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Fr James Casey CSsR RIP Requiem 30iv2026...

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The Requiem Mass for Fr James Casey CSsR RIP

was streamed yesterday and can seen at the link.

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Homily

Rev’d Fr James Casey CSsR RIP

I can’t believe that I am here preaching at this funeral. I know he was 92 years old and I could see him becoming frailer on each visit but somehow I thought we’d always have Fr Jim Casey CSsR always by our side.

The news of his death has gone worldwide - I know his family are spread in various places around the World - but he was a former Secretary General who served for a long time in Rome. The news literally went world wide as confreres in our 82 countries learnt of Fr Jim’s departure from this life to the Father’s house. When we Redemptorists die, our name is written on a piece of paper called the Officilia and that is sent to every province in the world, a thing that Fr Jim did for hundreds of Redemptorists, but if you are a well known figure you get your picture and story on the internet. I am saying all of this on purpose as some of you may not know the grandness of the man we are celebrating today!

Homily at Fr Francis Dickinson CSsR funeral...

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Homily preached by Fr Timothy Buckley CSsR

HOMILY FOR FUNERAL OF FR FRANCIS DICKINSON, CSsR

At the Rite of Election in the Cathedral for those preparing for Baptism or Reception into full Communion with the Church this coming Easter, Archbishop Malcolm acknowledged that it is not always easy to discern how, why or when God is calling us. He hinted that often it is through our lived experience that the realisation comes, and it led me to reflect again on my own conviction that it is when we see the connections that we see the hand of God at work in our lives. I am confident that this congregation perfectly illustrates the point. I am certain that the majority of you here today – including those joining us online – are giving thanks because Dicky (as he loved to call himself) was part of your experience of God’s invitation to follow Christ.

True to form, at the end of his life, Dicky had reduced his needs to an absolute minimum, but he had left enough to help me prepare for today. No great fuss over the liturgy – just some suggestions regarding hymns and preferably just one first reading and a few notes about the unfolding story of his life. I knew that both he and John McCann were from Nelson, However, I had not known that their call to the Redemptorists was the result of the pair of them, at the age of 12, serving the early morning Mass at a Mission in their town, given by Fr John Lawrence in 1944. John McCann had told the missioner that he wanted to be a priest, and Dicky decided he had better go along with the idea too. Before the end of that year they were here at Bishop Eton in the Juvenate and went on to spend their lives preaching plentiful redemption. They were imbued with the compassionate spirit of our founder, St Alphonsus, and wanted us all to know, that no matter what, we are loved by God. Yet, they were utterly contrasting characters: John, physically a giant by comparison with the diminutive Dicky. John, with a huge voice you could hear a mile away, travelling the country, giving missions and having congregations rolling in the isles; Dicky, with his quiet, humble unassuming presence reaching into the hearts of all whom encountered and with his own dry, wry sense of humour, which could transform your mood in a second.

Homily at Fr Joseph Doherty CSsR RIP Funeral...

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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.

Homily preached at Fr Jimmy Smale CSsR's funeral...

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Preacher Fr Timothy Buckley C.Ss.R

Both Fr Andrew and I first met Jimmy Smale here at Bishop Eton during the Easter Week of 1960. The occasion was a Redemptorist vocations meeting for boys from all over the United Kingdom. Two years later we were to be in his company again. The occasion was the same – an Easter Week vocations meeting – but this time it was during our visit to the seminary at Hawkstone Park that we encountered Jimmy, now a professed member of the Redemptorist family and proudly clothed in his habit. Three years later we would be with him at Hawkstone as fellow students and thereafter our lives have been interwoven, until I had the privilege of being with him as he breathed his last in the early hours of the Monday, 20^th of this month, the transferred feast of St Joseph, the patron of a happy death. James deserved a happy death, and after all the struggles with his health in the past few years, those final hours were extraordinarily and unexpectedly peaceful.

Homily preached at Fr Tony Hunt CSsR's funeral...

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Preacher, Fr Andrew Burns C.Ss.R

One of the great buzzwords of the church today is Synodality. Over the last couple of years in parishes and dioceses, nationally and internationally, we have been talking about Synodality.

We are preparing for a great meeting of bishops in Rome over the next couple of years on the subject of Synodality, so what is it? Synodality is a way of describing how we, as disciples of Jesus, walk the road together.

Homily preached at Fr Michael Creech CSsR's funeral...

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Preacher, Fr Tim Buckly C.Ss.R

“The life and death of each of us has its influence on others,” St Paul tells us, and he is particularly concerned that we reflect on how profoundly significant this is for us as Christians. There is no doubt that Michael Creech’s life and death have had a profound influence for good on an enormous number of people. And this gives me the opportunity on behalf of the Redemptorist family to thank Mother Kathleen and the community at the Oval for your loving care of Michael during those last weeks of his life and for being by his side as he died. These last couple of years have been difficult for him as his health suddenly deteriorated. True to form he struggled to keep going, even managing to add an extra section to the Eucharistic Prayer the last time I was with him in the chapel at St Peter’s a few weeks ago!

Homily preached at Fr Gabriel Maguire CSsR funeral...

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Preacher, Rt Rev Ralph Heskett CSsR, Bishop of Hallam

As you might imagine the readings today are full of hope and promise as they look to a future life. The purpose for the writer of the Book of Wisdom is to address some of the difficult issues of the day and offer his readers hope. In particular, he struggles with the question: How is it that the wicked seem to prosper and the just suffer? His conclusion is that although the just seem to have died they are really alive with God. They have pleased God, so God has loved them, They have been taken up and “grace and mercy await the chosen of the Lord.”

