I arrived to a community that has experienced a bit of a storm lately and I'm just lucky to be there during the quell, on a sort of ceasefire that accorded me a bit of a space to put myself in. Actually, every member is just nice and lovable in own way, with ticks and a charming quirkiness or two, enough to keep them interesting but not too much to scare me away from them. It's a bit like living in a sitcom, really, where each has a personality that isn't at all one-note and is downright punchline worthy. My favorite is of course, Father Raphael which is in many ways my best friend in Europe. He's the most Irish person you'll ever meet in Dublin, but at the same time, he's never a stereotype Irish. At all our travels, he sang me nationalistic songs that always involved a story of a very specific woman, which I find very fascinating because, embarrassingly, the only traditional irish song I know is Cockles and Mussels, which I only learned later to be a song about a prostitute. We went to pubs, the proper Irish ones and was introduced to hot toddies and dark beer.
At other times, when Fr. Raphael couldn't accompany me, I never ran out of people to help me go around. Thanks to Renoir, Ben and Mary, I was able to go to Duleek, to Galway, to Drogheda.... With them, I scoured museums and parks and churches and theaters. We watched the traditional Christmas concert of Handel's Messiah and were among those who stood up while the choir sang the composer's trademark Halleluiah. I walked the length of the river Liffey. I hang out with Filipinos, too, who, despite the years of staying in Dublin have stayed Filipino by heart. In fact, on my last night, I was with them till dawn, belting out Pinoy standards on karaoke machine. But what marked me well was the spiritual side of my vacation. For the first time, since I arrived in Europe, I felt truly a priest. I celebrated Mass (the new translation which really sounded unelegant, if my opinion matters) and heard confession and prayed and shared tea with the local Catholics, like a true pastor would. I guess it helped that I can speak a bit of English.
Truth be told, Dublin haunts me even until these days. The seedy pubs, the crumbling monasteries, the moldy tombstones, the ubiquitous Celtic filigrees, the medieval melange with the cosmopolitan feel of the city, the charming accent and the ready smile of its people. But most importantly, the Irish Catholic faith, a faith that knows how to forgive and to ask forgiveness, a faith that is alive and well and is practiced in every aspect of life, a faith that is homegrown but well-informed and well-worn by countless prayers of novenas. It suffice to say that when I went there, a place which is way much nearer to the North Pole than La Mure, I have never been more warm, I have never been more blest, I have never been more at home than any other place in Europe.
Nursing a mug of the dark brew,
I am reminded by the West Liffey wind
of how I traded hops and malt
with Mass bread and wine.
I held much of my dignity, however,
announcing with a borrowed accent,
my love for all things green and medieval,
only to be reminded that a year ago,
the closest I can get to Dublin experience
is buying a bar of Irish Spring.
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