Fr Billy Barnes: Memories of a Priest

In 1958, Fr Billy Barnes of Port Elizabeth was ordained to the priesthood. For the Jubilee of Priests, he recalls how he discerned his vocation to Holy Orders, his temptations to leave the seminary, his years of studies, ordination and first Mass.

Over the telephone, I was told by a stranger’s voice: “We are coming to kill you.” I was on retreat at a convent in Port Elizabeth, preparing for my ordination to the priesthood the next day, December 7, 1958.

I didn’t know what to do other than to look around for a weapon to defend myself. All I could find was a coat hanger in the bedroom closet. I slept — or tried to — with the “weapon” close by. I thank God that the “voice” — I never found out who he was — didn’t carry out his threat that night, or ever, and the next day I was ordained.

It had been a long journey to this moment — seven years in a seminary, living a kind of monastic life. There was the struggle within myself: Did God want me? Was I doing this just to satisfy myself? Even though I was asking so many questions, I was driven by the thought that, at last, I would be able to stand at an altar and offer the Sacrifice of the Cross.

I had always had a great love for the Mass, ever since as a little boy, I was given a “Simple Prayer Book” with the words of the Mass and beautiful, simple prayers before and after Holy Communion. The Mass and the Real Presence of Christ in the tabernacle meant the world to me — and still do.

I remember how, as a little boy of eight, I knelt in the small chapel at St Aidan’s Prep in Grahamstown while attending Mass and Benediction. It was there that my love for the liturgy was born.

In those days, the priest used to offer Mass with his back to the congregation. Some boys thought they could play the fool, believing the priest would not see them. However, someone spread the rumour that Fr Ord could see us reflected in his glasses. This was enough to make me behave myself.

Called by God

Later, my love for Christ increased so much that I would go to the lovely college chapel to pray, even during recreation times. All this time, my constant thought was that I must become a priest. Eventually, in my matric year, I applied to Bishop Hugh Boyle — then of Port Elizabeth and later bishop of Johannesburg — and he accepted me as a student.

In preparation, I had to have a black cassock made. A kind Assumption Sister obliged, and I would make occasional visits to her convent in Hill Street. There was no turning back now, although Satan tried to tempt me.

The worst temptation came in January 1952, when I captained the Eastern Province Schools cricket team in the Nuffield Week in East London. I did fairly well, making a few runs, but the highlight was taking a hat-trick of wickets against Border. After the match, Percy Davis, an English professional, invited me to go and play for Northamptonshire in England. I had to explain to him that in three weeks’ time, I would be entering the seminary to become a priest. But what a temptation that was!

Yet another one awaited me; the devil wasn’t finished with me yet! It happened when my father and mother drove me into the grounds of St John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria. Seeing several students, much older than I was, dressed in black cassocks, I said to myself: “You have made a terrible mistake. You are in the wrong place.”

Praying to get out

That evening — on a Wednesday — we began a five-day silent retreat. I prayed to God to get me out of there. All day Thursday I prayed; the same again on Friday; and the same again on Saturday. But something extraordinary happened at about 7 o’clock that evening. I was walking up and down outside, praying to God to let me leave, when suddenly a calmness came over me, and I was at peace. That moment convinced me that God was with me and that everything would be all right.

The seven years of seminary life were difficult ones: long periods of silence, being introduced to words and concepts which I had never heard before during my three years of philosophy and four of theology; long hours of study; rising early in the morning for meditation and Mass; manual labour in the gardens — and the occasional release of energy in a game of football.

There were times when I felt I should leave the seminary, but each time, my spiritual director, Fr Stephen Whyte, encouraged me to persevere.

Those were tough years, but they were intended to teach me the sense of discipline I would need to impose on myself when I entered public life, with all its temptations and the discovery of a freedom I had never experienced before.

At boarding school, there was discipline; so too in the seminary. And then suddenly, after ordination, there was freedom — freedom to make my own choices, to spend my meagre salary as I wished, to mix with members of the opposite sex, and to have control over myself. These things and others I suddenly discovered at the age of 25!

Ordination Day!

My ordination day, a Sunday, dawned, bringing with it a sense of excitement. At last, the event I had dreamed of since I was about ten years old was about to happen. The week leading up to this day had been filled with anticipation, which even affected my father. He too was excited, and although a non-Catholic, he told all his friends about what was going to happen on Sunday.

My mother was also eagerly looking forward to the event. She had told me years before that having a son as a priest would be the greatest privilege she would ever experience. For months, she had been preparing for this moment. She had made a beautiful vestment for me to wear at my first Mass, spending hours embroidering it. I still have it today. It may no longer look as good as it did then, but I have asked to be buried wearing that vestment when my time comes.

My mother had also made a cloth with suitable embroidery to bind my hands after they were anointed by the ordaining bishop, Bishop Ernest Green, who had succeeded Bishop Boyle in 1954. It was customary for this cloth to be buried with her when she died, and so it was placed in her coffin at her funeral.

That evening, St Augustine’s cathedral was packed, with more than 600 people inside the church and many more standing outside on the steps. It was the first ordination in a long time to take place there. The first priest to have been ordained at St Augustine’s, Fr Frederick Martin, preached the homily. As far as I know, all of the diocese’s priests, more than 70 of them, were there. At the solemn moment of ordination, they and the bishop imposed their hands on me. At last, I was a priest!

An overwhelming joy came over me. A lifetime of service lay ahead — I could not wait to get started!

The Catholic Women’s League had organised a fine reception for me in the MacSherry Hall. I never got there. Over 600 people came up to the altar rails; each was given an individual blessing, kissed my anointed hands, and received a memento card from me. When the last one had left, I went down to the hall — but everyone had already gone! It was a bit of a let-down.

Still, my parents had organised a small gathering at their flat for close relatives and friends. The adrenaline pumped that night, and I had little sleep, dreaming of my first Mass in St Augustine’s cathedral the next day.

My first Mass

The next day, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I offered my first Mass in the cathedral. My parents had married in that church in 1929; I was baptised there, and ordained there the day before, and now I was celebrating Mass there. Offering Mass that day was such a joy — one that has stayed with me throughout my priesthood.

I thank God for bringing me to this moment — 66 years on and at the age of 91 — when I am still a priest, looking back on these many years in which God has been so good to me. I have had a wonderful life in the priesthood and am so glad that the Lord allowed me to serve him for such a long time.

There must have been times when he was tempted to give up on me; I have let him down so many times. But here I am, and I can only repeat what I have had to say so often in my life: “Here I am, Lord — no longer the innocent young man of 66 years ago. Useless as I am, I come to do your will.”

Fr Barnes is a priest of the diocese of Port Elizabeth. He resides at St Pius Pastoral Centre in East London.