Father John : Believing a Dream of Love

In the 1970s, the progressive rock/folk group 'Magna Carta', led by my friend Chris Simpson, produced the album 'Lord of the Ages', which included the song 'Father John', which Chris said was based on an anonymous priest friend of his. It was a rather haunting, melancholic number, and here are the lyrics:   

Slowly steals the dawn in a grey December way
Tired night has closed her eyes to say
"Oh let all the world be light
Each darkened room till I return"

Father John wakes early
Dons a faded robe, breathes a prayer
Then hurries where the air is cold
It's Sunday come round again
Maybe one face more or less in church today
Oh can't you see, Father John?
Oh can't you see, Father John?

Miss Pringle and Miss Prendergast
And George who does the brass are there
To say the words they've said for twenty years
And no one knows or cares
Safe in the security of things they see and want to be
Believing is a word for growing old
Oh can't you see, Father John?
No one seems to want your words of love anymore
Why can't you see, Father John?

Like the stained glass window fathers
In last September's cobwebs
God does not belong here anymore, anymore

Benediction said and done
The echoes die and silence fills the walls
(Slowly steals the night in a grey December way)
High above him on the wind
The rooks sail in the torn winter sky
Just an old man with frosted hair
Believing a dream of love

I remember Chris telling me that when on tour once in the United States this song was booed by American evangelicals as they perceived it as being anti-Christian. But this wasn't the case. Indeed, I first met Chris at the Church at which I worshipped in my late teens/early twenties. When not on tour, he was a very regular attender, and as I got to know him I learnt that he had once been an ordinand but had then decided (to use his words) "...to give up on the priesthood, pick up a guitar and take to the road instead". He was one of several people who inspired and encouraged me on my own journey towards ordination whilst helpfully but charitably opening my eyes to the church's many faults and foibles.

My interpretation of the song (rightly or wrongly) is that it is about an elderly priest who feels that people no longer want to hear the Gospel he has preached for the best part of a lifetime, and who fears that even the faithful few who still attend church do so out of habit rather than an eager response to a radical message of love.

As much as I love the song, it has always disturbed me - and probably rightly so. I have always feared becoming Father John, and that fear inevitably increases as I draw ever closer to retirement.  

Both the world and the Church are certainly very different from how they were when I was a young fresh-faced ordinand. There's always a risk of course that we look back to the past through the rose-coloured and often deceptive specs of sentimental nostalgia, but whilst recognising that fact, I believe that at that time, people still attended church in significant (albeit reducing) numbers and seemed to do so because God really mattered to them.  Where a Feast Day, or even the commemoration of a Saint, fell on a weekday, the faithful would still come to Mass in reasonable numbers, and many would avail themselves of sacramental confession in those parishes where it was routinely offered. 

I often fear that some of today's worshippers come to church with a much more 'consumerist' attitude and that for many the church exists simply to provide a service.  I've certainly heard people say that they were disappointed by a particular service because (I quote) they "didn't get much out of it". Whenever I counter  such comments with the statement that worship is about what we give to God in response to his love for us,  I often sense that I'm quietly written off as an old-fogey! 

When I was first ordained, a rather cynical priest said to me, "Just remember that you're in the entertainment business now. Your job is to keep the punters happy and get their money off them." Those words shock and appal me as much now as they did then, but I do worry that we clergy can be tempted to act as if we are indeed in the entertainments business, and that our flock is an audience rather than a congregation - a family of Christian disciples. 

The fact that celebrations of Feasts and Solemnities that fall on weekdays now usually have to be transferred to the nearest Sunday because people won't come through the week is attributed to how much more busy everyone is these days. There's some truth in that, of course, but is there perhaps also a suggestion there that priorities have changed, and that God has been moved very definitely down the list? If so, is that because of a failure on the part of people like me in conveying the importance of the Gospel -  the 'words of love'?  

Finally, what of the Misses Pringle and Prendergast and George who does the brass? Are they there simply through force of habit and familiarity? Is their 'believing' just a word for growing old? I hope not, but again if so, there has been a failure on my part. I often challenge the phrase 'going to church' and encourage the use of 'going to Mass' as an alternative. The latter shifts the emphasis away from a building and towards the concept of worship. I have no problem at-all with the Church being an important source of social contact - far from it, it's one of our key functions - but people should love and be loved within the Christian community primarily as a response to that dream of love that the Gospels set before us. If that connection is no longer apparent, I have again failed.  

There is no denying that ministry in today's church can at times be disheartening and disappointing, perhaps more and more so as the years go by and as our society becomes increasingly secularised. So yes, there are days when I feel very much like Father John. There are days when no-one seems to want my words of love anymore. Thankfully, though, for me there are also days of huge reward and fulfilment, not least when someone first espouses or grows in the way of discipleship or discovers afresh God's love for them. Those are the days when I can look around the church and think to myself "Yes, God DOES still belong here" and when I can actually be quite content to be 'an old man with frosted hair believing a dream of love'.