by Brian Devlin

I am writing this on the first day of March. The start of spring. St David’s day. Forty years ago today I was ordained to the Roman Catholic Priesthood. It was a beautiful day for me and my mum and dad. St Margaret’s Church in Dunfermline was packed with parishioners, fellow seminarians and family and friends.

The liturgy was carefully thought out and rehearsed. I remember I was very nervous. I recall the litany of the saints being chanted. Ora Pro Nobis. I lay prostrate at the foot of the altar as I’d seen other seminarians do before me. It was a solemnly moving occasion.

I’m not a great one for believing in premonitions, but I’m now convinced that I had had one a few months before that day, when I was choosing the readings for the ceremony. I was trying to find some enlightenment, leafing through my New Jerusalem Bible that I’d had for seven years in Drygrange – the seminary where I studied – and I came across a text in Ecclesiasticus that I hadn’t noticed before:

‘My son, if you aspire to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for an ordeal. Be sincere of heart, be steadfast, and do not be alarmed when disaster comes. Cling to him and do not leave him, so that you may be honoured at the end of your days. Whatever happens to you, accept it, and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient, since gold is tested in the fire, and chosen men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust him and he will uphold you, follow a straight path and hope in him. You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy; do not turn aside in case you fall’. (Ecclesiasticus 2.1-2.7)

Brian Devlin’s book, Cardinal Sin: Challenging Power Abuse in the Catholic Church was published by Columba Books in 2021.