Jesus also offers his listeners hope filled words, too. He promises that he will never drive away those given to him by the Father because he only does the Father’s will. He mentions two things as the Father’s Will, firstly, that “I should not lose anything of what the Father gave to me” and second, ‘that I should raise it up on the last day.’ In these words, Jesus reveals to us the Father’s love and his own wish to draw us to share in his relationship with the Father and for ever.

It is the hope expressed in today’s readings that gathers us around Gabby in prayer for the last time today. They express his hope, too, -a hope he shared with others – often on an occasion such as this. Today we pray that it will be for Gabby a hope fulfilled and a promised kept and that with St Paul, he now possesses the crown of righteousness reserved for him.

Gabby’s early years were spent in the family home in Swanlinbar County Cavan along with his parents and siblings, Ann, Des, Benedict and Gerard.

HOMILY FOR THE FUNERAL OF FATHER KEVIN CALLAGHAN CSsR

BISHOP ETON, MONDAY 13 DECEMBER 2021 at NOON

By Fr Tim Buckley C.Ss.R

It is always a great privilege to be asked to share some thoughts at the funeral of one of our confrères. Fr Maurice O’Mahony and I will share this reflection with you because in later years he and Fr Kevin were a huge support to each other at Hawkstone, albeit that Kevin was then moving into his eighties.

I was a boy of 14 when I first met Father Kevin Callaghan in 1961. He had replaced Fr Frank Goodall as Vocations Director and he would help nurture my vocation until the day I went to the novitiate in 1964, during that time bringing me twice to Bishop Eton and once to Erdington for the vocation meetings in Easter Week.

This was my first real encounter with a Yorkshireman. You need to know that I had been brought up to be wary of anyone who lived north of Watford. Being keen on cricket I soon became aware that among Surrey’s main rivals were Yorkshire and Lancashire, and I will always remember my father explaining to me that Yorkshiremen tended to be blunt and uncompromising, while Lancastrians had a gentler side to them. Now, far be it from me to suggest that Kevin perfectly fitted my father’s description, but there is no doubt that he was a strong, determined and no-nonsense character. I should add immediately that he became a great friend of my family and right to the end stayed in close touch with my sister, Anne. Indeed, before he left for hospital on that fateful Monday, two weeks ago today, he assured me that he had just received a message of goodwill from Anne, for which he was obviously very grateful.

He joined the Congregation from school – the famous St Bede’s in Bradford – was professed in 1952 and ordained in 1958. He spent his early years preaching missions and retreats. His gifts for leadership were soon recognised and by the mid-1960s he was being appointed to the role of Rector and Parish Priest in Sunderland, to be followed by a six-year term here at Bishop Eton in the 1970s. Becoming Provincial in 1980, he was to be re-elected throughout that decade. Then, graciously he agreed to join Fr Ronnie McAinsh in Zimbabwe and help build up our mission there. The fruits of that work are evident even on the sanctuary today. He returned to take the reins again in Clapham, before those final years of ministry in Hawkstone until the pastoral centre closed in 2016. And so he came back to Bishop Eton, and although officially retired, he was an integral part of our community, playing his part at every level, including the life of the parish. When you listened to his homilies you realised that he was imbued with a deep faith in Christ. You sensed that, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he had walked with Christ and grasped the message. He had the wonderful gift of relating the Gospel to everyday life simply and succinctly. Our prayer is that he was ready to inherit the promise, so powerfully expressed in Isaiah, of sitting at the eternal banquet where God has promised to wait on us.

He was blessed with much common sense and was a kind of rock in the community on which we could always rely, tempering his home truths with more than a smattering of humour. I think it is fair to say that he was a man of his time and was never particularly at ease with the modern spirituality which encourages us to get in touch with our feelings. However, that is not to say that he did not care. He was a loyal friend and I know from my own experience and from talking to others, including parishioners who remember his ministry in this parish back in the 1970s, how much they appreciated his support in times of difficulty and sadness.

And finally, Kevin, like almost all Redemptorists, was a fiercely independent man, ultimately proved by his ability to master a very temperamental electric wheelchair in those last few weeks of his life. Oh, and by the way, before I hand over to Maurice, I must tell you that, to my amazement, I discovered, after he died, that Kevin was not a Yorkshireman after all, having been born in Nelson and only moving across the Pennines when he was a child. No matter, he always claimed to be from Bradford, and whether he was a Lancastrian or a Yorkshireman, he will be sorely missed.

Homily preached at Fr Jack Clancy C.Ss.R's funeral

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Preacher Fr Michael Creech C.Ss.R

Like many people priests come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Fr Jack was no exception. I was tempted to preach walking up and down the aisle as he did on the few occaisions he celebrated publicly.

Fr Jack had two goes at being a Redemptorist. He first entered the Perth novitiate in the mid-fifties, straight from military service. So, he did not need to endure the drastic haircut that was part of entering novitiate life. Unfortunately, family responsibility called him back to his home in Dundee, but after a year or two he returned and went through the twelve month novitiate again. Perhaps I should mention he came from a Franciscan parish In Dundee and his brother became a Franciscan dying a few years ago in Edinburgh. He then transferred to Hawkstone in Shropshire, our former house of studies before ordination in 1963.

His early priesthood days were spent in Erdington Abbey, Birmingham, in our junior seminary. When the idea of a junior seminary was abandoned he returned to Hawkstone to be part of the team in the newly formed pastoral centre for ongoing formation and spiritual renewal. His lecturing ministry did not last long and he then had a short spell in South Africa, that at that time was part of our Province.