Scottish Catholic Observer

I remember—well over 20 years ago now, when I was a young, shiny and somewhat naïve priest—when a job attached to the diocesan curia was regarded as a promotion. You were ‘one of the boys’ and that was very exciting. Nowadays, as I survey things through more jaded eyes, I see office jobs as a necessary evil: they have to be done but they steal time from the actual ‘bread and butter’ work of the parish.

It’s all very well swanning off to the office, but if the housebound are left waiting for Confession or the schools unvisited then something’s not quite right.

There’s also a challenge to one’s integrity. People see you heading into the car with your briefcase and assume that you’re off to do necessary administration for the Lord, but you could just as easily be heading off for a wander round Braehead or Silverburn.

And this is not a new temptation: I remember Fr Gerry Brennan reminiscing about a certain priest back in the early ‘60s who would get the train into Glasgow most days, complete with attaché case. Folk would observe him on the platform as he went off ‘to do work for the bishop.’

The thing is, he had no such post in the curia. Goodness knows what he had in the attaché case or what he did all day, but it certainly wasn’t ‘work for the bishop.’

I have a few jobs in hand for the bishop. Last week, I arranged a couple of meetings about a distance learning certificate in parish mission and ministry run by the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham.

One of the priorities emerging from the synod was the need for greater lay collaboration in the work of our parishes. This isn’t just a symptom of reduced manpower among the clergy but the legitimate exercise of a Baptismal vocation to help take forward the mission of the Church on the ground. But before that can happen, lay people need to have confidence in their understanding of what it is they are being asked to do. That is where this certificate comes in.

Of course, we have many wonderful and supremely able volunteers already doing a power of work in our parishes. Some might question if we really need to go down the path of a certificate, with studying texts, writing essays, etc.

I’m of the view that, if you want to send out a signal about the robustness of a course, so that both clergy and laity can have confidence in it, then this is the best way of ensuring that. Our own bishop is very keen on it—indeed it’s really his initiative to bring it to the diocese, but it’s already being run in other parts of Scotland, either at diocesan or deanery level.

Thursday of last week was a meeting of principal teachers of religious education. I ‘facilitated’ this in the loosest possible sense: it was mainly my role to cut the sandwiches.

Such gatherings are; enormously beneficial in themselves, simply by giving colleagues from across the diocese the chance to get together, to share good practice and encourage each other—and, of course, getting some things off their chests.

It was especially helpful to have a presentation from Laura Wilson (like Richard Wilson—no relation—a fellow Greenockian), who shared her extensive experience in Catholic schools in Australia.

Laura was able to speak of the things we do well, not least as a consequence of the 100 years of state support we are currently celebrating, but also the ways in which Australian Catholic schools—still paid for by the Church as ours once were—have a very vibrant sense of their history and identity.

My final diocesan ‘gig,’ if I might use that term, is the Rite of Enrolment this Sunday. Each year, the First Sunday of Lent sees our cathedrals play host to this simple but touching ceremony, as those seeking ­Baptism or to enter into full communion with the Church at Easter are formally inscribed for this final phase of catechesis and spiritual preparation.

I am, for the time being at least, director of RCIA, and it’s a part of my role to compile a list of our catechumens and candidates for communion with the Church.

This diocesan event is mirrored in many parishes as this Sunday is often the Rite of Enrolment for our Primary 4 children who will be making their first Holy Communion during the Easter season. Our own children will be present at the Sunday morning Mass to take this important step together and, thereafter, the other steps in the journey come thick and fast. The boys and girls will be making their first Confession the very next night!

As well as clashing with St Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday also coincided with an in-service day for our local schools. I was on hand to impose ashes on the heads of St Columba’s staff and their colleagues from our neighbouring Catholic high school, Notre Dame. Both staffs were gathering for a motivational presentation of some description and the school leadership team had decided that nothing would set the scene for this in a more positive way than Fr Bollan tracing large crosses on everyone’s forehead.

I did feel rather sorry for my niece Jennifer, who on that very day took up a post in Notre Dame. Her first experience among her new colleagues was witnessing her uncle going mad with the ashes.

This year I made my own ashes by burning leftover palms from the previous year. I’ve only done this once before, back in Clarkston, when I was that shiny and naïve young priest I mentioned above. To those epithets, add ‘stupid.’

On Shrove Tuesday I had purloined one of Bridie’s pots from the kitchen and, not wishing to damage it, had lined it with tinfoil.

The palms went up nicely but, in an unforeseen development, the heat also caused the top layer of the aluminium to break off into the residue ash. Even though I sieved it and sieved it, there were still tiny metallic shards mixed in with the ash. I can still see the faces of those unsuspecting folk who came forward for their ashes, their serene, penitential features twisting into a mask of pain as I scratched a painful cross on their foreheads.

Each admonition to turn away from sin was accompanied with a whispered ‘sorry.’

Word quickly spread that the young priest in St Joseph’s was clearly old school and, for a short time at least, I acquired a following among those who like their sacramentals to be as physically demanding as a tribal initiation ritual.

I had jokingly suggested to the assembled high school teachers that I would be offering a ‘limited addition’ ash heart for that day only. Of course, as I pointed out to them, the cross is the Christian symbol for love: it denotes the sacrifice which God himself makes to free us from the consequences of sinfulness and selfishness.

As we wear it on our foreheads (for however long), we are proclaiming that we are sinners, yes, but sinners who are loved. We are dust indeed, but dust into which God has breathed his Spirit, his life. If that’s not a motivational message for the beginning of Lent, I don’t know what is.

I sincerely hope I’ll be well enough for these weekend commitments at home and in the cathedral, since I have, for the second time in a few months, succumbed to the lurgy and come back to bed after Mass.

I woke up this morning aching from head to foot, feeling as though I had endured several rounds with a kickboxer. My lovely assistant Margaret handed me in cold-relief capsules (but it’s priest flu!) and some Lucozade. Although it tastes the same as it ever it did, I miss the orange cellophane wrapping.

Part of the fun of being off sick as a child was lying on the sofa under a blanket watching Crown Court through the filter of a Lucozade wrapper. The only thing I can see from my current recumbent position is my own reflection in the mirror. And no amount of Lucozade wrappers could make that a pretty sight.