A call in the middle of the night is never going to be a good thing in a presbytery. Tonight’s call was to ask me to attend the nursing home to anoint someone who was dying.
I grabbed my sick bag, which I keep in a cupboard in the hall, and left the house as quietly as possible so as not to wake the rest of the household.
This is one of the drawbacks for married clergy with children. The need to be available as a priest doesn’t disappear because I have a family. It is a factor that is not often reflected upon in the debates about married clergy. Like most priests, I am also on call for the local hospital and so the nights when I am on the rota will often involve being summoned there, too.
