Tea and Talk

by Alice Taylor

  The summer of 2015 will not be remembered for its good weather, and Friday, 24 July was to prove no different. It dawned grey and misty, with intermittent showers. In case the showers proved persistent, Mary and her husband, who had already put a huge effort into the restoration, came with a large canopy which they placed over the altar that had been erected in the ruin of the tiny church at the foot of the hill. They placed another canopy over the eating area by the roadside. Mary hung lanterns containing candles off the trees, and rows of chairs were arranged on the grassy area around the altar. On the hill behind the altar the wildflowers glistened with raindrops, and that afternoon the only sound breaking the silence was the birds in the adjoining Dromkeen Wood and the musical gurgle of the nearby stream. Stillness filled the air, and one felt that the residents of this long-abandoned graveyard were awaiting a sacred acknowledgement of their existence.

  Then slowly the mist cleared and blue skies appeared between the overhanging trees. Cars purred up the narrow road and were directed into an adjoining field, and people coming through the gateway into the graveyard stopped to read the plaque telling its history. The rows of seats in front of the altar filled up with people, while groups stood at both ends. Parishioners and many others had come back to honour this special place on this historic occasion.

  Absolute silence descended as Fr Finbarr began Mass, and one felt that the congregation was greater than those visibly present. It was an occasion laden with the presence of the past. The readings were done by the American visitors, descendants of those who had survived the coffin ships, and the Prayers of the Faithful were recited by local children, descendants of those who had survived at home. Hymns were sung and soft music played. It was the linking together of the many tangled strands of our chequered history and a reaching out of hands across the sea.

  After Mass, Mary thanked everybody who had helped to make the occasion possible, especially Bob and Jim, who both told the gathering how happy they were to be present for this historic event. People gathered in groups to enjoy tea and home-made goodies and were glad of the opportunity to thank the Americans for their generosity of spirit.

  As dusk gathered over Kilpadder, people began to leave and head back to the village. As they went out the gate, many looked back to view the little hillside graveyard, now covered in wildflowers, and felt pleased that they had been here at this special time. All went home glad that after over a hundred and fifty years the graves of Kilpadder had finally been blessed and the bones of the ancestors were at last resting in sacred ground.

  A seat has been placed in this small hillside graveyard where you can sit quietly listening to birdsong from the surrounding wood and the stream gurgling beside you. You will not be alone here as the spirits of the past will be all around you because this is truly a sacred place.

  Chapter 12

  Back to Simplicity

  In March, we had a mission in the parish. The timing was perfect. We had been through a long, wet, dreary winter, and, like the ground around us, we were battered, washed out and drained of the necessary nutrients to meet the challenges of spring and summer. We were in sore need of divine composting, spiritual sustenance and the bright sunny days that stimulate new growth. Then, miraculously, with the start of the mission, the rain cleared, and bright, sparkling spring sunshine dried up the sodden land and put pep back into our step. Long ago, the annual mission was a challenge, with grim reminders of doom for those who strayed from the ‘one true path’, but now it is usually seen as a kind of cleansing of the spirit and a fresh start for the times ahead. Like all good planting projects, the necessary seeds had been sown back in autumn. The Parish Council had booked two missionaries to come in the spring. Missionaries, like garden planners, come in many guises. We were looking for people who would provide inspirational and visionary makeovers, not dull dudes who would stunt our growth. We cast our bread upon the waters and waited to see what the tide would bring in.

  A month prior to the mission, a reconnaissance man arrived. This was Fr Brian, one of the two Redemptorist priests who were to give the mission. The Redemptorist order was once the ultimate ‘hellfire and thunder brigade’, delivering terrifying missions all over the country, but all that has changed and a new church is being born. Though still in the throes of excruciating labour pains, we are slowly seeing a new creation emerging. Both the laity and the clergy are still uncertain as to how this new baby will grow.

  Our reconnaissance man was young, solid and open to our ideas and suggestions. It boded well for things to come. On one point, he was, however, adamant. In our parish, we actually have two churches, and this can sometimes lead to ‘them and us’ thinking. We had toyed with the idea of alternate nights. But Fr Kevin firmly advocated staying put in one church for the nightly mission as switching around would only lead to confusion. To balance things out between the two communities, we would have morning Mass in both churches, but at the different times. The nightly mission would be at 7.30 in the village church and Mass there at 7 in the morning. Rising at 6.30 every morning for a week would soften our cough for us! The other half of the parish could sleep on until 9.30am and would also host a healing Mass for the sick at a later time. That kept most of us half-happy!

  Being a missionary in today’s world requires a multitude of skills, as we were to discover throughout the week. The mission themes were left up to us as Fr Brian felt that we knew best the requirements of our parish. The overall theme, we decided, should be ‘Welcome’. This decision had evolved from an encounter the previous week between our parish priest, Fr Finbarr, and an old parishioner, who, over the years, had lived the kind of life that he now regretted and came seeking comfort and solace. Fr Finbarr had comforted him as best he could and asked him if he would like to come back to church whenever he felt he could. But the man told him, ‘No, I cannot come back. I am gone too long. I would not feel welcome.’ That man set the main mission theme. The other themes we wanted to explore were healing, hope, forgiveness, family and community. Who would not want all of these in their lives?

