Fr Antonio has just arrived, luckily with others to carry his things up to the second floor ! It made me reflect on new beginnings….
I THINK I remember starting secondary school. I do remember that for the first year we had to wear shorts, ‘cos we were the juniors !
Then it was long trousers…. A blazer and a cap made us smart we thought.
I remember going for my first job interview – and I got the job.. in publishing, in a Company on the edge of the old Covent Garden. I thought I was the bee’s knees; my Mum bought me a suit and a hat (with a tiny feather in the hat band) – all from Dunne and Co… Out of my £10 a week I paid my daily train fares up and down to Waterloo from Epsom, bought lunch in the tiny subsidized canteen and paid my Mum £5. The wages came round every Friday in little brown envelopes with a pay slip, all in cash.
I remember starting my first teaching job – I loved it and made great friends amongst the teaching staff; and then a few years later applying for a Head of Dept at another school and thinking how much I would miss my friends, (just like going from junior to senior school…)
Of course it was the same when I became a priest and found myself moving Parishes on each of the four times I have done so…
AND YET…. each time the good Lord looked after me and each time I was very sad moving on.
Let’s all pray that just the same is true for Fr Antonio now that he is amongst us, and lets have a sneaking aspiration that when he does come to move on, he’ll miss us more than the others !!!
Fr Peter Harris