Early morning cycling on my bike
Over Piggy Bridge to Hindsford early Mass
Into the holy porch and through a window
I see John Byrne the server and the priest
As first Mass ends and locals on their knees
And God is praised in Lancashire again
And I will serve the curate half past seven
Go home again for breakfast then return
Retracing now on foot the way I came
The church now silent neighbour to the school
It’s all closed up these days
The crowds have gone
Or faith has flown or clergy let us down
Or the world got clever science to the fore
And faith is viewed as fiction close that door
And Irish immigrant was anglicised
And Irish priests no longer could chastise
And Sunday obligation was diluted
Some say the one true faith was polluted
Whatever it was time is marching on
And all things change and we grow old
And many die and many too are born
I would not want to be a priest again
Let me be to grow up in my home
Let me learn of girls and find myself
And come into the fullness of my life
With heart and head committed to life’s task
Leave me be – is that too much to ask?
I stuck to what I know throughout it all
Jesus and the Gospel is my call
And preaching that as best I could I did
And listened kindly to the hearts of all
Who came to ask my counsel and my time
But I was hamstrung from the very start
By seminary strictures world apart
Until the day I took myself in charge
And said I will decide what life shall be
And came away and joined my family
Brian Fahy
8 November 2021
+ I read again today Philip Larkin’s poem Church Going. It is a wonderful and atmospheric poem. I wanted to write something similar about my own little parish church of my childhood. I began to write and these lines came to me.
The Church’s recruitment of very young children into priesthood training was a serious aberration. It removes you from your home and family, and from your friends and normal social environment, and places you in a confined mental and social space. Its culture of holy obedience guarantees compliance in the young who are not rebellious and deprives them of growing into personal responsibility. That was my experience.
Erris Poetry 