A Father Before Christmas

by Neil Boyd

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘What’ll happen if our reverend P.P. gets to Heaven and finds that Almighty God is not a Catholic?’

  ‘No problem, Doctor,’ I said. ‘The shock will bring him back to life.’

  ‘Either that,’ Dr Daley said, ‘or Charles will convert Himself to the one, true faith.’

  We were into the third carol before Fr Duddleswell appeared. In spite of the disguise, there was no doubting that it was he dressed as Father Christmas.

  After handing out food parcels to the elderly, he gave Dr Daley a special gift, wrapped in brightly coloured paper, bottle-shaped.

  ‘Fr Duddleswell,’ the Doctor said formally, ‘how did you know?’ And in a whisper, ‘First time I’ve known you throw apples into the orchard, Charles.’

  The ceremony ended with a lusty rendering of ‘The First Nowell.’ Fr Duddleswell, who had retired already into the vestry, was heard even above the organ, crying out, ‘Down, Pontius. Pontius, get away out of here. I’m your friend, d’you hear, y’black monster.’

  Fifteen minutes later, at the presbytery, Dr Daley was doing his best to comfort his old comrade who was complaining bitterly of being ‘shaky as an aspen tree.’

  ‘Now, Charles, sit your sack of rum down there.’

  Fr Duddleswell reversed the chair and sat on it that way.

  ‘So, Charles, Pontius really put the Mark of the Beast on your bumper.’

  ‘He did,’ Fr Duddleswell growled. ‘But I will be revenged, indeed I will.’

  ‘Good Catholic sentiments,’ said Dr Daley. ‘I don’t suppose you’d waddle over here and let me examine the site of the excavations.’

  ‘’Tis in a place where Nature forbids even me to look.’

  ‘Is that a fact? Anyway, Charles, you have such fine plump cheeks on you I doubt if a lion itself could bite down to the bone.’

  ‘At least your trousers will hide your blushes, Father,’ I said.

  ‘Billy Buzzle is going to pay for this,’ Fr Duddleswell fumed, rubbing himself where his dignity was hurt.

  ‘Just paint it with iodine, Charles,’ the Doctor said, ‘next time you bathe your little bag of bones.’

  ‘I have no iodine.’

  ‘Then rub it with alcohol four times a day before, during and after meals. Which reminds me.’

  He removed the wrapping from his Christmas present to behold a lemonade bottle marked ‘Holy Water’.

  ‘Dear, dear, dear,’ said Dr Daley.

  ‘No, cheap, cheap, cheap,’ said Fr Duddleswell. ‘’Tis Holy H2O.’ Fr Duddleswell was having a brief respite from personal grief. ‘I thought, Donal, that if you took a sip of that before, during and after meals it might cure you of the habit.’

  ‘Tut-tut, tut-tut,’ the Doctor sighed. ‘Here is myself with a throat dry as a thrush’s nest and you offer me poison.’

  ‘The Holy Water will help you give up the liquor.’

  ‘I have tried, Charles, God knows I have.’

  ‘Like a blind man aiming at a bird.’

  The Doctor placed the bottle at arm’s length on the desk like an unexploded bomb. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful, Charles.’

  ‘As grateful, by the look of you, as a dog to its father.’

  ‘Don’t make fun of me, Charles, it is my misfortune that I never did get a taste for the cheap stuff. But I’ll give up the drink one of these days.’

  ‘And I will pick blackberries in February.’

  ‘Anyway, Charles, since it is the season of good will——’

  ‘Indeed not,’ said Fr Duddleswell. ‘Coming back here, did I not see you walk on both sides of the road?’

  Dr Daley was protesting that he had not had as much as a thorn would hold all day when Mrs Pring led Billy Buzzle in.

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’ asked Mrs Pring, her tongue in her cheek.

  ‘You can,’ retorted Fr Duddleswell. ‘Say goodbye.’ And she did. ‘As for you, Mr Buzzle, may your friends have fine weather for your funeral.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Billy said, ‘but——’

  ‘’Tis no good, Mr Buzzle. This time I am going to pay you out. You and your blessed four-legged friend have gone behind me back once too often.’

  ‘A case of dog eats dog,’ murmured Dr Daley.

  ‘Fr O’Duddleswell,’ Billy protested, ‘it was the red costume that did it. He probably thought you were a Bishop.’