  The first challenge was to spread the word. The regular church-goers posed no problem as they would come anyway. They are the perennials. Constant and dependable, they pay their dues and keep the show on the road. But in our parish, as in every other, we have the annuals who come for special occasions, and then we have the rare plants that are fussy growers and can fade away but sometimes flower again. For the mission, we wanted to gather all these flowers for a shot of divine ‘Miracle-Gro’. In the garden, this engenders amazing growth, so, as Sr Stan advises, the mission could be good gardening for the soul.

  So we got little brochures printed. A lot of thought went into these. We were inspired by the painting in the Sistine Chapel, The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, where God’s finger reaches towards that of Adam. We came up with the image of a welcoming handshake for our brochure. The plan was to distribute one to each house in the parish.

  A parish network is a great system. In our parish, we have over twenty ‘station’ areas, and each area is made up of a number of townlands. Each station area hosts an annual Mass attended by the neighbours, and the house hosting the Mass organises everything. So it was simply a case of getting a bundle of brochures to all the station areas from where they would be distributed. When we gathered on the night of the distribution, there happened to be choir practice on in the church and a perpetual adoration on in the prayer room, so all the usual suspects were readily available. Before the meeting was over, bundles of brochures were on their way to every house in the parish. To be sure that the word was out, we had large signs bearing the welcoming hands and the dates of events erected at strategic locations throughout the parish. The details also went on our Facebook page and Twitter. Changed times since Jesus was on the road! He sat in a boat or on the side of a mountain and they gathered. He had advised that having cast the bread upon the waters you then stood still, so we followed that advice.

  On the Sunday preceding the
start of the mission, Fr Brian came back to whet our appetites, and we discovered that he was into congregational singing and was no mean singer himself. That was a plus, as singing raises the spirits. On the opening night, the second of the two appeared. This was Fr Kevin, a Belfast man, who was older, leaner and funnier than Fr Brian. Then, as the week progressed, they both blossomed, and we discovered that these two guys were on the ball. On the first night, they told the young people that there would be a gift for any 7.30 Mass attender. How will this work, we wondered? But these two men had their homework done, and the following morning after Mass, the young people trooped up the aisle and glowed with delight when they each received a special wristband, which, apparently, is the in thing at the moment with the young. The next morning, the young crowd had doubled. Blackmail? Maybe, but harmless and it worked. They were both wonderful communicators and got their spiritual message across with wit and finesse. People enjoyed listening to them, and the crowd grew bigger as the week went on, particularly at early-morning Mass which, curiously enough, had a huge appeal.

  The week had some special moments, and one was on the night when the whole congregation was invited to stand and face west towards our school, which is across the road from the church, and raise our hands to bless our young. Then to face the back door of the church and bless the ancestors, who, down through the decades, had come through this door to pray: into my mind came Uncle Jacky, Aunty Peg, Gabriel, my cousin Con and my sister Ellen, who had all prayed here. I imagine that it was the same for everyone in the congregation, who all remembered their family members, many of whom are buried in the surrounding graveyard. Then we faced the altar and blessed the many priests who had served in our parish. It was symbolic and powerful.

  The night on the theme of forgiveness got off to a great start with Fr Kevin retelling the Frank O’Connor story ‘My First Confession’, and, because he was a superb reader fit to read for Book at Bedtime, waves of laughter rippled around the congregation. The occasion was a reflection of the welcome transformation that we have seen in our church in recent times. Confession has been reborn as reconciliation. The terminology says it all. Some of us still remember the musty confessionals in which the priest peered out from behind bars like a jailer or dark curtains parted to reveal the face of judgement. All gone! Now we waltz around the church to the sound of soothing music.

  We had an inspiring night on the meaning of community, and when we looked around the church, we realised that this is what it is all about. The sense of support and the togetherness with each other. I thought a lot about John Donne’s poem:

  No man is an island, entire of itself;

  every man is a piece of the continent,

  a part of the main.

  Their final message of the mission to us was that the church of the pew was broadening out and being replaced by the church on the street.

  On the last morning, outside the church door I met a young neighbour, who told me, ‘I was dragged down to Mass!’ ‘By who?’ I asked. ‘By me,’ her seven-year-old piped up, ‘all the boys in school were going.’ ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t come all week,’ his mother told me as she surveyed the crowd around us. ‘Everyone seems to be in great form.’

  We have four schools in our parish, and later that day I met a young teacher from one of the outlying schools who told me with surprise, ‘The main topic of conversation for my crowd during the week was the mission. They loved it.’ We had hoped that the old-fashioned mission stalls would be there during the week because these children would have enjoyed them, but that medium of marketing must no longer be popular. After the mission, the general consensus throughout the parish was that all who had attended felt better after the week.

