Homily at funeral Mass of Fr James Flanagan (SOLT) By Fr Peter Marsalek (SOLT) - General Priest Servant of SOLT. Tuesday 29 th March 2016. [Easter octave] Funeral Mass at St Gertrude the Great Catholic Church, Mora, New Mexico, USA. Funeral Mass Readings; 1 st Rdg- Rev 21:1-5a, 6b-7. Resp Psalm 42:2, 3, 5cdef: 43:3,4,5, R v3. 2 nd Rdg- Rom 6:3-9. Gospel John 6:51-59. Homily transcript: Transcribed verbum et verbum from an mp3 audio of 21:24mins: by Karen Redenbaugh and checked by Br Peter Mãire McArdle (SOLT) [2016-03(Mar)-29th; Tue] Fr P Marsalek homily [16032917.MP3 The Lord is risen! Alleluia! (People respond but it is inaudible). Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today on a truly joyful occasion to celebrate the life and work and mission of Fr. Jim Flanagan and to pray for the repose of his soul. In the first place, I would like to extend with the deepest gratitude on behalf of the entire Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, to his Excellency Bishop Mulvey for being able to be with us here today as the bishop of the principal See, the Ordinary over SOLT, to be here with us today to celebrate Father s funeral. Bishop Mulvey we are deeply grateful for your presence here. We also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude and love to the family of Fr. Flanagan. We have his sister, Rosemary, her children; his brother, Newman, and wife, Eileen and his son is here as well; as well as some of the children of Kevin. We re deeply grateful for the gift of Fr. Jim. We know that his family played a great part in his formation. We are deeply grateful that you could be here with us today. We also like to acknowledge some of the earliest members of SOLT, some of the early and original lay members of the community who came back here, way back in 1958 with Fr. Jim and Fr. John Some of them are here today, the early members of the SOLT community and we re deeply grateful of your presence as well. To my brother priests in the SOLT community and the different dioceses who are here and in particular we want to thank Fr. John Daniel, the Vicar General and representative here today for Archbishop John Wester. We re deeply grateful for your presence here Fr. John. And I would like to point out, among the SOLT priests, we have here today even Fr. Sathit who came all the way from Thailand to be present at today s Mass of Resurrection. And we also have Fr. Fausto and Fr. Ronald de Jesus who came all the way from the Philippines to represent the Asia/Pacific region; and we re deeply grateful for our brothers who came so far to be here. Of course, we have to mention our wonderful SOLT Sisters for their presence here and our wonderful SOLT Laity. At this time, I would also like to welcome and greet and extend our gratitude to a special group of people, who I know the family also would also like to thank, and those are the caretakers of Fr. Flanagan over these last number of years. For all the priests in our community, I can assure you: you re not going to get what Fr. Jim got. (Laughter). There won t be a team of twenty of so 1
people (laughter drowns him out). I would though like to mention Br. Peter, Dennis, Mercy, Sylvia, Natasha, Karen, Kathy, Sr. Teresa, Sr. Savior, Sr. Mary Paul, Sr. Anne, Sr. Leo, and Gene and JoAnn as well to others who assisted over the years. Please forgive me if I ve left somebody out. And also in the last week of Father s life, I would like to acknowledge in a special way of the presence and ministry of Rosie Buergler, who is the daughter of Nikki Sullivan, one of the earliest SOLT lay members, who was really pivotal in handling the last week of Father s life with great love, compassion, and also incredibly helpful. So we re very grateful to all those who were assisting Father and were so indispensable in the last years of his life. Fifty-eight years ago, Fr. Flanagan arrived right here in the Mora Valley, down the road at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Holman where he met his co-founder, Fr. John McHugh; and together they began the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, as well as a lifelong graced friendship with one another. How fitting it is that we celebrate Fr. Jim s funeral Mass and burial here in the Mora Valley; and how just as fitting that as Fr. John was here 58 years ago to welcome Fr. Jim to the Mora Valley, so too he is here today to bid his dear friend farewell. How fitting that on Father Jim s last night on Wednesday evening each of us had a moment to share with Fr. Flanagan privately. At that point he was not particularly responsive, he was laying back in the bed with his head back, and for sure he was listening and understanding but not able to respond too much. He did, however, summon his last energy for his old friend Fr. John McHugh. Sr. Megan just so happened to be in the room that time for this private encounter which will no longer be so private. (Laughter). Fr. John walked into the room and he said as only he can, Jim Flanagan is the friend I didn t deserve. You can t have a better friend than Jim Flanagan. He put his hand on Fr. Jim s and Fr. Jim for the first time all night took his other hand and put it on top of Fr. John s hand and squeezed, and he lifted himself off the pillow and looked at him in the eye. It was in a way the last moment of their graced friendship. At that point Fr. John thought it would be a good idea to begin singing the Notre Dame Fight Song. (Laughter). And so Fr. Jim quickly fell back on his pillow. (Laughter) And I thought, you know, the interaction between the two completely sums up the history of SOLT. Beautiful, loving, and inspirational with a little touch of the slightest misplaced or poorly timed! (Laughter) Our second reading