Homily
“In the evening of life I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I am not asking you, Lord, to count my works.” These words from Saint Therese of Lisieux greatly appealed to Bishop Donal Murray. Not just because he grew up in Dublin in the loving embrace of his family in a parish dedicated to this wonderful French saint, nor because of his many happy moments spent meeting fellow pilgrims in the Little Flower cafeteria in Lourdes, but because they quite simply expressed a profound conviction of his heart: Our life is born in the wonder of God’s love, it moves forward enveloped by his mercy and grace, and it reaches its goal guided and accompanied in hope by the Lord of History. Our part, and this is something we remember at every Mass, is to offer ourselves with Christ in order to be transformed by Him. Our part is to acknowledge that our hands are indeed empty and that it is not so much we who do Christ’s work but rather we let Christ do his work in us.
We cannot deny that there were works a plenty to be detected in Bishop Donal’s life, endowed as he was with a brilliant intellect, keen speculative powers and attentiveness to the needy. We have already heard of those works at the beginning of today’s liturgy. What mattered most for Bishop Donal, however, was to live and help others live the wonder of being a Christian with the vision of hope that it offers.
Indeed, we could say that Bishop Donal’s ability to wonder, to think, to ask deep questions and to speculate made of him something of a contemplative in action. Though acknowledging the ambiguity in all our achievements and progress, nevertheless he relished the developments and opportunities in technology, science and social progress. He enjoyed technical gadgets! He liked to hear of progress in science. But deep in his soul echoed a line from psalm 8 that is a song of praise to God for creation and the wonder of our human dignity: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than God, and crowned them with glory and honour”. That wonder was a hallmark of Bishop Donal’s life.
The dignity and wonder of what it is to be human was a constant theme in his thought and words. The glory of God is the human being fully alive was a phrase he often repeated. He encouraged us to ask the deeper questions about what it means to be human and what that then means for our approach to education, to ethics and to the environment.
Highlighting the wonder that resides in the heart of every human being, he often repeated to me his conviction that deep down we are always on the look-out for those sparks of truth and love that, when found, make us cry out: “yes, that’s it, that’s what’s what I’ve be born for: truth and love”. It comes as no surprise that his episcopal motto was “veritas in caritate”, truth in love, the motto also of Saint Munchin’s Diocesan College of which he was rightly proud.
It was with a sense of wonder and hope that Bishop Donal saw potential in those around him. Many past students speak fondly of how they were encouraged by him. Priests found in him a caring father figure. The Religious of the Diocese and the Diocesan staff found in him a kindly presence. The pilgrims on the Lourdes pilgrimage enjoyed getting to know the humour and simplicity and creativity of their Bishop that at first glance was somewhat reserved in character.
Bishop Donal liked to quote Pope John Paul II’s comment in Limerick: “there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary layperson’… Every lay Christian is therefore an extraordinary work of God’s grace”. This was a profound passion that guided his pastoral ministry both in the Archdiocese of Dublin and here in the Diocese of Limerick. His vision was that of the Second Reading from which he took his episcopal motto: “Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph 4: 15-16).
We heard at the beginning of the Mass the words that formed the title of Bishop Donal’s last book: What are we waiting for? I think they are a reminder to us of what in recent years Bishop Donal, this contemplative-in-action, was concentrating his mind on – the journey to the next life. Yes, though his mind and body began to become frail, all too frail, he often repeated to me the Gospel we’ve just read (Jn 14:7). In particular, Jesus’ promise, “I will go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” It was as if in his interior dialogue with Jesus, these words had become stamped on his soul. Rhetorically, he would ask me: “I wonder do people think about this promise … So often we think getting to heaven is all our work, our achievement and that when we get to the pearly gates, we’ll be telling God all we did. We think we’ll be presenting God with our sack of works and achievements. But God will say: “who are you kidding; I have given you all you have; I created you”.
Bishop Donal really believed that in death it is Christ who comes to take us with him. He has promised he will prepare a place for us. And so, Bishop Donal would say to me: “When we meet God, we won’t be listing all we did for God but rather we’ll be discovering all God has done for us in our life and we’ll enter into that place for which we’ve always longed, the life of the Trinity, heaven”. And then with his great wry sense of humour, he’d say to me: “you know, it would make a great title for a film: you ain’t seen nothing yet!”.
If wonder at creation, wonder at life’s marvels and wonder at human dignity were so much a part of Bishop Donal’s life, he didn’t lose sight of the goal. And this was the source of his humble spirit. We are not in charge of life. God is. This world is not the final goal. The next life is. We are limited sinners. And God is all-powerful Mercy. One day, when his mind was declining, as we began to celebrate Mass together, keeping my words as simple and as essential as possible, I said: “let us call to mind our sins”. He looked at me and with the simplicity of a child but with the humour of an ageing humble man, he said, “in that case, we’ll be here all day!”.
Knowing that a bishop is meant to be a person who seeks to lead and inspire all the people of a diocese in living as a community united in the truth and love of Christ, Bishop Murray knew that, although he had promoted best practice procedures for safeguarding children in the Diocese of Limerick, once his presence would create difficulties for survivors of abuse, he wanted to assist in every way that he could. He realised that to remain on would create difficulties for some of the survivors who must have, as he put it, the “first place in our thoughts and prayers”. And so he tendered his resignation, reiterating his apologies for past failures.
Let me conclude on a personal note. I remember very fondly the day in 1982 when Bishop Donal was ordained a Bishop in Saint Andrew’s Church on Westland Row in Dublin. I was then a young seminarian in Clonliffe College and we were so in awe that one of the priests of the College was to be ordained a Bishop. It was wonderful moving occasion on a beautiful sunny day. Little could any of us have imagined how much the world and the Church would change over the years. In recent years Bishop Donal liked to tell me what was going through his mind as he was walking in the entrance procession on the way into the ceremony. The thought occurred to him, “this is my last chance to make a run for it!” He didn’t run for it that day, but he did go on to run the race of faith, in good times and in bad, right to the day of his death.
Little could I have imagined I would one day be a successor to Bishop Donal. His unassuming gentle presence was a gift for me. He was always re-assuring, encouraging and a fatherly figure of wisdom, offering insights and perspectives from the deep well of his soul. Always present but never interfering, always inspiring never dispiriting. When in recent years it fell to me, along with others such as Jackie Hanley, his wonderful devoted housekeeper for whom he had such a great regard, and Catherine Kelly our Diocesan Secretary, to care more closely for him as his mind and body declined, I often wondered what must have been going on in his soul. Recently I came across words written by Pope Benedict that Bishop Donal quoted that offer us, I think, a glimpse within him during the final years of declining health. The quote says that Jesus “walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me … He himself has walked this path, and He has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with Him, we can find a way through.”
Bishop Donal, you have now walked that path, not without its crosses. You entrusted yourself to the maternal care of Our Lady who you so greatly loved. Our hope is that in God’s mercy, you who so often contemplated the question of the apostle Thomas, “how can we know the way?” have found the way through, and that in your encounter with the Lord, as you stretched your empty hands, you’ve heard the Lord say: “Donal, I have come. I have indeed prepared a place for you, I have come now to take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. Well done, good and faithful servant, enter now into the joy of the Lord”.
ENDS
- Bishop Brendan Leahy is Bishop of Limerick. This homily was delivered at 12.00pm today in Saint John’s Cathedral, Limerick, during the Funeral Mass of Bishop Donal Murray RIP, Bishop Emeritus of Limerick.