  ‘Do not add insult to injury,’ Fr Duddleswell said.

  ‘You know as well as me that Pontius loves you, like I do myself.’

  ‘He was just giving me O’Kelly’s welcome, I suppose.’

  ‘Look,’ Billy said, a gleam in his eye, ‘I’m not going down on my hands and knees to you.’

  ‘No?’

  Billy turned meek all of a sudden. ‘Not unless I have to. The truth is, I haven’t paid the licence for Pontius this year. That,’ he stammered, ‘together with him giving you a playful little scratch, might mean the police’ll order me to have him put to sleep.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Fr Duddleswell obviously hadn’t contemplated anything as drastic as that.

  On cue, Mrs Pring led Pontius in. He went straight up and licked Fr Duddleswell’s hand.

  ‘We aren’t getting any younger,’ Billy said, sniffing sorrowfully. ‘Our feuding’s got to end, Fr O’Duddleswell.’

  Fr Duddleswell looked at Billy. ‘’Tis true the both of us are woodening up all over and growing downwards like the cow’s tail.’

  ‘I’ll never ask you another favour,’ Billy promised, ‘for as long as you live.’

  ‘If I take a generous view of the matter, Mr Buzzle, you will, of course, want to make a contribution to the welfare of the clergy.’

  Billy Buzzle had his thick wallet in his hand with the speed of a conjuror. ‘Name your price, Fr O’Duddleswell. Ten pounds, twenty, fifty,’—he was already flicking over the notes—‘I adore that dog.’

  Fr Duddleswell shook his head. ‘A five-minute prayer on our behalf to the Almighty.’

  ‘Done,’ Billy said, surprised at the modesty of the fee.

  ‘Kneeling down by the side of your bed at night, like Father Neil and meself.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm, I reckon,’ said Billy.

  The fire returned to Fr Duddleswell’s eyes. ‘I am mighty glad you take such an optimistic view of the effects of your pitiable prayers.’

  ‘You are a merry old soul,’ Billy said, breathing heavily. ‘What do you mean, anyway?’

  ‘I mean that prayers said for me by folks as would give a piggy-back to the divil might not be to me advantage.’

  ‘I’ve always been a good neighbour to you and what’s it brought me but misery and more misery?’

  ‘Me best neighbour is the blessed fence.’

  Billy suddenly called to mind the weakness of his position. ‘Thanks all the same,’ he said.

  Fr Duddleswell relaxed, too. ‘In the spirit of the season, Mr Buzzle, I reprieve your dog here, realizing as I do that some dog-owners get dogs a bad name. And now, may the blessing of grace be on your soul.’

  ‘And with thy spirit, Fr O’Duddleswell,’ Billy said with a grin.

  ‘Ah, Charles,’ Dr Daley said when Billy had gone, ‘it’s a fine Christian thing to stay your hand. Except when you are pouring, naturally.’

  Fr Duddleswell did the necessary. ‘’Tis Christmas, after all.’

  Dr Daley held the contents of his glass up to the light. ‘God, Charles,’ he moaned, ‘there’s not an earthworm’s mouthful here. Have you a tourniquet on your arm or something?’ And Fr Duddleswell gave him a full Christmas helping.

  Mrs Pring came in with a lace alb that had just come back from the laundry. Fr Duddleswell tried it on immediately and looked resplendent.

  ‘Fifty years old,’ he said, preening himself. ‘Real Irish linen and all. What d’you think, Donal?’

  ‘Like an angel, Charles.’

  Fr Duddleswell nodded agreement. ‘And, Mrs Pring, what do I look like?�
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  ‘Arsenic in old lace,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Pring, the divil would still be in you if you were steeped in Holy Water.’

  All the same, he raised her housekeeping money by a pound a week and did not blanch even when she, in grizzly gratitude, promised him a hair brush for Christmas.

  Maybe the season of good will had something to do with it. On the other hand, it could have been due to the fact that he had overheard the Bishop say to the Reverend and Mrs Probble:

  ‘Percy, my dear fellow, I do congratulate you on having so many devout Irishmen in your congregation.’

  Just before 8 o’clock next morning, Mrs Rollings appeared white-faced in the sacristy as I was preparing to vest. She was clutching a Catholic Truth Society pamphlet in which was printed the ceremony for the reception of a convert. She was worried that in the part about abjuring heresies she would have to denounce totally her former religious upbringing and all its errors.

