Dear Congregation,

Thank you all for coming this evening.

It reminds me of the open honest faces each Sunday morning looking up at me. How innocently happy I was then, and I’m sure most of you felt that way too. Me, standing erect in the pulpit preaching the Word. Wasn’t everyone listening and being uplifted?

That was so long ago.... But I did have a happy congregation.

How dare he mock me by... ‘no one would hear, all the lonely people’ I wasn’t lonely, you were there ...were you lonely ?

No, I mustn’t think of then.

Jesus Christ, must I keep being asked to remember.....

You’re not interested in me, Or my Ursula, only the bloody Beatles...

Without the Beatles this story is worthless, with the Beatles, this is a packed house.

Easy now, easy now, one day at a time, one step at a time. Must put things in perspective.

Must keep going on ...getting better,

One bloody cliche after another.

A drug dependent ex priest whose only claim to fame is that he once knew the Beatles.

Oh, I knew them all right.

My first parish after ordination was in Liverpool in nineteen sixty-one, Curate in the Centre City, with a commitment to hear confessions for the local parish church.

Each Saturday morning I’d walk across town to St. Columba’s Church. A fresh face priest in dark clothes oblivious to the revolution happening about me. Mini skirts and flares, rock and roll and a new found freedom all passed me by, on my priestly journey to hear confessions and forgive outdated sins.

I somehow knew even then that I was behind the times, the changing times.

The confessional grid began to remind me of my weekly visits to Mountjoy Jail in Dublin. But this time I was on the inside, and the public was on the outside.

It all changed that Saturday when I heard...

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned”.... I awoke. I knew that voice. I looked side ways at the head and shoulders outside. The head was bowed but the framed glasses gleamed helping recognition.

“Father, I have had sex with many women.”

The usual dull interrogation followed. The ‘occasion of sin’ was the Cavern where he played with the group. I, of course, from my pious pulpit, advised that he stopped going there. That he should pray for strength to overcome his weakness and ask for forgiveness.

“Anything else worrying you, my child?”

“Yes, I think I want to be a priest, Father.”

“Perhaps we should talk about this outside.”

The grids slid back into place, the small coffin-like confessional darkened. I could hear the door on the opposite side open and shut. He coughed quietly and waited for me to join him.

Both of us walked out into the sunshine.

We walked around the church and the cemetery. Two dark figures walking slowly between white railings. Around and around until the masks of lived life had slipped. We talked and talked. Two men sharing their hopes and secrets, he so sincere and I playing the devil’s advocate. Efficiently, oh, so efficiently.

“Whenever I feel sad, Mary helps to calm me, somehow her wisdom sets me free.”

His glasses glowed with sincerity.

What was my reaction to be, but to puncture this teenager’s simplistic vocation? I hated myself. But at the time, I was the last person in the world to give him assistance.

The next time we met was at the ffrenche’s party. He was on his way to fame. I was the local Parish Priest. The local Parish Priest about to fall in love. The Beatle’s magic energy at the party changed my life. Ursula and I were released by the Good News spread by the four’s new free love religion. We were their immediate disciples.

We followed their successes from the overseas newspapers. I had all their L.P.s. Somehow we thought we were still part of the youth revolution. My white collar of Catholic Priesthood was abandoned. Even the white sunless skin had begun to become tanned. “We have broken free from the noose of Catholicism” we laughed. I now worked for the community. Ursula helped out at the local hospital. Our work was more spiritual than ever before. ‘Loving Spirits’ was the favourite phrase. Life was alive and free love was true.

We often talked about that party at the ffrenches, ten years ago when we first met. The ‘Fab Four’ had begun to wake up the Western World and Beyond. Their effect on us had been tremendous, shedding our vows to Him and turning to ourselves. How far we seemed from that party at the ffrenches now, how we had changed.

There was talk that they would make a South American tour. The nearest venue was two thousand miles away.

The phone call from him recalled all the excitement of the past.

“I’d like to see yez”

He looked older and a little stooped. At twenty-seven he had all the success that he thought he was entitled to at eighteen, but yet he seemed so sombre and depressed. His first greetings though were marvellous and warm. Our old new friend had come to visit us.

No one in the local tavern recognised him. This helped us all to relax and become the friends of our memories. The three of us shared a meal like children, laughing, shouting, insulting, loving and being happy. Even now I still think of it as the happiest night of my life. Innocently happy.

I was the first to leave, an early morning meeting was on my mind... On my small mind.

I waved goodbye from the dark doorway but neither returned my wave. They looked so happy in that bright corner of the tavern, as if talking into each other eyes.

A week passed without a word.

And then the suicide note

I opened her door and saw the chair rocking slowly on its side.

Her feet and white toes stared at me, swinging from side to side.

“You‘re too late” they quietly cried.

And I watched my swaying love grow dead and die

I ran and undid her still warm body from the rough rope. Our two bodies, close as lovers, staggered across the room, never as close in life. Now for once we were intertwined with passion. One crying for love, the other for death.

“No Ursula, Ursula, Why, Oh, why...?”

Her body twitched.

I ran to the phone beside the bed.

“He will know what to do” I prayed and said,

I began to dial his hotel number.... Then noticed

his love letters, on her bed.

I dialled emergency...instead.

The ambulance arrived within minutes and her

beautiful dead body was taken away.

Gone with those neck rope marks announcing her

death and covering his love bites.

God, I hated him so.

I walked back to my parish mourning life.

Thank you for listening to me this evening. I’ve come from the Seminary and I’m only allowed an hour or two away each month. I thank you for the hospitality and for allowing me to share my hates and joys.

Some of my friends at the Seminary have marvellous great memories of the people they once knew. My best friend walked with Jesus Christ and he can tell some great yarns.

Yet he doesn’t get out as much as I do.

Somehow, for these dinner parties the Beatles are more popular.

It’s funny but John once told me they would be.