today reveals the heart of the Christian life according to St. Paul. For St. Paul, at the very center of the Christian life, it s not the law; it s not a set of rules or behavioral conduct code, but rather the person of Jesus Christ. As he says, You re baptized into the life of Christ. You live in communion with Him and you suffer with Him, we die with Him all so that you can rise with the Lord in His resurrection. I believe that this passage from St. Paul and this key to the Christian life that St. Paul presents us with was really the key to Fr. James Flanagan s life. He saw himself as striving to live the life of Christ, to live the mysteries of Christ s life in an ever greater way in his own life. And he understood that the best way to accomplish this was to be one with Christ in praying and celebrating the Liturgy of the Church. Indeed, it was one of the greatest points of emphasis in Fr. Jim s teaching, it was the reason why he placed such importance on Liturgy prep or what the Church calls lectio divina. You think back to many members of our community, how often would Fr. Jim would use the mysteries of the life of Christ both sorrowful and joyful? Both Tom and Susie George are here today and I remember as a first year seminarian reading Susie s recounting of Danny George s last years and eventually his passing. And one of the things that struck me was precisely when with Fr. Jim s advice he entered into the mystery of 2
the life of Christ. I even noticed on some of the feast days of the sorrowful, sorrowful mysteries of Christ s life, Danny would embrace the Passion in an ever greater way on those days. And on days when it would be a feast day to celebrate, he himself would experience Divine consolation filled with hope and be renewed. That is exactly the teaching that Fr. Flanagan wanted to follow onto us: the mysteries of Christ s life lived as he and as St. Paul presents to us is to enter into those mysteries through Liturgy. This was the constant invitation of Fr. Jim- to enter into union with Jesus Christ by living the Church s Liturgy. It was also, therefore, the reason why he emphasized so greatly the Paschal Mystery: the culmination of the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, a high point of the Church s worship in liturgical celebration. How beautiful and fitting then it was that Fr. Jim died on the morning of Holy Thursday: the day on which we celebrate the Institution of the Priesthood and the Institution of the Eucharist, the beginning of Paschal celebration. It is also the reason why we chose today the Gospel from John which tells us about the Eucharist. Fr. Jim truly believed that Jesus in the Eucharist is the Living Bread that came down from Heaven and that whoever eats that Bread will live forever. As a result, Fr. Jim placed the Eucharist at the very center of his life and often reminded us that our life is meant to be lived from communion to communion. With great fondness Fr. Jim would recall travelling with his family in his formative years growing up and constantly searching for places for daily Mass and trying to determine when they needed to begin the 12 hour fast for the Mass. It was a love for the Eucharist, the Bread of Life he received in faith through the instrumentality of his family that marked his life. Indeed, his love for the Eucharist was truly his soul thirsting for the living God, longing to see Him face to face as we heard in the responsorial psalm. As a priest, whenever Fr. Jim received word of the death of someone, no matter what time of day it was, he would immediately rise to celebrate Mass for that person. Nothing was more important for Fr. Jim then celebrating the Eucharist and for that reason he had such a remarkable esteem for the Priesthood. It was told following Fr. Jim s death that he would be entitled to a military salute and burial should we choose, with the casket draped in the American flag. While we are all very proud of Fr. Jim s and Fr. John s heroic military service in World War II, and have a great deal of respect for the great honor of a military burial, I m certain that the only symbols Fr. Jim would want to be associated with passing from this world are the ones on his casket. The cross, a sign of our salvation; the pieta of Mary receiving Jesus from the cross, the sign of our mother s care for the body of Christ; and the Last Supper, our foretaste of eternal life and communion with the Lord. Besides whenever someone asked the nationality of Fr. Jim or where he came from, he would always say Heaven. (Laughter). Quite fittingly he was born on Ascension Thursday. (Laughter) Furthermore, Fr. Jim founded communities present in 13 different countries around the world and he was equally a father and brother to all our Filipino, Thai, Papuan, Vietnamese, Guatemalan, Mexican, Ghanaian, Malayan, Belizean, Haitian, Irish, English, Canadian and American brothers and sisters. It was precisely the cross that surrounded the life and final days of Fr. Jim. Indeed, it was beautiful, and even at times slightly humorous, the number of times in his final days that Fr. Jim would seemingly so actually either make the sign of the cross or flick off a blessing in the way 3
