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” On summer evenings we ambled slowly home.”; a chance to ponder and reflect on life..
Topic Started: Saturday, 27. June 2009, 17:36 (357 Views)
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On Sunday mornings we hurried home, so mother could cook the dinner. On summer evenings we ambled slowly home, parents chatting, the children forming their first Catholic friendships with their little peers. That was one benefit of the forties virtually car-less society! My mother once mentioned she missed her evening walk home from church with her pals, that was how she got to know them, when she had moved a long way from her roots. Those friendships lasted half a century, until death.


The above quote taken from one of Rose's posts prompts me to wonder how much we are missing in this age of speed, (and for all you reformed hippies I do not mean the drug :rofl: )

Related to this is the discussion on the length of liturgical celebrations and a few other things
All we seem to do today is rush around, why has everything become so urgent?
Jesus took time to sit aside and pray yet increasingly I and my colleagues are under pressure to cut things short so that people can go... At the request of parishioners we instigated coffee after Mass, I bought a coffee machine and Kettle out of my own pocket and got cups from stores, now although everyone agrees it is a great thing that we have coffee after Mass hardly anyone has the ‘time’ to stay.
I suppose in opening this thread I am inviting you all to reflect on the times when as Rose says, ” On summer evenings we ambled slowly home.”
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Rose of York
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The Catholic doctor had a car. The parish priest had a car. Every other parishioner walked to Mass, even the well paid professionals. One Sunday, another parishioner turned up in a czr, then another one, then another one. Mother said "this will be the end of friendships. When she was old she told me that, before I was born, she and my father moved, with their children, to a strange town where they knew nobody. One day a woman called across the road "Didn't we see you at Mass? Don't walk home on your own, come and join us." Fifty years later my mother, in her eighties, giggled "I've taken to going to the pub. Your Dad would not have approved of a woman going to a pub without her husband." The three young mothers of the thirties had natured into three old widows of the eighties. In their widowhood they were going out once a week, for pork chop and chips, £3.50.

One sad day, a few years after one of the trio had died, I went straight from church to hospital, my nephew told me "there were just the two of them in the side ward. As Grandma's hand went limp we heard a deep sigh from Kitty. How strange, that those two should die at the same minute." The priest came, and in the presence of both families, read the prayers for the dead, for the last two survivors of the trio. Their children had all been friends since childhood.

The three women and their husbands had been good pals, had seen each other through their joys and sorrows.

I would not be able to relate the saga if my Dad had owned a car, he would not have joined the men of the parish in the pub near the church, and Mother would not have met their wives. In the pub the men had a pint and reported on sick and elderly people needing a hand or a visit, and they shared out the tasks. If they had owned cars, would they have known who was in difficulty? Unlikely because they would have driven home straight after Mass. Would I have made so many Catholic friends? Two years ago I met up with some of them for the first time in years, at a funeral. I was still "one of them."
Keep the Faith!

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Rose of York
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Penfold
Saturday, 27. June 2009, 17:36
I suppose in opening this thread I am inviting you all to reflect on the times when as Rose says, ” On summer evenings we ambled slowly home.”
I propose:

Annual Walk to and from Mass Sunday (for those who are able).
Keep the Faith!

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Rose of York
Saturday, 27. June 2009, 17:57
Penfold
Saturday, 27. June 2009, 17:36
I suppose in opening this thread I am inviting you all to reflect on the times when as Rose says, ” On summer evenings we ambled slowly home.”
I propose:

Annual Walk to and from Mass Sunday (for those who are able).
Ithink i might be accused if cheeting, I live only a 100 yards up the road, :yahoo:

I do like the idea
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Rose of York
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OK Penfold, if we are to go back to forties style living just once a year, lets have it on the First Friday. You can be curate (just for a day, you will need to think like young man fresh from seminary) and spend all morning walking around the parish in the rain, visiting your old and sick parishioners.

:rofl:

Being Friday you may return home to a bowl of fish soup, prepared, cooked and served by the devoted presbytery housekeeper.
Keep the Faith!

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Alan
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What memories this evokes.

In my youth we spent part of the year on the coast. On Sunday mornings we used to have Mass in the Old Schoo;house which was about 2 miles from our house. This Mass was subject to the availability of a "holidaying" priest. Yes you guessed it. we walked to Mass. We started out as 2 or 3 families and ended up with many families joining us along the way. Wonderful friendships were forged in those days.

If no priest was available we walked to the parish church about 6 miles away. The younger family members pushing prams and all those in wheelchairs. That faith and commitment still lives with me.

The parish in which I now live was served from a church five miles from our 19th century church. On a Sunday afternoon the Parish Priest used to walk the five miles to offer Mass for a very small congregation. The congregation walked similar distances from the surrounding villages.This was the scenario until the late sixties.

True expressions of Faith!

God Bless all who visit this forum,

Alan.

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Rose of York
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The book relating the history of post emancipation Catholicism in the West Riding of Yorkshire mill towns relates how Catholicism was gradually revived in the large town of Dewsbury, where Saint Paulinus had baptised converts.

