60th Anniversary of Ordination

On July 27, 2023 Fr Bren Donohue celebrated his 60th anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood with a Mass at All Hallows.  During the Mass he reflected on his weekly pilgrimage from his home to All Hallows Church.

Fr Brendan suggested I celebrate Mass at All Hallows as a way of celebrating my 60th Anniversary of Ordination.  He must know how much I loved celebrating this CBD All Hallows 9.15 am Thursday Mass.  I thank Fr Frank O’Loughlin, the current celebrant of this Mass for giving me the opportunity.

Because Canterbury Road runs through this cluster of parishes, Brendan is known as the Archbishop of Canterbury.  We have a real Archbishop with us.  I appreciate Archbishop Hart’s presence.  Our friendship goes back to St Patrick’s Cathedral, my second appointment.  They were good times.

This CBD 9.15 am All Hallows Thursday Mass was never something I did but something we did.  The trip from Lower Templestowe to Balwyn was a pilgrimage.  Before leaving home, I would lodge a piece of paper up my sleeve, bearing a couple of sentences to bring the gospel home.

One day I placed the wrong piece of paper up my sleeve, and when I drew it out after the gospel, I read my shopping list.  I should have pushed on with the hope of suggesting a Eucharistic reference to everyday life.  G K Chesterton, writer, poet, author of the Fr Brown stories, and “The Man who was Thursday”, claimed that one of our great poems is the list of items Robinson Crusoe salvaged from his ship before it broke up and sank.  The late Jesuit Peter Steele composed psalms out of lists of vegetables or fruits.

The second stop on my pilgrimage was a long one at the corner of High Street and Doncaster Road.  All those people in cars of whose lives I knew nothing; nothing of their circumstances nor purposes.  I often wondered what the CBD All Hallows 9.15 am Thursday Mass had to do with them.  There was time to glance up at Inge King’s creation inspired in part by two creeks – the Mullen Mullen and the Koonung.  It’s like an angel with a watchful eye over the intersection and all those lives.  A quiet prayer for artists, craftsmen and women, and musicians who give joy and variety to the world.

I thank the good angels in my life.  My mind went back to St Mary’s East Malvern where my late brother Patrick, my sister Gabrielle and I grew up.  Gabrielle said recently it was a loving parish.  And I thanked God for all the circumstances, the luck, the opportunities, the appointments, and parishes linking my charmed life together and giving me you.  God seems to hide his providence behind coincidences.

On with the journey, trailing the cars up Greythorn Road with St Brigid’s Church tucked in somewhere on the left.  On through the swarming parents and children at Greythorn State School and Balwyn East Kindergarten.  A prayer now for the flourishing families and the success of teachers in the classroom and for a deep down satisfaction in their hearts.  The foot went down to scuttle past Justin Villa, the home for retired priests.  No time for prayer there.  God forgive me!

Then to Beckett Park comprising native species evoking the scent of a smoking ceremony. Oh, for a Voice!

Finally, to be greeted in the All Hallows Sacristy by one or other of the two angels named Kath.  All was ready for the CBD All Hallows 9.15 am Thursday Mass.

Frank Shinners was a fitter and turner in St Marks Parish, Faulkner.  When he retired, he started going to weekday Mass.  When asked why he said it gave shape to the day.  A famous philosopher, who’s name I cannot mention amongst my friends for fear of boring them, was obliged to attend Sunday Mass when serving in the Austro Hungarian Army.  His religious views were ill defined and uncertain.  He said it put him in a good frame of mind.  We would all have our own response – the Eucharist is rich “do this in memory of me” is loaded.

Anton Chekhov, short story writer and dramatist, considered “the student” to be his best story.  A seminarian is on his way home on Good Friday.  The weather is foul, a chill wind and darkening shadows.  So cold nature is ill at ease.

The only light is far off in a vegetable garden of a mother and daughter, both widows.  The student joins them around their campfire.  He stretches out his hands towards the fire and remembers the apostle Peter.  The conversation turns to Easter.  The student recounts Peter’s part in the drama from the Last Supper to his denial.  Peter denies Jesus three times and when the cock crows the full force of his denial of Jesus whom he loved, comes home and he sobs, cries bitterly.  At that the old woman sobs, large tears falling down her cheeks.

The student departs and reflects on what happened.  It was evident that what he had just been telling them about what had happened nineteen centuries ago had a relation to the present, to both women, to the deserted village, to himself, to all people.  The old woman had wept, not because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was close to her and because her whole being was concerned with what was passing in Peter’s soul.  His heart was thrilled with joy.  The past he thought is linked to the present by an unbroken chain of events each flowing on to another.  It seemed to him he had seen both ends of the chain, when he reached one end the other quivered.

Every element of this happening can be traced to its origins, every religious spirit and practice, every attempt, formal and informal, to understand and communicate the character of a parish Eucharist is linked to the past and stretches into the future for the glory of God and the enlargement of humanity.

We were with Peter in the Penitential Rite pleading and contrite.  We are about to celebrate the presence of Jesus in offering and eating as if at Emmaus.

By Fr Bren Donohue