Returning once again to the books we love

The more books I buy and don’t get to read, the more I return again and again to the books I treasure. The practice has shaped a bit of advice I give to people who ask me to recommend ‘a good book’. I ask them, ‘What are the ten most satisfying books you have read, take your pick!’ The chances are, I tell them, that if you remember the story, it still won’t spoil the read because you can savour the writing style. If you liked them then, you’ll still enjoy them now. Maybe even more so.

Among my own favourites are 13 books of poems by the priest-poet, Pádraig J. Daly. An Augustinian priest, no doubt basking at present in the reflected glory of his fellow Augustinian friar – one Bob Prevost, now Leo XIV, in case you missed the news. No doubt Pádraig is at present sharpening his pencil to see what the muses might deliver in that regard.

Pádraig is my favourite poet – for a few different reasons. A contemporary of mine who has mined our priesthood for a number of telling poems that resonate with my own experience, may I quote one in passing. It’s in his collection, The Last Dreamers (Dedalus Press, 1999), which may well be out of print, as all ‘good books’ tend to be. Its signature poem bears the same name, The Last Dreamers, and I take the liberty to quote it in full, as I sense it is about both of us:

We began in bright certainty:

Your will was a master plan 

Lying open before us.

Sunlight blessed us, 

 Fields of birds sang for us, 

Rainfall was your kindness tangible.

But our dream was flawed;

And we hold it now, 

Not in ecstasy but in dogged loyalty;

Waving out tattered flags after the war 

Helping the wounded across the desert.

Priests of my vintage don’t need to have The Last Dreamers parsed and analysed. Like so much of Pádraig’s poetry, it has huge resonances of the dreams both of us and so many of our contemporaries had, laced with an innocent certainty, dreaming of possibilities and, sometimes, more often than not, ending up ‘waving our tattered flags after the war’ and ‘helping the wounded across the desert’.

It has been a long haul, first, to live long enough to witness the coming and the going of the remarkable Pope Francis I and now to savour the next stage of this eventful journey, as his friend and disciple, Leo XIV, continues to mark out the same ground.

First, to witness the ‘tent of belonging’ that became for Francis a workable image of our Church with the pegs being moved outwards to include as many as possible rather than being moved inwards to exclude so many in the past.

Second, to help Leo XIV – as he attempts to discourage those who hoped that Francis’ legacy would be undone by his successor – to move the pegs back to where they were. And maybe to witness as well the pegs being extended even further – now that it’s official that God’s Spirit inspires the baptised as well as the ordained.

Pádraig Daly’s latest book, This Glowing Place, New and Selected Poems, which has just been published, contains a selection from most of his earlier collections and is an ideal entry into his poetry, covering many facets of life beyond my own particular interest.

A poet of the everyday and the commonplace, Pádraig writes in a limpid, luminously transparent style. His is a poetry that speaks to the lived experiences of our time. Writing in a spare, minimalist style that communicates with utter clarity, it is, in effect, a processing of the human condition through the heart as well as the head.

But to get back to my list of favourite books, I would want to mention too a short almost inoffensive book of just 80 pages by the late poet, Seán Dunne. A Waterford man, Dunne worked for the Irish Examiner and the context of this inspiring book is captured in his own words: "I had an image of Irish Catholicism, as narrow, intolerant and regressive. Such adjectives were like skittles set in rows and I waited to knock them down. I would break out from all this. I would have nothing to do with it, I proclaimed. My mind would be open and free. Yet, with equal fervour, I found it impossible to let Catholicism go."

The Road to Silence (New Island Books) tells the story of a life’s journey set against the background of Irish Catholicism. Growing up in the 1960s, like so many of his generation, Seán Dunne rejected religion, yet still felt the need for a spiritual dimension to life. He refused to let it go (or it refused to let him go) and he followed his heart and mind searching in many different places: the Waterford suburb where he grew up; a monastic community in Paris; a Buddist centre on the Beara peninsula; the monks in Mount Melleray – as he moved from a narrow, authoritarian religion to a richer Catholic spirituality.

It was a difficult journey, finding a faith that matched the heart of his own life and that he could sustain despite "the occasional absurdities of the church as a social entity". It was, he wrote, "an interior experience and it changed everything . . . I no longer see a contradiction between the nature of my spiritual self and the actuality of my own life".

Seán Dunne’s breakthrough came when, through the influence of those he spoke to, he came to accept silence as an interior quality in his life. Something that to live without seemed like an amputation of some vital part of himself.

In his reflections and travels, Seán Dunne found in the places and lives he encountered "a kind of melody" which, when he is properly in tune with it, he knows, "with Julian of Norwich, that all manner of things will be well".

Written with care and grace, The Road to Silence is a rare spiritual testament by an Irish poet and writer. It may be out of print, but if you really want a copy, you should be able to find one.

Seán Dunne died in 1994 at just 38 years of age.

Note: Pádraig Daly’s This Glowing Place, New and Selected Poems, from Scotus Press, is now on sale at €15.