Paul Andrews SJ recounts his time with the parish priest in a New Zealand parish and how the way of life there gives expression to the gospel message in the 21st century.
His name is Brian, but everyone calls him Baldy. Not that he is particularly bald for a 60-year-old; but he always wears a cap or hat, as though he has something to hide. In part this is protection against the New Zealand sun – Baldy is an outdoor man, and makes for the river when he can.
He grew up in a remote mountain village, a farmer’s boy, quiet, observant, keen-eyed. He knows his rivers – his parish calls itself the Brown Trout capital of the world. He walks upstream slowly, behind the fish, watching them. He can pick out a perfectly camouflaged trout against the dark bed of a stream like no angler I’ve ever met.
He will only cast to fish that he can see, and he uses the flies he has tied himself, after watching the preferences of the feeding trout. He always catches fish, big fish; in these rivers four- and five-pound trout are the norm. But unless some friend has asked him for a fish lunch, he will carefully return the caught trout to the water.
During four months as his assistant in a country town where he served seven churches, I learned a lot about fly-fishing, but more about being a pastor. Baldy has the countryman’s ability to listen without saying much. He knows what is happening in the town and six villages he cares for. He knows who is sick, who is needy.
Not that Baldy is pious or devout. He says a quick Mass. I’d be hard put to mention any devotion or pilgrimage which attracts him. But he is extraordinarily kind and thoughtful, and his people know they can call on him when things are bad.
On my last weekend with him, we were planning to go up the river when a message came from thirty miles away: a young man had got drunk at a party and fallen off a roof to his death. For the distraught family Baldy was the obvious person to call on; not that he would say much, but he would join them in their anguish. So off he went.
In a country with an aging priesthood and few vocations, the future of the Church depends on delegating and sharing responsibility. We had a big Christmas party in the presbytery for all the people who keep the show on the road – Eucharistic Ministers, readers, servers, collectors, counters, gift-bringers, flower-arrangers, musicians, cleaners, teachers who manage the children’s liturgy, techies who manage the electronic stuff in the church, and many others. It was a high-spirited party; Baldy confined himself to moving around with plates, which gave him a chance to talk to everybody.
One of the party was Tom, an old priest in his eightieth year, who lives in the presbytery. Tom is about as unlike Baldy as could be, but he has found a strange vocation in Baldy’s shadow. He never wanted to be a parish priest – his health was too delicate. He is devout and talkative, spends hours praying in the church, and is always ready to lead Benediction or rosary. At seventy-nine, he is still in constant demand from the sort of people Jesus consorted with: ex-prisoners, drunks, down-and-outs – who exploit him shamelessly.
Where Baldy has to watch the finances of the parish and schools, Tom is clueless. He never spends money, but gives it away. He is light-fingered – any goodies such as chocolates, cake or fruit, left lying around the presbytery, are pocketed for ‘my boys’ – the sad, despairing, marginalized men whom he gathers for Mass (if they choose to come) and dinner every Monday.
He never buys clothes, unless Baldy steals and burns a worn-out garment to force Tom to spruce up. Tom is the Catholic link with all the other Christian ministers in the town, and joins them for a Fraternal (meaning prayer, discussion, tea) every week. Tom would never make a parish priest, but in a remarkable way his life is a powerful Christian witness; and he somehow complements the pastoral work of Baldy -who knows and values this.
When I joined this parish, they took me over so totally and quickly that I hardly had time to register the new things about the church. Mass is introduced by a reader, who in a couple of sentences outlines the theme of the readings. Then the little children, not yet at First Communion stage, come up for a blessing, and go off solemnly with a parishioner for their religion teaching while the adults listen to the readings and the homily.
The congregation sings its way through the Mass – the words are thrown by an overhead projector onto a screen. It is not concert standard, but everybody joins in. In every Mass I attended in New Zealand, people received Holy Communion from the chalice as well as the host. With proper use of Eucharistic ministers, there was no particular delay.
New Zealand has a Labour government which is aggressively secular. They are shy of using words like husband, wife, spouse, or marriage – it is all ‘partners’ and ‘relationships’. They intrude in the family as though the government was the primary parent, criminalizing parents who smack their children, even though polls show the bulk of the population disapproves of the anti-smacking laws. Yet it is a well-run country, an easy, peaceful place to live.
When Baldy and I went fishing, he left his car unlocked on the side of a public road. It will be all right, he said. And it was. Even if the government has no time for religion, we can see goodness and grace shining through the trust and respect that people show each other.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (August 2008), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