  ‘I can’t say it, Father,’ she sniffled.

  I tried an entirely different approach. ‘All right, Mrs Rollings,’ I said ironically, ‘if you can’t say it, try whispering it.’

  Instead of slapping my face, she brightened up immediately. ‘It won’t be so bad like that, will it, Father?,’ and she returned to the front bench to join her family.

  Everything went well until her confession. I led her down the church to the confessional. Before I could stop her she had gone into my side and closed the door. It took some time to sort it out and get her kneeling on the prie-dieu in her proper place. She was muttering something about the ‘number and species of all my mortal sins.’

  Fr Duddleswell’s opinion was that there are basically two types of female penitents. Those that suffer verbally from either diarrhoea or constipation. ‘The latter sort,’ he had said, ‘need a liberal laxative of kindness.’

  Mrs Rollings was of the latter sort when it came to confessing her sins and I was running out of kindness. The confession took fully twenty minutes. I did not know if she had got everything off her chest. If it was still a bit grimy, I consoled myself with the thought that it was her responsibility not mine.

  When it came to the conditional baptism, I longed for the return of the ancient practice of three-fold total immersion. After all, I had a strong right arm.

  Of course, I was sorry for my wicked thoughts afterwards and deeply humbled when I saw the joy on the faces of the Rollings family. The nominal head of it took me aside when Mass was over. ‘Fr Boyd, since my wife started her instructions, she is a different person.’

  ‘So am I, Mr Rollings,’ I said.

  All dismal reflections were banished by the approach of Christmas and the birth of Christ. Ever since I was a child, the highlight for me has been Midnight Mass.

  The church looked gorgeous with its flowers and potted plants, the lights and decorations on the Christmas tree and the crib with the Babe in the manger.

  Some strong men of the parish had been deputed to bring a couple of hundred extra stacking chairs from Tipton Hall and to keep out the drunks. Fr Duddleswell and I, clad in cassock and biretta, began by greeting the parishioners as they trooped in smilingly.

  The Rollings family was there and old Jack Hately and Mrs Dodson and Dr Daley and Lord Mitchin and Mr Appleby, the mayor, with his wife. To my great joy, Archie and Peregrine arrived early and sat in the front row. It hurt me that Fr Duddleswell should tell me to make sure ‘that fine pair keep their hands out of the till.’

  Mr Bottesford, the undertaker, sneaked in and sat at the back like a publican. Mother Stephen led a representation from the Convent. Even Billy Buzzle put in a brief appearance to cast his eye over his Christmas tree. Afterwards, he dropped into the sacristy with Pontius.

  ‘Are you wanting to become a Catholic?’ asked Fr Duddleswell.

  ‘Me?’ said Billy with a laugh. ‘No, I’m a non-practising human being’

  ‘I was talking to your dog, Mr Buzzle.’

  ‘Oh,’ Billy said, deflated. ‘Pontius insisted on coming to say Happy Christmas to his benefactor.’

  ‘Bless you, Pontius,’ Fr Duddleswell said, stroking his coat with circumspection. ‘And may you have a set of rubber fangs in your Christmas stocking.’

  ‘Good crowd tonight,’ Billy said. ‘I’d willingly swop your night’s takings for mine at The Blue Star.’

  ‘I dare say you would.’

  ‘Any way, lots of luck and Merry Christmas.’ With that, Billy grabbed Fr Duddleswell’s hand and shook it fervently.

  Afterwards, Fr Duddleswell held up his right hand and began to count the fingers. ‘One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six?’ his look of puzzled surprise showed the good mood he was in.

  Billy passed Dr Daley at the sacristy door and they exchanged greetings. Dr Daley came forward and diffidently handed Fr Duddleswell what had the appearance of a jewel case, well wrapped.

  ‘Donal, you shouldn’t have,’ Fr Duddleswell protested.

  ‘A small token, Charles, to show you the esteem in which I hold your holy self.’ His eyes misted up while he said it. ‘Bless you.’ And he turned on his heels.

  ‘See you at the Christmas lunch,’ Fr Duddleswell called after him.

  ‘Merry Christmas to you, Father Neil.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Doctor.’

  ‘And congratulations,’ the Doctor said. ‘You fit here in St Jude’s like a nut in its shell.’