  I was yet to find out that God speaks in many voices because later that week a man who had not seen the inside of a church since his mother took him told me, ‘That mission was very important for the young.’ ‘In what way?’ I enquired. ‘Well, in life, when the shit hits the fan, you need an anchor, and that will be there for them.’ Then I ran into a book-loving friend who is not into church-going either, but when I enquired, ‘What are you reading at the moment?’ she answered, to my surprise, ‘Conversations with God.’ ‘With God?’ I echoed. ‘Yes, it was a New York Times best-seller.’

  Undoubtedly, Jesus has got out of the boat and come down off the mountain.

  Chapter 13

  Buried in Books

  Yesterday, as I went in the door of Waterstones’, I prayed silently, ‘Dear Lord let me see in here only books that are beyond temptation,’ but God was not listening, and I came out with two. It is not that I do not enjoy buying books, but the problem is that I live in a house bursting with books. I did not create this situation all by myself, and it did not happen overnight. I was ably abetted and assisted by a husband who was into books on the Irish language, the magic power of the mind, sports and tomes on how to Do It Yourself. If you are into any of these pursuits, there is an endless supply of volumes available to feed your needs.

  Over our many years together, I never took up a new hobby or cultivated an interest on which my beloved did not have an informative book – or if not in stock one was soon acquired. He was also a great fan of joining book clubs, and there were queues of them offering temptation beyond resistance. I could paper the walls with DIY books, and I could carpet the floor with books on gardening. Simultaneously, he acquired leather-bound encyclopedias, which would require a strong pony to shift them, and as soon as the children could read and write they were similarly catered for.

  Because the house was big and rambling, these books all sneaked in unobtrusively and onto shelves all over the house, from where they were occasionally lifted for consultation, but otherwise silently gathered dust. Books make comforting house companions that sit serenely on shelves smiling conspiratorially as they buddy up and make room for more and more friends to gather in around them.

  To further exasperate the problem, a bookish cousin moved in and, with time, helped to fill adjoining rooms with more books. He was into science, history, beekeeping and antique books and frequently browsed through second-hand bookshops for first editions. Over the years, he even accumulated – and stored in meticulous order – ancient tattered copies of the Capuchin Annual journal.

  Then, after decades of book-buying, these two bookworms moved up to the heavenly library, leaving behind them quantities of books that had to be seen to be believed – which leads one to the conclusion that one of the reasons that women generally outlive men is because the Almighty, in his all-knowing wisdom, knows that the women who remain will tidy up. (Though a smart son of mine thinks that the reason for the earlier male demise is that the Man Above leaves the ladies in the departure lounge until they are too old and tired to give him any trouble when they finally arrive at his pearly gate! That, of course, is mere male conjecture.)

  However, my problem was not totally a male creation. My sister Ellen, who was into mind/body/spirit and the history of 1916 – she had a framed copy of the Proclamation at the foot of her bed – had gathered many books on both subjects. Also, for some years, we had a genteel lady of the Ascendancy in residence who was into Molly Keane books. Both were avid readers, and when they departed their books remained here too. Now it was just me and all these books. What to do?

  There is a thing called Murphy’s Law which declares that ‘If it can happen it will happen and at the worst possible time,’ and, true to form, before the book problem could be resolved the roof sprang a leak. To be honest, this did not come as a complete surprise as the old roof had been slightly incontinent for years. Now, however, the strategically placed aids for drips no longer worked and drastic surgery was required. And, as well, there were other jobs that had been pending for years, and, of course, now it was a case of ‘while we are at it let’s get that – and that, and that – done too.’

  Getting in the builders is no small event, but when you are undertaking major works it is a prospect of nerve-racking proportions
. Before the builders entered the house, the books had to be cleared away. They occupied rooms through which the builders would be plodding with muddy boots and where they would be taking down partitions. So these old friends, who had spent years on shelves serenely smiling down at me, had to be whipped from their comfortable perches, all boxed up and temporarily stacked in territory that was not under builder attack.

  They were packed into boxes with no consideration for class, creed or gender: PH Pearse was tucked in with Penelope Hobhouse, and weighty Samuel Levis with racy Jilly Cooper. As I surveyed the multitude of stacked boxes, I assured them and their departed owners that one day I would be back to rescue them and give them the select location that they all deserved.

  The builders came and went, and I did not crack up completely, though at times it was touch and go. Eventually peace and quiet returned, and I no longer woke to the sound of hammers thumping off the roof. As is usual after a major house overhaul, it took time to adjust to the new regime and get the house back to working order. Gradually everything found its rightful place. The books alone remained to be sorted. They were on silent standby, quietly waiting for their day to come. Occasionally, when I ventured to look into the rooms of stacked boxes, I assured them, ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá.’