Homily at Fr Francis Dickinson CSsR funeral...

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.

Read more: Homily at Fr Francis Dickinson CSsR funeral...

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. 

Read more: Homily at Fr Joseph Doherty CSsR RIP Funeral...

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

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.

Read more: Homily preached at Fr Jimmy Smale CSsR's funeral...

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

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.

Read more: Homily preached at Fr Tony Hunt CSsR's funeral...

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

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!

Read more: Homily preached at Fr Michael Creech CSsR's funeral...

Homily preached at Fr Gabriel Maguire CSsR funeral...

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.

Read more: Homily preached at Fr Gabriel Maguire CSsR's funeral...

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

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.

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

Homily at Fr Martin Gay CSsR Funeral...

Read the wonderful homily preached by Fr Andrew Burns CSsR

at Fr Martin's funeral funeral.

Read more: Homily at Fr Martin Gay CSsR Funeral...

Homily Fr Brian Russell CSsR RIP...

Homily at the Funeral Mass of 

Fr Brian Russell CSsR RIP

23rd March 2021

Preacher - Bishop Ralph Heskett CSsR

The short reading from the prophet Isaiah that we heard a few moments ago is one of the readings that hear most frequently at gatherings such as this. I guess it is not difficult to know why. It is full of promise. In particular, it speaks of two promises that the Lord makes through the prophet that we put our hope in today as we gather around Brian in prayer for the last time. The first is the promise of a new world order where we will be recipients of the generous and gracious hospitality of our God and sit at table with him. 

On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food. 

Secondly it speaks of a future where the long curse of death has been defeated. Death will be no more. 

He will remove the mourning veil covering all peoples .... he will destroy death forever. 

Read more: Homily Fr Brian Russell CSsR RIP

Br Thomas Lavery CSsR RIP Funeral Homily...

Vivat in aeternum Br Thomas.

FUNERAL OF FR BARRIE O’TOOLE, CSsR (82 YRS)...

BISHOP ETON, TUESDAY 21 MAY 2019 at NOON

HOMILY - preached by Fr Timothy Buckley CSsR - Parish Priest

I first met Fr Barrie O’Toole on the evening of Monday, October 18^th 1965. Andrew Burns and I were two of the seven newly professed students who had made their way from the novitiate in Perth to Hawkstone Hall, then our Redemptorist seminary. The tradition was that each of the new students was placed in the tender care of a senior student – his guardian angel. As luck would have it, Barrie had been deputed to look after me. I recall that even at the age of 29 his distinguished mop of hair was more white than grey. I do not recall much about this initiation process beyond the fact that on that first evening, when he had shown me to my room, he looked around and said something along the lines of: “you poor thing – I couldn’t possibly face starting here all over again!”

In fact Barrie was to prove a delightful confrère and life-long friend. He was ordained the following January and went to Rome to study Church History. A few years later he returned to teach at Hawkstone and I worked with him, catechising some of the children on the RAF station at Shawbury, where he was the chaplain. Until the last nine years that was the only time we were ever attached to the same community, but I enjoyed working with him on many occasions, including a memorable mission in Tudhoe and Spennymoor back in the spring of 1977.

Barrie enjoyed a rich and varied life as a Redemptorist priest. He coped with the transition of the students from Hawkstone to Canterbury in 1973 and was the first rector of that new student community. He moved from there to Hawkstone, where he built on the foundations laid by Jim McManus and helped to develop the Pastoral Centre into a place of international renown. During his fifty-three years of priesthood he had spells as a missioner and a retreat giver, two years in Brazil and three in Zimbabwe. He was part of two new experimental mission communities, one at Kiln Green near Reading and the other in Middlesbrough. His last years were spent here in Liverpool, where his cheerful and compassionate ministry was greatly appreciated.

Read more: Homily at Funeral for Fr Barrie O'Toole RIP

Homily preached at Fr John Milcz's funeral...

FUNERAL HOMILY FOR FR. JAN MILCZ, CSsR

BISHOP ETON, WEDNESDAY 11 JULY 2018 at NOON

“As a man lives, so shall he die” is a phrase that will resonate with all Redemptorists of a certain vintage: the vintage mainly represented on the sanctuary today. These were the words at the beginning of one of those classic mission sermons that, as students, we were expected to learn by heart and use to hone our skills as preachers. No doubt Fr Jan himself, as a young man, proclaimed them to the assembled brethren at one of those mission academies in Hawkstone back in the 1960s. Of course, these sermons were all designed to stir the so-called lapsed and wayward to mend their ways, but today I would like you to reflect that those words – as a man lives so shall he die – can very aptly be applied in the best possible way to this good and holy man. Jan died a very peaceful death in the Marie Curie Hospice on Tuesday evening last week. When I saw him for the last time on the Sunday morning before I left for Hampshire there was a wonderful serenity about him. In the final weeks of his life, I have rarely met anyone who so continually expressed his gratitude for any little kindness. This natural courtesy was much appreciated by the staff at Marie Curie as well as the carers and nurses who tended to him in the monastery and the staff at Christopher Grange, where he spent a short time a few weeks ago. To them all and to our own wonderful resident team, we, as a Redemptorist family are immensely grateful, as we are to his family and his many friends in this congregation today: he treasured your love and support.

Read more: Homily preached at Fr John Milcz's funeral.

Homily - Fr. James Corrigan CSsR Funeral...

FUNERAL OF FR JAMES CORRIGAN, CSsR 

BISHOP ETON, THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2015 at NOON 

HOMILY BY FR. TIM BUCKLEY C.SS.R 

I have not had far to look for the connections which so fascinate me when I came to prepare these few words to honour the memory of Fr Jim Corrigan as we lovingly entrust him to the Lord today. Just three weeks ago to this very day, Fr Andrew, Fr Barrie and I went to Christopher Grange, complete with a cake, to celebrate Fr Jim’s 88^th Birthday. I don’t think we were responsible, but that night he was in the Royal Liverpool Hospital, only to be discharged at lunchtime the following day. Sadly these breathless turns were becoming a pattern and a few days later he landed in Whiston Hospital. They kept him in for a few days, and it seemed that both he and the Lord had decided that enough was enough, so on cue on the night of the 62^nd anniversary of his ordination he went peacefully to the Lord: it was the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows and today is the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham. He would appreciate the connections: he had a great devotion to our Blessed Lady.

Read more: Homily - Fr. James Corrigan Funeral

Homily - Br Glyn's Funeral...

BRO GLYN’S FUNERAL HOMILY

There are times in life when our encounters with one another seem to carry particular significance, and for me, getting to know Glyn Blackman would certainly fall into that category. We need to go back to the first two weeks of May1978 and visit the eastern valleys of Wales, where Fr Gerry Costello and I were giving a mission in the parishes of St Francis, Talywain and St Felix, Blaenavon, which lie north of Pontypool, a town famous in those days for the front row of the Welsh Rugby team. Among those who attended the mission morning and evening was a quiet, unassuming, middle-aged man, who eventually introduced himself and asked for a chat. He had taken note of the fact that I was the vocations’ director and he asked me how he should go about joining the Redemptorists. Following the way the Lord used to work, I suggested he should ‘come and see’ and stay with us in Sunderland and he duly did. Glyn fitted in from day one and as they say the rest is history. By the autumn of the following year he had entered the novitiate in Plymouth and he made his profession on 20^th September 1980. 

Read more: Homily - Br Glyn's Funeral...