Mummy, Here's God

Extract

I am writing this article about the duty, as it is considered, of the pnest to visit in his parish. I take the title from what an excitable little girl exclaimed once at my entry. Her pert young mother's laughter, when she ran out to see who ‘on earth’ it was, and sat collapsed on the stairs, still jars in memory in my ear. I know I am not God, I mean. I don't know that it is quite so funny.

The subject of visiting does interest us all. It is part of ideal Catholic life: Father at home in the Catholic family, intimate with everyone, not only available in need as a close friend, but influencing all the time by his contact, towards good relations, better life, finer manners, more careful choice of career, deeper judgement in marriage; his very presence reminding of faith, restoring hope, inspiring love; counteracting the whole battery of trivial and stultifying fantasies current as so much of today's politics, literature and entertainment. One can hardly imagine full Catholic life without it.