The Ross’ from Our Lady of Sorrows RC, Morne La Croix
July 13, 2023
Playing with the lives of people
July 13, 2023
Eighty-one-year-old Jocelyn McLean and her husband Ross, 85, have eight children, 38 grands and 32 great-grandchildren. The McLeans raised their children Catholic. Jocelyn passed on what she knew of the faith saying Catholicism is “the best religion”.
Ross said there was a chapel for worship in the early 1950’s before the present structure was built. That was in the time of Fr Thomas Cleary OP, the parish priest.
“Since I born, I was christened Catholic, made my First Communion, Confirmation and marriage, everything I do is in the Blanchisseuse church,” Jocelyn said in an interview June 30.
Ross attended St Dominic’s RC Church in Morvant and St Dominic’s RC School. His adopted mother had land in Blanchisseuse which he visited. “He used to be frequenting Blanchisseuse and so we met and come and get married” Jocelyn chuckled.
The McLeans married at Our Lady of Mt Carmel RC Church, Blanchisseuse on June 16, 1963, and after marriage lived in Las Cuevas. The couple began attending the St Michael’s RC Las Cuevas, located opposite their home.
Asked their recollections about the experience of Mass long ago, they said Fr Cleary had to leave Blanchisseuse by boat for La Fillette and from there take another boat to Las Cuevas.
“They had no road. Otherwise, we had to walk. If we want to go to do anything in Blanchisseuse we have to walk from Las Cuevas,” Jocelyn said. Fr Cleary came once weekly for Mass, however, if there was a funeral or anything else he would be present “any day, any time, just like Fr [Kenneth] Assing”.
Jocelyn said the priests who served were dedicated and “put their best foot forward”.
The Mass was in Latin. “Dominus vōbīscum (the Lord be with you), Et cum spíritu tuo” (And with your spirit), we know it in Latin but now they don’t use Latin and thing, is only plain English and all the nice little hymns and thing used to be in Latin. Everything change up, but it’s still nice.”
Ross recalled assisting the parish priest, Fr Dwight Merrick in getting electricity and water for the church. At the time Fr Merrick was a “young, young” priest in Blanchisseuse.
“Fr Dwight do all the fencing around on the land there…the church was like a small little thing. Fr Dwight got everything to build over”, she said. They estimate that was 20–30 years ago.
They jogged their memory to recall the parish priests who served Blanchisseuse and other communities such as Fr James Fardy OP and Fr Aiden Kennedy OP, “so much of them…”
Asked what she liked about St Michael’s RC she paused then said, “I like the way the priest and them are here every Saturday, we get our Service, they don’t make a miss…my husband like a Sunday morning service but we doesn’t get it down here.”
Attending Mass for her is like “Heaven”. “We love going to church because the Service, everything nice…and we had a nice crowd in the little village, everybody get together”, Joycelyn said of her experience of Mass last year.
The couple have not attended in-person for a while. The Covid-19 pandemic has also made them very cautious. “We ease up, we don’t want to be in no crowd.” Jocelyn said they are aged and sometimes get cramps in their hands and feet. Whenever there is heavy rainfall, they cannot go across to the church. Jocelyn is thankful to Fr Assing for ensuring they receive Communion every week. “We love Father. God bless him boy, God bless him,” she said.
Records list the first parish priest from (March 1880 – May 1884) was Fr Lucianus. He likely was a French Dominican. Six Order of Preacher friars from Lyons, France came to Trinidad in 1864. Trinidad was handed over to English-speaking Irish Dominicans from 1897 and they served in Blanchisseuse and the outstation parishes up to the 1990s. Locals who have served in Blanchisseuse and environs include Frs Dwight Merrick, Leslie Tang Kai, Gerard Tang Choon O Carm to the present Fr Kenneth Assing.