A priest in Huddersfield about ten miles away heard there was an Irish family in Dewsbury. He rode there on horseback, went around the pubs, asking if anybody knew where he could find the Irish family. He found them and baptised their baby. The town still has strong Catholic communities.

I have heard similar stories of priests riding across wild moorlands, negotiating snow drifts, to get to their sick parishioners.

An Irish priest who began his ministry in England related how he used to ride to Mass. One Sunday when he was twelve years old he felt it would be cruel to expect the old horse to get through the snow. He was due to serve Mass so he borrowed a tractor. How many would do that now, or walk a few miles if the car was in for servicing.

If there were no cars there would be no supermarkets, we would get to know our neighbours because we would all use local shops. If there were no cars there would be no hopping about, going to the parish of one's preference.

If there were no cars, old sick priests would not be able to administer the sacraments to parishioners living a long way off. If there were no cars, parishioners with mobility problems would not get to Mass or parish functions. There is a plus and a minus side to car ownership.

If there were no cars the Government would not get so much money out of me, in fuel duty. :rofl:

It would be good to see the bishop turn up on a horse, on the Nuncio arrive by carriage.
Keep the Faith!

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And the Pope "In a Surry with a fringe on top"
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I was watching Songs of Praise this evening, it came from Belfast. It showed the church of St Joseph's in 'Sailor Town' which the local community had managed to save from destruction by gaining a 50 year lease from the Catholic Church. I have never been to the church but the thing that is relevant to this post is the passion with which the people who saved the church spoke of their community and heritage. Eamonn Holmes had asked the chairman of the committee, 'Is there a community living here?" The chairman replied that strictly speaking there was not but there would be with the new development that was soon to open.
This is an example of treasured and happy memories providing for the needs of a generation yet to come.
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Rose of York
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Penfold
Sunday, 28. June 2009, 17:50
And the Pope "In a Surry with a fringe on top"
The use of the Sedia Gestatoria set an example of taking things slowly, gently, being able to connect with people. Any forum members like to volunteer to carry His Holiness around?
Keep the Faith!

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Derekap
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In them there days if we were in a strange town and unsure of the way to the Catholic Church you began to see many people aiming in a certain direction and you knew you were heading the right way.

These days, if I wasn't chaufeur driven by my wife, his unholiness would need a sedia gestatoria. We see three or four people purposefully walking, apparently to their own church or chapel, during our two mile journey but no Catholics until about 400yards/metres from our church - and then only a handful. I would say the majority come by car. A few manage to park within the church grounds, others in the town station area opposite or two nearby supermarket car parks. Two men come on their battery scooters.

Shortly after our demob I visited an army friend in the Manchester area. He (a non-Catholic) showed me the way to the church on the Saturday Evening. As we turned into the unlit cul-de-sac a dark figure appeared before us with a large jug. It was the priest on his way to the off-licence. Before leaving I apologised because I called him Father thinking he might be a Canon. He said he had seven brothers priests, they were all Canons but himself.

Our present parish used to provide tea and biscuits during Winter after Holy Mass on Sunday morning but the demand decreased and it was not restored during last Winter. Last Sunday they did provide tea cakes and biscuits as a means of collecting money for a charity but it must have been a disappointment to those who made the effort to provide such for most of food was not touched and very few stayed for even a cup of tea.

We must also realise that many country roads have no footpaths nor even grass verges so it is dangerous for anyone walking.

Edited for additon of last comment.
Edited by Derekap, Sunday, 28. June 2009, 20:40.
Derekap
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Rose of York
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Derekap
Sunday, 28. June 2009, 20:33
We must also realise that many country roads have no footpaths nor even grass verges so it is dangerous for anyone walking.

Fair comment, Derek. The route from our house to the Catholic Church includes two miles of narrow unlit country lane with no pavements. I would not walk along it after dark, there could be a nasty accident. That would not stop me staying behind for coffee and a chat. Some people "HAVE to be home" by a specific time, to watch their TV programmes. Television may have had a marked effect upon the socialisation of parishioners after Mass.
Keep the Faith!

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Joe Valente
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"This is an example of treasured and happy memories providing for the needs of a generation yet to come."

No. Sorry, Penfold, this is a bad example. I hope that this example will not be followed elsewhere.

(Joe, in Belfast.)
What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul
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Ah the power of TV Joe it fooled me.
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CARLO
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On this summer evening we ambled out of Church to be caught in a torrential downpour. Our exit from the car park was (as usual) made worse by really stupid parking of a kind only ever seen in Church car parks. One of the main culprits (blocking in about half the cars) had to be fetched from the Church Hall where he was chatterboxing without a care in the world. Having been unblocked we then had to fight a joust with taxis entering the car park bringing drinkers for their Sunday evening knees up at the Catholic Club!

Such is the reality of summer evenings after Church in 2009 !

:boxing:

De profundis
Out of the depths


CARLO

Judica me Deus
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