The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-03-11
THE PARISH PRIEST OF
ISLANDMORE.
lin the Parish.

lin the Parish.
| Father Michael was parish priest of
all the wild district along the coast.
and OF the islands outside In the ocean.
or these islands one was much larger
than the others; and in this had he
been born. His father was poor
man like all the islanders; and Father
Michael got his college education free,
because he CHANGED to be of the same
name as one of the wild Geese who
had established a burse in the famous
College Of Salamanca, in Spain. Fail
I ing bloOd-relations, this burse was to
go, for the time being, to any young
| Irish student of the name And so
Father Michael got through college,
and made good use Of his time there
He was doctor both of theology and
philosophy; and to look at him you
would never think it. In stature he
was small like his father; and was
everything but distingue in appear
ance or carriage. There was never
theless an attraction in the simplicity
OF his manner; and when you entered
his little matched residence, and were
ushered into the one apartment that
served for dining-room, sleeping-room,
reception-room and library; and to
your establishment saw fine copy of
Suarez side by side with the Salma-
licenses and A Lapide on the shelves,
you began to think you were in no
ordinary mans company.
He had one ambition; it was to
build church on the island where he
was born. It was not so much a per-
sonal ambition, as a longing that had
haunted him from childhood, to serve
the island; and this desire he had in
herited. 1t happened thus. From
childhood he had seen the dangers that
the poor islanders yearly, and month
1y, and weekly ran, by night as well
as by day, to receive the blessings or
the rites of their Church. From his
earliest days he had heard his father,
longing, with the longing almost of an
aged Simeon, to see church there,
and to see a priest there. And the
father, good man, left in his last will
and testament, "the ha1f-acre at the
corner of the boreen free, gratis, as
long as grass is green, and water runs,
for a chapel of the Holy Souls, and
the 500 fortune I got at my eldest
sons marriage as my offering to help
to build it,
1t is no wonder, therefore, that it
lay like a trebly sacred desire in the
depths of the priests heart. And day
by day in his own uninteresting rou-
tine-if indeed the common life of any
priest can be devoid of interest or of
event-he saw the ceaseless dangers
to which the poor people were exposed,
tatingly exposed themselves. They
came to Mass on Sunday, and wind
land tide maybe dangerous as they
tcame to the mainland, or as they re-
turned. They came to the Sacra-
ments; and the like danger threatened
They came with sick call; and it was
the same. He therefore desired with
desire to see church built there
But there was, superadded to all
this, something that he would not let
the ground know. He was getting
into years. Nature has made a law
that the child after playing during the
day will long for it's mothers arms
in the evening; and the child observes
that law A similar law has nature
made for the toddler Or totterer OF
second childhood and the second
child, no less than the first, bows his
head after the burden and heat of the
fday, and longs for rest.
1t is not every frame can bear up
against the irregular, the necessarily
Irregular life demanded of the priest
That is true of almost of every priest
! who has the work of the confessional
or the work of the parish, peremp
torily calling upon him for continual
attendance. But Father Michael had
both; and unaided had ito work a
parish that was dozen or fifteen
miles in length, and almost as many
in breadth. And the Big Island lay
at the farthest extremity of this
"stragglesome" parish. If only there
was church there, he would get per
mission to resign his parish, and serve
that, and spend the remainder of his
days where he had spent the begin
ming, saying Mass in the church, read
ing his Breviary among the limestone
rocks, and by the majestic waves
Now, don't tell it; that was
his great secret; that was the darling
wish of his heart. Oh, if he saw the
walls raised, and the roof laid upon
them, and an altar erected! Oh, il
he did!
When strangers would come to the
place, he would talk of it, as If it was
a thing that merely was up in the
clouds. And when he came across
somenoe with architectural knowl
edge, he would say, that "a friend
had some notion of building church
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