GOING FULL BOTTLE, or, FATHER'S IN PYJAMAS

The small congregation waiting in church is beginning to get restless. It is well after starting time, & most of them have to go to work straight after early Eucharist. But there is no Fr.Rafferty. He hasn't shown up; isn't out in front; and there is no starting without him.

After another five minutes, the good father appears, vestments flapping, a little flustered does one suspect? He mutters what may be an apology but sounds suspiciously like "bloody alarm clocks!" and moves to the altar. Now Eucharist can happen. And it does. Everyone settles down and reverently takes their part with gusto. It is a good start to the day, enjoying God and each other like this.

Now this is in the days of up-against-the-back-wall altars, so Rafferty, most often with his back to them all, stands, kneels, genuflects, stands, kneels, genuflects his way through the service. When he goes to stand again after genuflecting at the consecration, he catches up his alb in the process, and there, revealed for all to see, is a pyjama trouser leg. Undoubtedly. Undeniably. Aha! Those who notice stifle a bit of a snigger, but they love him, almost as much as he loves them, and what's a pyjama leg between friends! Eucharist proceeds, and in next to no time they are blessed and dismissed.

Over coffee & toast in the Rectory and more comments about alarm clocks, Fr.Rafferty proudly tells a visitor who'd joined the locals for early service, and now for breakfast, "Bet you didn't know those new vestments were paid for with empty beer bottles!" "Of course they don't know" chimed in Mrs.Rafferty. "How could they know? But go on. Have your little boast!" After all, the little congregation had been collecting the bottles for months, Rafferty himself in the van, round all the local drinking holes. No-one, well, few, escaped conscription. If you came to arrange to be married, or ask for your baby to be baptised, you went away committed to collecting beer bottles as part of the deal. In all fairness, no-one remembered the bereaved being asked to contribute as part of the funeral plan for their loved ones, but if, as was usually the case, Rafferty went back to the home after a funeral, he was more than likely to be seen, and heard, leaving with a bag of empties over his shoulder, happily and brazenly clinking his way home.

As they break up to go off to work, the last word is Rafferty's. As usual. "Not a word about any of this to the bishop when he comes on Sunday. When he puts on our new vestments, it'll be the first time he's been full-bottle in his miserable life! Just say a prayer of thanks to the Almighty One!"