only he could. Whenever you would see Fr. Jim, he would (showing sign of blessing and laughter). Indeed, the giving and receiving of blessings was a great point of emphasis for Fr. Flanagan. And I also believe the real key to his life and teaching. The Latin word for blessing is bendicire which literally means to speak well of. In order to speak well of someone, one must perceive goodness in a person to be able to say something good about them. When you think of it, this is precisely what God has done for us in blessing us and in speaking well of us. He sees in us, our heavenly Father, the goodness which He Himself placed there. He made us His adopted children in Baptism; and therefore, when He looks at us, He sees the goodness of His Divine Son, Jesus in whom He conformed us because Christ first conformed Himself to us in His Incarnation. The blessing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit marks the great gift of God s bringing us in His family, to bring us into communion with Him. He couldn t do anything greater for us or see anything greater in us than His children. And at the same time the blessing is made in the sign of the cross to remind us that the gift of being a child of God carries with it the responsibility of conforming one s life to the life of Christ, living in communion with them, of living as St. Paul says, the life of Christ. In constantly blessing people, and I mean constantly blessing people, (Laughter) it was a sign that Fr. Jim saw goodness in others. He perceived that they should be spoken well of, and his desire was to bring them into communion with the family of God, to share in the blessings that the heavenly Father first gave us. I think it s the reason why so many people felt so close to Fr. Jim. He believed in us. He encouraged us, and he thought that with God s grace we could do just about anything. In fact, one can easily see where this practically became a weakness of sorts. Perhaps he sometimes believed in us too much. However, in a world where people are more likely to be skeptical and isolated, Fr. Jim fostered hope and community. In the first reading, we hear that the blessed find rest from their labors for their works accompany them. In this world, Fr. Jim certainly did not know rest from his labor. He was constantly driven to do the work of his heavenly Father. On Fr. Jim s second to last night, at one point he started saying, What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? Even at the end of his life, with his strength and energy sapped, he was still asking the question. Perhaps, however, the answer to his question was that he simply needed to let go. He needed to trust. He needed to pass on his life s work for others to continue and carry on. And this is precisely, my brothers and sisters, where we enter the picture to carry forth the work that the Holy Spirit gave to Fr. Jim. As we move forward together, we surely need to achieve a balance. First, between being faithful to the spiritual patrimony and charism received from the Founder, but to trust that living expression of said patrimony and charism is interpreted and understood through the living authority of the Church. And second, to remember and esteem the memory of our Founder, but to remember that none of us are called to be disciples of Fr. Jim Flanagan. We are called to be disciples of Jesus through Mary living in Marian-Trinitarian communion, serving on Ecclesial teams in areas of deepest apostolic need. It would be impossible to conclude Fr. Jim s funeral homily without a word dedicated to our Blessed Mother Mary, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. Six years after the founding of SOLT, the Vatican II document on the Church Lumen Gentium spoke of Mary in the Trinitarian perspective as the beloved daughter of the Father, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and mother of the Son. In my humble opinion, it was a significant and 4
beautiful providential confirmation of sorts of the inspiration that Fr. Jim received to found a community dedicated to Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. In our call to be the beloved children of the Father, the power of the Holy Spirit working interiorly within us, leads us to conform to the image of the Son in order to live as the family of God. And this expression of our spirituality is manifested most beautifully when we are able to serve meaningfully with one another as a family of priests, sisters, and lay people united to Holy Mother Church through the authority of the bishops under whom we serve. Fr. Jim entrusted his life to Our Lady and we take great comfort in her intercession on his behalf and our behalf as well. In recent years whenever I see Jim O Brien, who is here today, one of the original SOLT members, from time to time he indicates to me his absolute shock at the growth of the Society. I suppose, he didn t say this, but I suppose in some ways the fact that it s still around. After all you ve all heard the criticisms throughout the years, too disorganized, too chaotic, too inefficient, and too impractical. But despite our weaknesses and deficiencies, there is something in our experience which tells us that there is something more. Something which tells us to stay; and our graced friendships with one another, in our experience of communion in missions, we recognize that we experience something that we never had before. It is a glimpse of the communion of the Most Holy Trinity, and we understand that it is something worth giving our life to, and passing on. It is really the heart of the gift that Fr. Jim and Fr. John tried to pass on to us. In some ways Fr. Jim Flanagan has touched all of our lives; while our calling and vocation come from God, He allows us to be instruments to each other in that call; and Fr. Jim was certainly an instrument for each of us. Returning to Fr. John s expression of friendship to Fr. Jim when he stated, Jim Flanagan is the friend I didn t deserve to have. Indeed, perhaps we, too, can say similarly that serving the Church in a community named and modeled after Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity is the gift we didn t deserve to have. Rest in peace, Fr. Jim. We love you, we pray for you and we will do our best to continue the work you started. 5