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.

In today’s gospel, we hear about two disciples, walking the road together – they were walking the road away from Jerusalem, sharing their disappointment. They had been walking together with Jesus for three years in the hope that he would be the promised Messiah – but now Jesus was dead and buried, and they were going home – until Jesus himself walked at their side and gradually changed their disappointment into a new hope – a new vision – a new mission. Their hearts burned as he explained the Scriptures to them and they recognised him at the breaking of bread.

Our second reading gives us another reason to walk together in faith, and in Mission: the life and death of each of us has its influence on others. Through our life and work together, we influence one another, hopefully as a force for good.

Our first reading gives us the destination of our being together on the road: God’s holy Mountain, the great feast of the kingdom of heaven.

For the best part of 70 years, Father Tony Hunt has been on this road of salvation, together with friends and confreres, believing that life as a Redemptorist missionary was what God was calling him to be. He started as a boy of 11 at our junior seminary in Birmingham. He made his novitiate in Perth, Scotland, and his Priestly studies for six years at Hawkstone. Very soon after his ordination in 1967, Tony was missioned to South Africa, where he ministered in a variety of roles for 46 years, before returning to this country in 2014. For the last eight years, Tony has been part of the Bishop Eton community, coping with his declining health in a spirit of good humour, patience, and resignation to God’s Will.

To be a Redemptorist is to be a man of Synodality – we live and work as a community. Together we discern how God wants us to continue the mission of Jesus and the mission of Saint Alphonsus to the most abandoned. Tony spent the greater part of his life in South Africa assisting with the growth of the diocese of Rustenburg from Prefecture Apostolic in 1971 to a Diocese in 1990.

He put his heart into learning the language of the Batswana people so as to be able to communicate well with them. He established a minor seminary in Phokeng, helping some of the local young men to gain a sufficient level of education, as to be able to go to the major seminary, or to join the Redemptorists . On top of this, Tony helped build up many local parishes with churches and schools supporting the Bishop, his fellow Redemptorists , and other missionary clergy to walk with God’s people on their way to the kingdom of God.

But these were not easy years. It was a time of political turmoil. By standing side-by-side with an oppressed people, Tony with Bishop Kevin Dowling and the other priests and religious of the diocese was subject to police harassment, the bombing of his church, and confrontation with the displeasure of the hostile white population, who objected to their living with and working for black people.

What sustained Tony in all his pastoral ministry, whether in the ordinary care of his parishioners, or in the ongoing education of many young people, was the realisation that he was not on his own.

Not only did he have the spiritual support of his own community, he was supported amazingly by an international network of benefactors, starting with his own family. All Tony did could not have happened, without the constant support of his immediate family, parents, sisters, brothers and the rest of the family as it grew.

This was real Synodality, walking together on the road, building the kingdom of God from scratch. For 35 of Tony’s 46 years in South Africa, I was there as well, being influenced by his energy, his zeal, his enthusiasm for the mission of Jesus. So today, it’s a privilege for me to stand here in solidarity with such a man of faith and commitment. Go in peace, Tony, and may the Lord grant you the crown of eternal life.