Attending mass celebrated by Fr Carl Mackander at St Patrick’s Catholic Church Wellington NSW was quite the experience.
After Mass each Sunday, Father Carl gives an open invite to join him at a table at the café down the road. Good food, good company, good cheer and a welcoming space for a Traveler. Around the table were Fr Carl, John & Katherine, Tony and his brother from Lebanon and myself.
There were reminiscences of boarding schools around Australia &various religious orders within the Catholic community that we had encountered in our formative years, brief references to the day’s gospel and sermon, mental & physical health check ins, lovely gifts of stories and an invite to a BBQ that night.
This was true Pastoral care in practice not words only.
The BBQ invite was issued by Tony from Lebanon and a scrumptious cook up greeted parishioners John, Katherine and I at his home that night.
Tony and his non-English speaking brother had spent the whole day preparing and cooking up Tabbouleh, hummus,toum ( fluffy garlic sauce) traditional home-made flatbread, charcoal coal grilled chicken, lamb, kofta, beef, mushrooms, sweet corn – a real feast awaited us.
Telling us his family in Lebanon back in the 70s had paid equivalent of $3K for a falafel recipe to be used within a 35km exclusion radius for selling, Tony refused to share his Toum recipe. He claimed his catering business in Sydney was famous for this sauce and some customers came to buy it by the ice-cream tub full.
All night the stories flowed along with copious amounts of fine food, red wine, beer of course.
Then out came the Arak – a liquor made from grapes and aniseed which can be 80% to 120% proof. It is a clear liquid that defies freezing, and it turnsa milky when water is added.
Tony talked about the family he sources it from –back in the old country the elderly father who brewed it developed alcoholism as trying the product was a necessary part of the process.
His face eventually turned deep purple as his liver was totally wrecked.
The family started working on weaning him off it.
He became very irritable and even refused to go a family wedding, so they left him home on his own.
As soon as everyone was out of sight he started searching to see where they had hidden the grog. He couldn’t find it anywhere, finally he got down on his knees and looked in the cupboards under the sink but no go.
As he looked up at the statue of the Virgin Mary on top of the cupboard he fervently prayed aloud to her “help me find it and I will do anything you ask of me”
Suddenly his long moustache started to tingle on the ends with a magnetic attraction. Soup on a chair he jumped and sure enough there it was right behind the statue.
He sat down and with the bottle on the table in front of him slowly emptied it. Then he filled it up the bottle with water andre hid it and sleeping soundly for 24 hours.
When an old friend visited a few days later, knowing their reputation for making this really good liquor, he asked for a taste.
They brought the bottle out of hiding and poured him a glass, added water and then more water as they thought it would be too strong for him.
Of course it failed to turn white, so they added more water but still no change so he sniffed it and yelled “you have been tricking me!”
Of course, they denied it but then sniffed it too and the genie was out of the bottle!
The old man was in big trouble from the wife and sons.
Tony told us many stories about his time working at Randwick in Sydney where he had a great mentor and boss “Monsieur”.
Monsieur instilled in him a great work ethic while teaching him how to run a peaceful drinking establishment.
“Make the punters walk to the bar for each drink because if the bottle is on the table they will not get the clues on how much they have had that they get from having to walk/stagger for it.”
His strong work ethic showed through when he bounced the famous entertainer Jon English for parking inappropriately and trying to get up the back stairs. “I didn’t know who he was I just knew he was breaking the rules”.
English was very gracious and probably grateful not to be recognized for once.
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No mosquito came near us that night even tho we could hear and see them all around us.
Not everyone had the Arak – it seems it is a man’s drink- so it must have been the Toum that kept them at bay!
One bloke said at end ofnight – “have you ever got stuck into Bundaburg Rum- when you are starting to feel the effects the train hasn’t even left the station!!” He insisted he could drive us home however, as we walked out the door and hit the cool night air, he said “I should sit in the back as the train appeares to be getting up steam and we should have left the station earlier.”
Take homes for me that day:
True pastoral care is not the observance of pomp & ceremony and church rituals.
Be mindful of your intellectual property it may be of value.
Keep abundance off the table, less is more.
Food, drink, areover abundant on the table today too, too often to the detriment of our health and wellbeing.