Moving On

Second Child's Leavers' Mass today. Went along to mark this auspicious rite of passage. It was an utter disgrace of an event. What should have been a special occasion to mark the end of school for a group of young people, a celebration of their time at school and an opportunity for the school to wish them all the best for the next stages of their lives was not to be. Instead we had to listen to the priest take the opportunity to warn them not to take 'the wrong path' as he put it and then go into fairly graphic detail about how he knew all about the wrong path from his experiences in Ibizia in the 90s. Was it really appropriate at a family mass attended by school kids, siblings still at primary school, grandparents and parents for him to go on an on about Manumission, drug taking, people dead with a needle in their arm and some other similar remarks.? I don't think so. There's a time and place for this kind of sermon and it wasn't today. The leavers were raging as it took the focus away from them and on to his performance, which was also unfair and inappropriate due to the nature of this event. He was like a character from Father Ted! Unexpected start to the day, anyway.