Midnight Mass in Dublin 4

It’s Midnight Mass in Dublin 4,
and Father Jack is late once more,
but we suppress our coughs and sneezes
to vigil keep for Infant Jesus;

—for let us give the man his due,
he suffers from a modern curse,
his feet are flat—and what is worse,
the battery of his Skoda too.

—There is no time to count the cost
His notes on Kierkegaard are lost!
He begs God’s pardon for his crime,
And vests himself in record time,
to lope behind the darkened school
breathless to the vestibule,
where, ghostly in the candle-light
The choir is singing Holy Night
One last time, with added fervour,
To keep awake the altar server:
John Paul,—
soutaned and surpliced, tennis-shoe’ed,
His hair in spikes and ginger-hued;
Melissa— swirling pigtails, fresh-shampooed
With grace and comeliness imbued

—O get behind me Satan, please!,
We know what happened Father Keyes.

Why are all those faces staring?
Don’t tell me that I’ve lost my bearings
—(Should I be at a different function,
a wedding slot, or Extreme Unction?)
Then, Lo!
A murmur bids them Tally Ho!
and cassocked singers, acolytes,
Process to start the midnight rites.

He shuffles on (and almost slips)
In lock-step with his moving lips
as left and right he cranes his neck,
To undertake his ‘people-check’

For we’ve no truck with cocaine-snorters,
the yellow press, nor crime reporters
—can’t even boast a parish steeple,
but get a better class of people:
Connoisseurs of art, discerning,
Polymaths from seats of learning;
Careerists who have scaled the rungs
Polyglots with gift of tongues;
lawmen of the upper stream,
Circuit, High-Court, and Supreme;
Counsellors and mediators,
Consultants, brokers, aviators;
The leading edge in trends liturgic;
The cutting edge in matters surgic,
charismatics and do-gooders,
defenders of the Christian Brothers.

Authors of the brightest farces,
And artistes who are all the rage
In our church achieve catharsis
As they rarely do on stage.

Why bless my soul ! — is that Miss Meek?
—I thought I buried her last week.
But maybe it was Mrs Togher,
—I eulogized, of course, but didn’t know her.
I spy the Misses Grimes, poor sinners,
With whom I gnaw my Christmas dinners
with Father Ned who fled the mission,
His nerves were ne’er in great condition,
(in nick of time escaped rendition,
The Act, he’d started, of Contrition).
—To Tutsi braves you never say,
please put me in the pot today!

And what strange ways of making merry!
—we’ll talk patristics over sherry,
Sitting round in party hats
A sewing-room that stinks of cats.
Oh put me not through that again,
I’d spay the lot, —but, where stands the Vatican?
now let us pause, the altar reaching
(whence emanates our finest preaching:
to quench the lure of earthy sin,
we blend God’s Word with Tarry Flynn)
—a mobile tinkles (—is that O2 or Meteor?),
still, let’s push on with the Confiteor.

Forgive me, Lord, for how I’ve acted,
my fertile mind is oft distracted,
the fault I hope is only venial,
(literati find it most congenial).

For there’s a quirk in every human.
Both humble friar and catechumen;
Bleeding-hearts whose eyes get misty,
parvenu and ‘arrivisti’…
Domestic prelates, Monsignori;
and courtiers from that crowd in CORI,
They’re all God’s people and as such,
must have some purpose, (—though not much).
And as for me, a small request
—I’m trying hard, my very best—
Reform me, Lord, and help me get
In time for something, — but not just yet
Oh raise the rafters, friend and stranger,
Pound the organ, pull out the stops,
Engulf with song the infant’s manger
Make it brazen as the Boston Pops.
But hark!
An angel stirs beneath the star
—intoning o’er the straw-lined trestles
‘God works through people as they are:
His grace flows best from weaker vessels.
Redemption comes from where He pleases
hold not thy breath for Mother Teresas’
Where is another who so humbly,
Proclaims the Word, and never mumbly,
Will rarely miss his point, to boot,
Tho’ enamoured of the scenic route?

Now heed the word the Lord imparts,
and let it melt your hardened hearts.

The star’s now blazing o’er the throng
Who, awestruck, join the cantor’s song—

O bless us Lord, this holy day,
And keep us patient as we pray,
Thy grace to flow through every pore,
Of Father Jack, who’s late once more.