Many years ago I tried out as an Assistant Priest (AP) in London, in Tottenham, of all places. Of course I didn't want to go there and was, to be honest, talking to the local Roman authority. Regardless, I remember sitting in the Rector's office, and we got on very well, what a good man.
As we talked, I looked at the photos above his desk, and there was one of him in a desert driving a cut down Land Rover, wearing a keffiyeh and sporting a beard, complete with multiple GPMGs and all of that, clearly Oman. "I say," offered 25 year old Fr. LSP, "is that you?" Fr. X agreed that it was, and I replied, "Fr. X, desert warrior." He nodded, and that's exactly what he'd been before becoming a priest.
Think about that, an SAS officer working as a humble priest in Tottenham. Respect. Of course I was too young and full of it, ahem, to really get that, and I retreated into the ether; he went on to die, and I haven't forgotten that man who was so much more than I.
Stand strong for the Faith,
LSP
