WEXFORD FRIARY - A COMPLICATED CHURCH IN A COMPLICATED TOWN

 

When Christmas is at hand, like most emigrants my thoughts turn to home – Wexford Town, in my case.

After I escort a tour group to Ireland every October, I spend a week’s vacation at the Wexford Opera Festival; so the town, its people, history and distinctive accent still resonate over Yuletide.

My thoughts are often drawn to the Franciscan Friary where I was an altar boy between the ages of 11 and 14. Oh yes, I was a true believer before I got waylaid by dreams of revolution, music, sexuality, and other teenage obsessions.

Teenage years, as most will testify, can be complicated. But then Wexford was a complicated town. Though conservative and Catholic, it was traditionally represented in Dáil Éireann by a left-wing Labour TD.

While the Third Order of St. Francis, the Holy Family Confraternity, and the Legion of Mary held nominal sway in the town, James Connolly and Richard Corish had led torchlight processions down the Main Street during the Great Lockout of 1911.

To top it all, my father, like many other seafarers, was a “silent atheist.” Most had been harassed, even torpedoed, in the Atlantic by Hitler’s U-boats, and as I heard one testifying in a Quayside pub, “I never regained my appetite for pie in the sky.”

The Friary, too, was complicated. It was flanked on either side by the majestic Gothic twin parish churches of the Immaculate Conception and The Assumption. I could have qualified for altar boy service in either, because I lived with my grandfather in George’s Street, while my parent’s house was in nearby Corish Park.

But I was a Friary boy, born and bred, and always attended mass or devotions in its humbler, but inviting, Italianate structure. And why wouldn’t I?

The Friars had first come to Wexford circa1240, not long after the Normans seized the Viking town, often known back then as Weissfjord. You could say, there was a mysterious steely gentleness to our Franciscans.

For one thing, they had taken a vow of poverty. They were as poor as the poorest, and subsisted on donations from their local spiritual clientele. But it was more than that – they had stood with the people at the worst moment in Wexford history – when Oliver Cromwell’s troops slaughtered 2000 civilians after a long siege in 1649.

The vengeful roundhead cavalry galloped through the church, murdering 7 friars and their congregation, and then for a little insulte final they stabled their horses at the altar rails. The surviving friars remained in the shattered town to minister to their surviving flock.

Likewise in the Great Lockout, while the regular clergy took the side of the bosses, the friars stuck by the strikers and shared their food and few possessions with them.

That’s why on Christmas Eve, I time-travel back to boyhood midnight mass at the Wexford Friary, and experience once again its glorious choir, glowing candles, clouds of incense, and my dear friend, jolly Fr. Justin OFM.

No matter what I confessed to that merciful friar he never sentenced me to more than 3 Hail Mary’s penance, before soliciting my opinion on Manchester United’s prospects in their next game.

Fr. Justin was the reason for my friendship with Black 47 fan, Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM. I once asked Mychal to find out what had become of Fr. Justin. About 6 months later, he showed up in Connolly’s on a boisterous, packed Saturday night with the news that he’d fulfilled my request.

“What request was that?” I inquired.

“Didn’t you ask about Fr Justin?” And with that Mychal delivered a full report on the fate of his brother Friar. We laughed about the doings and sayings of jolly Fr. Justin every time we met thereafter. Franciscan solidarity!

Like all Catholic orders the Franciscans are experiencing tough recruitment times, but I suspect that their belief and adherence to the Christian socialism espoused in the Sermon on the Mount will lead them to better days.

In the meantime, the old Friary in Wexford is badly in need of a new roof. Should you feel like donating a few bucks, go to friarywexford.ie

And if you’re in any kind of spiritual fix, reach out to dear departed Fr. Justin, OFM. I feel sure he won’t give you any more than 3 Hail Mary’s no matter what your transgression, but I wouldn’t mention Manchester United. Even the ever-forgiving Fr. Justin has to draw a line somewhere.