A Strange Coincidence, or More?

When I decided to start praying the rosary, I bought a book called The Rosary Handbook by Mitch Finley to teach me how. The rosary played no part in my childhood. It was not recited at home or in school. I don't think I'd encountered it until my early teens, when a very loveable Dominican nun had us pray it in religion class. But that had only been during one year, and I'd long forgotten by the time I started seriously practicing the faith.

I can vividly remember reading the book, because it was in a pub beside Rathfarnham Castle. I'd been in Rathfarnham Castle to watch a play called Slattery's Sago Saga, based on an unfinished novel by the great Irish humourist Myles Na Gopaleen. The play was not great; it included a lot of heavy-handed postmodernism. Still, it was a day out.

I have very vivid memories of the pub, though. It was after the performance and I think I probably had dinner there. In any case, I wouldn't have been drinking anything stronger than Coke or tea. I think I prayed my first "independent" rosary there, or at least on the same day.

I have such vivid memories of the pub because of the atmosphere there. It was a subdued atmosphere, as it was only early evening. RTE News was on the television, and I seem to remember the news was not particularly dramatic. It was mostly locals in the pub, many of them in family groups. They greeted each other with easy familiarity. All this came together to give me the sense that I was in a rural pub, even though Rathfarnham is quite close to Dublin city centre. Somehow, the aura of a more innocent and pious time was thrown over the scene-- in my mind, at least.

Between that atmosphere and the rosary book I was reading, life seemed very simple and wholesome.

That scene has lingered in my memory for very many years, and even inspired me.

What I didn't realize was that Rathfarnham Castle was, until 1985, a Jesuit retreat house. Not only that, but it had at least two saintly employees-- Fr. Willie Doyle, the heroic chaplain who died in the Battle of Ypres (and whose sainthood is being investigated), and Fr. John Sullivan, who was beatified in 2017. I'm reading a book about Fr. John right now, and that brought it to mind.

Coincidence? Probably. 

But not certainly!