An old photo...

After Mass this morning, Maureen gave me that photo she promised me. I don't recall ever seeing my great-grandfather before, but there he is. My great-grandmother is kneeling next to him. The photo appears to be from the early 1970s (at least by my reckoning) and the general consensus at church this morning was that it was taken at Lesnes Abbey. I am not quite sure what they were doing there, because they are my Irish great-grandparents. It looks more to me like an outdoor Mass somewhere in Ireland, but who knows. There is nothing on the back to verify it. Going through old photos with my grandparents was one of my favourite activities when I was little. It was interesting to see my parents when they were younger, in the 1960s and 1970s (long before I came on the scene!); rather odd to see my father with hair too!

I was talking to David and Steve this morning about growing up ''without a parish,'' as it were. That is not to say that we didn't have a parish church (we did) but that we weren't really ''involved'' with it. When my mother was still Catholic, we went to our ''parish'' (it wasn't the nearest church, but my mother didn't get on well with the priest of the nearer church, so we had to walk that much further) church every Sunday evening for Mass (just a ''Low Mass'' in the New Rite), and I would serve. I only really spoke to the priest (Fr Fox, a very good man, and very generous, who sadly passed away a few years ago) and Maureen, who read the Lessons. My mother spoke to various older women, and a family who lived near us, but there was nothing really beyond that. But we did have a good relationship with our parish priest. He came round to see his parishioners every so often, and my mother would have him bless the house on the First Sunday of Advent.

I miss those days. I also miss Fr Fox, who gave me my Confirmation classes. He it was who first introduced me to the Latin language. I remember approaching him after Mass and asking him what the Sign of the Cross was in Latin, and he wrote it down for me. When we stopped going to that parish (for reasons which I will not elaborate), I saw him once or twice and avoided him. I think he was very lonely, and rather sad. In a way, he reminded me of Treebeard because he was quite old (well anyone over 20 is old to a young child) and he spoke quite slowly, but had a rustic kind of wisdom and piety. I am sure that there was much that he didn't know or understand, but he was a good man. I found out about his death through my brother, and I didn't believe it. I only wish that I had made the effort to visit him when I had the chance.

Requiescat in pace. Amen.