Homily at Fr Joseph Doherty CSsR RIP Funeral...

Father Joseph Doherty, C.Ss.R.  - A Farewell from a Friend

Dear family of Fr Joseph and friends,

People say there is a page in the Gospel for each of us.  One, in particular, is a source of great hope and consolation.  It tells the story of an old man, Simeon, who lives on a promise.  He is unusual because his hopes are ahead of him, not behind him.  He is not fascinated by the past – he’s too interested in what’s going on now.  The English poet Philip Larkin explored old age in his poem The Old Fools:

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside you head, and people in them, acting…
People you know, yet can't quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored.

That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.

Simeon is not living in lighted rooms in his head where all happened once. This venerable pensioner is alive to the here and now, waiting for the one who will be his consolation and the consolation of all peoples.  In spite of the arithmetic of his years, he inclines forwards not backwards; he hungers for new signs of God’s presence, and waits the day when he can experience God’s presence in the flesh.

His stubborn waiting is rewarded.  One day Mary and Joseph bring their child to the Temple.  Luke’s Gospel paints a wonderful picture: the old man takes the newly born child from the young mother and holds him in his arms.  Old age welcomes into its arms the fragility of God.  Simeon prays the prayer of happy old age, the Nunc Dimittis. Through his old age you hear fresh wonder; through his wrinkles you hear poetry. In the old translation:

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,

according to thy word;

for mine eyes have seen thy salvation

which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and the glory of thy people Israel.”

It was clear to Simeon that no woman or man or child would ever have to face life alone.  In all the moments of life, the times when we are hurt and haunted, the times when we feel lucky and graced, Christ would be there.  More than this: Christ would be there at the moment of death.  And that was why Simeon was not afraid to die.  He could depart in peace because he knew that the child he held for a few moments in his arms would one day hold him in an everlasting embrace. 

Dear family and friends, in this Requiem Mass, we gather here today to pray that the Lord, in whom there is plentiful redemption, will hold Fr Joseph, in an everlasting embrace.

The first time I met Fr Joe was when I arrived in our seminary, Hawkstone Hall, following my novitiate in Perth. I was assigned the room opposite his. After a few cautious weeks with a junior, he invited me into his room: I remember it well: the window faced not the garden but an interior brick wall; there was a bed with a wooden cross resting on the pillow; a desk with only one book, his breviary; a chair; a closed cupboard. That was it: it was like a hermit’s cell; not a rumour of personality. When Fr Joe saw my room he was dutifully appalled at the clutter: the posters on the wall, the photographs, the piles of books; an unnecessary lamp sitting on an unnecessary side table which I had dug out from the wonderful cellars of Hawkstone. Clearly Joe belonged to the first league of strict observance while I was relegated to the third league of lax adherence.

That strict observance was shown in his unwillingness to be ordained a deacon. I well remember him sitting in the back pew of the chapel before the ceremony, shivering. Fr Shepherd, our kindly rector, eventually persuaded him to be ordained on the  assurance of his rector’s belief in his worthiness. Joe submitted and was duly ordained. 

That said, however, Joe never completely lost that sense of apprehension, of restlessness, of disquiet, something he shared with me many times over the years. Joe had a deep faith in God; but his faith in himself was never confident or assured, which made him walk humbly, if somewhat nervously, in his priesthood. Clericalism was utterly foreign to his nature.

In spite of our differences, Joe and I got on easily well, and he was to become my closest friend in the Redemptorists. When the seminary closed in 1973, Joe and I were appointed to help Fr Jim McManus set up Hawkstone Hall as a pastoral centre. We had a large empty house, no clients and no income. We decided to open up the house for Christmas, advertising log fires in a country Georgian mansion, good food, dependable religious services and a bar in the evenings. Well, the place was sold out within a week. Bro Damien did the cooking, Joe and I did the serving, the washing up, the bar service and the entertainment. It was all a huge success; this was just before we settled on following our Redemptorist confreres in Marianella, Dublin, by offering residential three-month courses.

I was sent for higher studies for four years, so our paths separated. Joe did a sabbatical at the new centre for liturgy in Carlow and he returned to Hawkstone briefly to lecture in the same subject. Lecturing, he found, was not his field; his everlasting uneasiness came back into play. 

Before joining us Fr Joe was a journalist in the Scottish press; he had a brilliant command of the language and a good career ahead of him. I remember listening to him sometimes, thinking that he spoke sentences that other people would dream to be able to write. 

That fluency led him to Chawton, our Redemptorist publishing house in Hampshire, but although he was an excellent writer, he found the place too lonely, too isolated from the ordinary round of life, too far away from the mix and muddle of the human story. He came from a large warm family, his parents were from Donegal in Ireland, like my own, with five wonderful sisters. When he told me he had five sisters, I said well I have two, thinking that two made up plentiful redemption. His sisters, like my own, proved a warm supportive family background throughout his long life: they were always there for Joe. They are here today: in death as in life. 

Of all the Redemptorists I know, I argued with Fr Joe the most through the years, that his very real talents as a writer were somehow discarded, as if he had long ago outgrown the need to prove himself in that  field. Although the writing went westwards, the talking always took first place. Joe was a talented communicator, an insightful preacher, but above all, a lover of human company. He spent many years giving missions, retreats, and many hours listening to people’s midnight stories. He was not only a talker, but an astute listener.

I remember we spent over a year together on loan as chaplains to overseas students in London, which meant visiting colleges  and introducing ourselves to students. We would walk into the college dining rooms, and I was always in awe of Fr Joe: he would introduce himself effortlessly to a litany of strangers as the Catholic chaplain, always smiling, telling them that he was there for them. I was always in his shadow, frankly wishing I was somewhere else,  in awe of his easy ability to connect with people. 

I remember my two sisters, Ellen and Mary, who thought the world of Joe, travelling through to Edinburgh to have lunch with him when he was a member of St Patrick’s parish community. On the way from St Patrick’s to lunch, they said that Fr Joe was stopped so many times by people greeting him in the streets, that they arrived a good 30 minutes late for the lunch. Ellen said that you only had to ask Joe one question and he was off for the next hour! He never lost his delight in the spoken language and in chatting to people, always people.

After a long varied ministry, Joe eventually ended up here in Perth, a place he loved fondly. I know there are local people here in the church who hold him in deep affection and are immensely fond of him. In the language of the Gospel, it was not his strength but his fragility that made him appealing to people. He was no gladiator, was Fr Joe my dear friend, more a restless wounded healer.

Eventually Fr Joe found his last home, with Fr Gerry Mulligan, in Nazareth House, Glasow. In his old age he demonstrated outwardly what he always was inwardly: a tender, fragile priest, utterly content to hand himself over to the care and kindness of so many others.

For me, as his friend, he leaves behind the memory of a man of abiding faith in God but never in himself; the memory of graciousness to others; a dear good-humoured friend who loved life until life was no more. He has now gone to the place about which our founder Saint Alphonsus wrote:

When we reach heaven, our state is changed.

There will be no more toil, but rest;

No more fear, but security;

No more sadness or weariness;

But gladness and joy eternal.

May dear Father Joseph, and all his beloved family who went before him, rest in the peace of our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

Fr Denis McBride, C.Ss.R.