  I thought that one of the nicest things ever said to me and I thanked him warmly.

  Fr Duddleswell pointed at Dr Daley’s retreating figure. ‘I will love that old man till the sun falls from the sky or the Pope turns Protestant.’

  ‘He’s a saint disguised as a sinner, Father.’

  Fr Duddleswell was busy unwrapping his latest present. ‘What a mean stump of a man I am, Father Neil. I give him but a bottle of water for Christmas and he gives me this.’

  He finally saw what Dr Daley had bestowed on him and held it up for me to see. A lemon.

  We spent the last quarter of an hour before Mass hearing confessions. When I opened my box to go to the sacristy, who should I see but Nurse Owen with Spinks, the abortionist, in tow? Herod come to worship the Lord, I thought. I could have sworn that his bald patch was now as big as a half crown.

  Fr Duddleswell was to sing the Mass and preach while I assisted him. Already the church was bursting at the seams. In the loft, the choir was in full voice. Adeste fideles and then Silent Night, Holy Night. ‘Ah, ’tis enough,’ he said, as he struggled into his white vestments, ‘to make the most hardened sinner take the cobwebs out of his ears.’

  ‘Pardon,’ I said.

  His sermon, full of theatrical gestures, was superb. It was received in utter silence. For his text he chose St Paul’s words: Christ, though rich, became poor to enrich us with his poverty.

  He began by calling attention to the Christmas tree, ‘donated by a devout parishioner.’ That tree was the most Christian of all our symbols. Did not the first Adam eat from a tree in disobedience to God? And did not the second Adam, Jesus, eat the bitter fruit of another tree out of obedience to God His Father? Legend has it that the cross of Calvary was planted in the very spot where once grew the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

  Was not the Christmas tree itself the signal proof of God’s power to bring life out of death? Here it was, green wood in the deadness of the year. Like a Child born of a Virgin Mother. Like resurrection following upon Calvary’s death when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ flew on His wooden bird to God the Father.

  God, according to Fr Duddleswell, is deviousness carried to infinity. He quoted Crashaw’s lines on the birth of Christ:

  Welcome all wonders in one sight!

  Eternity shut in a span,

  Summer in winter, day in night,

  Heaven in earth and God in man.

  Jesus forsook His eternity to enter time. He gave up His infinite riches to become poor for us and to enrich us with His poverty. He forsook the bosom of His Fat
her for birth in a cave. None of this could have happened had not God humbled Himself to become as a child in order to enter the Kingdom of Man. God planned it so that Mary the Virgin would be her Maker’s maker and her Father’s mother.

  And what is the meaning of all this?

  ‘That we, me dear people, should ourselves forsake guile to merit the blessing God gives to the weak and foolish of the world. That we should forsake our love of earthly riches for the sake of the spiritual blessings brought to us in abundance by the poor little Babe of Bethlehem.’

  Throughout the recitation of the Creed that followed the sermon, the congregation were rustling through pockets and purses to forsake some of their money. The Christmas offering, the most generous of the year, is by tradition the personal gift of Catholics to their priests. As the collection was being harvested, glancing out of the corner of my eye, I could only marvel at the sight of the notes mounting in a dozen plates borne by the parish jury of twelve just men. Fr Duddleswell’s boast that he could raise more money than Daniel O’Connor seemed in the process of being fulfilled. Already I was contemplating buying Meg and Jenny a bicycle each.

  So eloquent was the sermon, so beautiful the singing, that for the first time I could remember there was no mass exodus of parishioners as soon as the celebrant gave the last blessing.

  Fr Duddleswell and I put on our birettas prior to leaving the sanctuary. He handed me the precious tabernacle key saying, ‘Put this in the safe, Father Neil, and then join me in the porch.’

  Within a minute, I had locked the key away and, having removed my cotta, joined him at the church door to wish the congregation a happy Christmas as they threaded between us.

  When we were left alone, Fr Duddleswell locked the front door and we retired to the sacristy where he unvested.

  ‘Ah, Father Neil,’ he said, ‘the old saying is true: the Christmas midnight Mass equals twenty-one Masses.’

  He was the first to notice that there was something disturbing about the collection plates. They contained only silver and the usual assortment of brass with Irish pennies predominating. The notes, the cheques, and the envelopes specially designed to hold the offering of a whole family had disappeared.