints are supple and my coat is glossy.

Jasmine isn’t overlooked either, getting a regular supply of chewy dental sticks to keep her pearly gnashers in good condition. He says he never expected to see 80, especially given the five years he spent bed-ridden with TB in his younger days. You’d never know that now, watching him power walk up and down the hills of the parish.

He attributes his recovery to his mother’s prayers, so we all owe Mrs McConnachie a debt of gratitude—not least the manufacturers of cod liver oil capsules.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned my former parish priest Fr Willie Diamond in this column. Willie also received an honorific mention in an article by Brian Beacom printed in The Herald last week.

This affectionate account of the priests he grew up with was certainly a refreshing change from the usual style of article one finds in that paper when it comes to covering Catholic affairs.

Willie, or ‘Daddy Diamond’ as he was known to his pupils in Paisley, did indeed exude calm in the midst of even the most fraught situations (apart from that time when he recommended the dodgy TV programme). But the real star of the piece was Fr Gerry Brennan, whose no-nonsense approach clearly had a lasting impact on the writer.

He recounts Fr Brennan’s unconventional—but highly successful—remedy for drunk men lifting their hands to their wives. The Herald columnist also rightly recalled Gerry’s habit of ‘non-swearing,’ rendering the F-word slightly less offensive by swapping the ‘F’ for a ‘B.’ Still, you knew he wasn’t happy if something was described as ‘buckin.’

Fr Brennan was my first parish priest, in St Joseph’s, Clarkston. I was with him for three years before he was promoted to cathedral administrator and I stayed behind to break in his successor, Fr Brian McGee. Whatever happened to him, I wonder?

Three years later, I was sent to re-join Gerry at the cathedral and to be reunited with Henry, his quirky Jack Russell, whom I adored (although not everyone did). While Jasmine loves everybody, Henry was rather more selective: he would even nip at a curate’s heels if the notion took him.

All told, I spent the best part of seven years under Fr, then Canon, then Mgr Brennan’s tutelage. He accepted his appointment as a chaplain to His Holiness so as not to cause any offence to the Pope, but he derived no personal satisfaction from it and he refused to invest in robes befitting his elevated ecclesiastical status. An anorak and a sturdy pair of shoes were all Gerry required to get the job done. And, although he had no doubt that priesthood was a vocation, he did consider it a job as well.

He would smile wryly when people thanked him for doing what he plainly considered to be part of that job. By the same token, he had little time for those who required lengthy siestas to recharge their batteries: you should come in at the end of the day, he would say, and feel tired then, precisely because you have put in a good shift.

That said, he was not a hard taskmaster or a ‘curate cruncher’: he was a good-natured pastor who taught me many things by example and I can still hear him in my head as the voice of my priestly conscience.

His voice nudges me along to do things I feel less-than-inclined to do, and reproaches me when I fall short of the mark. I could go on about Gerry at some length—and many of our exploits wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Father Ted episode—but I’ll save them for my autobiography. Let’s just say that vignettes such as ‘The Roundabout’ and ‘The Paschal Candle and the Radio Microphone’ still make me laugh after all this time.

The solemnity of the Assumption always feels like the liturgical equivalent of the playground bell, as I always associate it with the return to school after the summer holidays. I had already been back to school in a sense last week, as I spent a morning last week teaching the participants of the ‘Setting Out on the Road’ course. This is a course set up to provide teachers who haven’t obtained their qualification from Glasgow University to gain certification from the bishops to teach religious education.

Although I taught the Glasgow University course for more than a decade, it’s amazing how rusty one can get after only a short time away.

When you have regular contact with students, not only do you get to know them, but they get to understand your little foibles. As a result, you can pitch things at a level and in such a way that you get the message across.

It’s not quite so easy with a group you’re coming to ‘cold.’ I can certainly appreciate the importance of those few in-service days for teachers, to get them revved up for their learners after the break.

While the kids were not yet back, I celebrated Mass on Tuesday morning for the teachers in St Columba’s High School, with an invitation also extended to the associated primary staff within the learning community.

It was a good way to begin the session, although I suspect that the request for Mass in the school was basically because teachers are spoiled rotten and I’m too good to them.

Speaking of school matters, I had a little moment of panic the other night when I saw a Tweet from the high school mentioning how much they were looking forward to the retreat I would be giving the new Sixth Years in our parish hall this Friday. Although I had a vague recollection of some conversation about this back before the end of term, I had forgotten all about it and hadn’t written it in my diary.

So, hiding behind a ‘like’ of that Tweet, signified by a heart, was an increase in my own heart rate as I contemplated what on earth I was going to do for this retreat. It occurred to me that the retreat will be held in the very hall which Gerry Brennan (him again) masterminded and helped build during his eight-year curacy in the Bow. Like the emperor Hadrian, Gerry tended to leave buildings in his wake.

I think I’ll centre the retreat around the theme of building and try to marry it with the building of their future, especially in this important year.

Both St Paul and the Gospel offer us plenty of allusions to building and construction and the fact that some of the pupils’ grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked on the building in which the retreat will be held might give it an added resonance.

The cracks in the walls and the flood damage I mentioned last week may also permit a reflection on our need for repair. Hopefully, by the time Friday rolls round, I will have honed my thoughts. Or, perhaps just as likely, I will have changed my mind completely.

The commencement of the school term usually coincides with the arrival of a spell of pleasant, sunny weather, although the weather forecast doesn’t hold much promise.

This may be a false recollection on my part, but were the summers in my childhood not warmer and sunnier than the ones we have now—just as the winters felt harsher?

Anyway, as the weans return to school—not just here but in your neck of the woods too—I hope that there aren’t too many ‘wet plays’ and that our teachers don’t feel too exhausted come the weekend.