A missionary's Christmas in Placentia Bay

Writer: Tom Rossiter in The Telegram, St. John’s, NL  Dec 22 2012

A youthful Jim Doody, newest and youngest curate in the tiny Placentia Bay community of St. Kyran's, took up official residence in September, 1957, joining fellow priests Bill Collins and Charlie Greene in the immense mission work of Placentia Bay. Far from the land-locked assignments he had just left behind in St. John’s and the Southern Shore, he was soon readying for the sea ventures which would bring him into regular contact with his widespread and windswept flock among the 32 R.C. “missions” in that bay.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s divided the whole of Placentia Bay into three parishes, mostly a collection of small coves and seaports along its coasts, with the largest, Merasheen Island, and its nearby smaller counterpart, Red Island, making up its main bases.  To the north, and closer to land, lay the third parish, taking in the communities of Long Harbour, Bar Haven and Southern Harbour.

For Jim, his work in St. Kyran's gave him his first taste of independence, and would soon be followed with a move to Oderin Island where he would take on the full role of parish priest and from where he would begin his work with his own 10 missions in that part of the bay, i.e., the communities of Parker’s Cove, Rushoon, Little Harbour West, St. Joseph’s, Little Paradise, Big Paradise and the three most isolated parishes in the beautiful and sometimes challenging run into Paradise Sound — Petit Forte, South East Bight and Monkstown.

This first appointment as parish priest would also allow him to have his parents, Casimir (Cassie) and Sarah Doody, come live with him at Oderin, his mother assuming the traditional roles of cook and housekeeper, and his father, the very familiar position of skipper of the small parish skiff.  Both Jim and his dad were familiar enough with the sea, having fished together for several years out of their hometown of Mosquito on Colinet Island.
They’d even built and sailed their own small boat together, aptly named The Star of the Sea. The appointment to Oderin for all three seemed a real godsend.

Christmas week, as one would expect, was the highlight of each parish year with Father Jim and his entourage of one, skipper Cassie, looking forward to the jaunt around the missions in a unique mix of seagoing and liturgical experiences.  There was never a question for either not wanting to be on the water, no matter what the season nor the course to be laid. Only extreme weather would keep them away from the work they loved among the islands and its people: the two would become devoted missionaries for the next five years in that giant bay.

Christmas Eve would begin with planning Midnight Mass in his home base on Oderin Island. As it happened, on Christmas Eve of 1960 as he was preparing for the evening services and having heard confessions earlier that day, a call came in advising that he was needed for a sick call to Little Paradise - about a 2 1/2 hour run from Oderin each way.  A parishioner, Bill Brennan had suddenly taken ill and needed his priest. “I left around eight o’clock after telling the crowd in Oderin that I’d probably be back in time for Midnight Mass. It turned out I didn’t get back until one in the morning, so we had Midnight Mass then.”

Christmas morning, he was off to Rushoon for mass at nine o’clock, then on to Parker’s Cove for another mass at 11.  From there it was on to Little Harbour West - about a half an hour’s run - for confessions at four that same afternoon. Confessions would be followed each year with the highly popular screening of a movie in the parish hall (“We used to charge 50 cents in each community”).

Father Jim, movie projector in tow, was a welcome sight that Christmas Day. The overnight stay would be spent with good friends of many years, the Baileys.  “I would have supper and then get to bed early, knowing there was another busy schedule ahead of me next day. My father would spend the evening in storytelling, or getting the latest news and passing on to the crowd what might be happening in the other communities around the bay.”
Next morning Father Jim would say a nine o’clock mass before heading out on the water once again - this time to the mission of St. Joseph’s for the usual confessions, sick calls, mass and another much-expected showing of the same movie.

Wednesday, mid-week of his Christmas journey, would see father and son make the excursion to Paradise Sound, first to Petit Forte for the same busy schedule and a quiet evening with Gerald Hann and family.
Next morning they would make the short run across the Sound to the community of South East Bight.  “As difficult as it was sometimes to get in and out the Bight, it was just as difficult getting around the community itself. There were no roads, only a long cow path overlooking the small harbour.“  “By this time,” he laughs, “I was getting to know Captains Courageous by heart. I could pretty well follow Spencer Tracy’s every word and gesture.”

The tidy little community of Monkstown at the bottom of Paradise Sound was bypassed on this occasion because of ice conditions, so they would merely swing about from the Bight and set a heading to the east, to Big Paradise and Little Paradise, about half-an-hour away.  “Of the two islands, Big Paradise was always an easier, straighter run. The entrance to Little Paradise, we would have to do before late afternoon because there were a lot of rocks at the entrance to that harbour.”   For skipper Cassie, that particular part of the trip was always exciting and kept him on his toes, even though by now he knew the run along the rocks well enough.

Father Jim speaks with pride whenever talking about his father, especially when they reminisce about those rocks of Little Paradise: “It’s not always knowing where they are, he would say, but knowing where they’re not.”
It was already Friday and the two had been on the move for nearly a week. Next morning, Saturday, they would begin to make ready for the journey home to Oderin, and the warmth of his mother’s kitchen, where the life of the church would simply begin all over again.

The Christmas schedule among the scattered outports in that part of Placentia Bay was special.  “For one thing it was Christmas and everything and everybody made it special. These were small communities, small populations - maybe 60 to 100 people - and isolation was a very real part of life for them. To see visitors at any time of year was exciting, so you can imagine the feelings they had to see someone from outside at Christmastime.”

“We were always more than welcome. And, you know, my father and I would always look forward to the Christmas run - to getting back on board, and steaming around the islands - hopefully with a good southerly or south westerly taking us along. It was the cold westerlies that might give us trouble, but we were always ready for it. I wasn’t quite the seaman my father was, but I could handle myself pretty good if need be.”
“Anyway,” he concluded, “that was the way Christmas was back then.”

Edited: Monsignor James Doody (“Father Jim”) celebrated his 60th year as a priest in 2013, having served, as you might imagine, just about everywhere in the Archdiocese, as well as a six year assignment in the parish of Monsefu, Peru. In his latter years, he resided at St. Patrick’s Mercy Home in St. John’s, far away from the bays and waters of his beloved past.  Father Jim passed on July 3, 2018 and is interred at the priest's plot at Belvedere Cemetery.