Take Us to the River: Fr Paddy O’Kane

‘If I had all the whiskey in this parish I would pour it down the river,’ exclaimed the preacher during the Mission.

“And if I had all the vodka, beer and gin I would pour it down the river,” he added.

When he finished the choir leader announced ‘’our next hymn will be “Take us to the River!”

Growing up in Culdaff we had neither X boxes, Ipads nor Iphones but we had the river.

Together with my brothers we spent much of our youth by its banks.

We were enchanted by its songs, its power and its mystery. It was our friend. We only went home when we were hungry.

And so when as a child I first read the description of the river by the Mole in ‘The Wind in the Willows’, it struck a chord - “..this sleek, sinuous, full bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver-glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble’’.

I had been that mole that was ‘’bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted and when tired at last he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea”.

(By the way - It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. Let your inner child out to play).

Some will tell you that the reason why we find the gurgling sounds of a river or stream so soothing and refreshing is because they bring us back to the first sounds we heard in our mother’s womb.

But stop me before I get carried away on a cloud of nostalgia.

Turning the well-known phrase on its head, every silver lining has a cloud.

One river bubble was burst for me last Sunday night when I went to the Viennese night in the Forum. The Ulster Orchestra was in town.

The conductor said ‘how many of you have ever actually seen the Blue Danube? If you say you have you are lying because it’s not blue but muddy brown!”

Sometimes living next to a river can be a mixed blessing.

Yes, we can enjoy the pleasures it brings but just look at what has happened recently in the British and Irish midlands.

There was no Noah to save the day.

I know a bit about flooding. I was a curate in Strabane when the Mourne burst its banks in October 1987.

Our church of the Holy Family has been flooded twice and I have again heard the pain of parishioners whose homes had been destroyed by flood water.

‘Let it snow, let it snow’’ I hear people praying in those areas where the fields have turned into lagoons.

They reason that at least snow usually falls on higher grounds, and it dissipates more slowly as it melts.

The unseasonal warmth of the last few months may be the cause. Is this part of the global warming Pope Francis warned us about recently?

Finally, let me draw your attention to another river, the Jordan, where Jesus was baptised and heard his father say ‘this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased’’.

Last weekend we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of Christ. We invited one hundred children exactly who had been baptised in 2015 to come to Mass for a special blessing.

During the coming year, may you too feel the Father’s love; may you hear Him whisper in your ear ‘ you are my beloved son , you are my beloved daughter’ and may your homes be places of security, warmth, love and peace.