THE SUPREME ADVANTAGE - In Loving Memory of Fr. John Fitzpatrick SAC

Three former Provincials - Derry Murphy, John and me

Thurles Cathedral bell rings out the midday Angelus. I pray it out loud for John. We are alone and this is one of the prayers I associate with him. "May Thy Divine assistance remain always with us."

Then there is only the sound of him breathing through his final sleep on earth, a sleep that began more than two days ago. We thought then that he would go quickly enough. He thought it himself. His last words were something like, "it's time for me to go to the Lord." But the Lord has His own time in the mystery of things.

And I am in no rush, being home on holidays with all the time in the world. Like his sister Rita said yesterday, isn't it good to have all the time we can have with him, even if we want him to be free of this final struggle. But there's actually little sign of struggle, just a slow, steady and heavy breathing. There were moments of obvious pain yesterday but even then he doesn't utter a sound. His pain threshold is high.

He is receiving excellent care and it has allowed him to stay here at home with the community and his family not far away.

These days have given me the opportunity to reconnect with his family. Michael.  Rita and her children whom I knew back in the days when John and I were in the road together. And now their children.

We chat a lot while John sleeps and I wonder if he can hear what we are saying.

In quiet moments I pray the Divine Office. Divine Mercy. Martin and Donal in their turn pray the rosary quietly. Donal who has been John's friend since 1953. Others of the community drop in and stand in silent prayer. George. Liam.

One evening alone again with John I sang The Parting Glass to him, a song I have never sung before but I know the tune and got the words up on my phone. A couple of years ago John said to me, "I would love to hear you sing The Parting Glass." So now the time had come and I sang it softly and hope it pleased him at some level.

Timing. God, who is beyond time, arranges time for us in ways that we might not always appreciate but it always turns out to be the right time. This is something I keep discovering, something that I must trust with regards to other important situations too.

Less than two weeks ago, as I was preparing to board the ferry at Pembroke for the journey home to Galway, I got word that Betty Higgins Galvin had died. She is the sister of my friend Father John O'Brien who died four years ago. A beautiful woman. Exceptional mother on many levels. I have known her since we were 17 or 18 years old and became especially close to her after John's death. The timing meant that I got home just in time for here funeral, something that mattered for me and her family.

The timing also brought me to Thurles where I had two lovely visits with John while he was still up and able to converse. If I had waited until now we would not have had those moments. God is good. And good that Rory got home to be with us all for the last night.

My phone rang at 2.40am. It was the nurse saying he was going down. So I jumped out of bed and went as I was to John's room where George, Martin and Rory had already gathered. The family arrived. We prayed. Shared the prayers for the dying. The rosary.

At Rita's insistence I called Donal and it was absolutely appropriate that he be there for the final hour, John going quietly as the new day began to dawn.

It was fitting that Rory led the funeral Mass and I had the honour of giving the homily. This is largely what I said:

Back in February when Rory and I visited John in the Bon Secours Hospital, he spoke to us about the readings and hymns he wanted for his funeral. These readings from the Word of God express something of John’s faith, and to speak of John is to speak also of the Gospel of Christ in the same breath. The two are inseparable.

The second reading speaks of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. John's life was shaped by this advantage; the person of Jesus was woven into every aspect of his life, every fibre. Woven in ways that you might not notice and he would not be one to show off his relationship with Jesus. But it was there in everything. In every drink, in every meal, in every conversation. It was the foundation of his faith, a faith that was grounded in Jesus, grounded in reality, lived out in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. 

There was something seamless about John’s life – his bright intelligent mind, his tender heart and kindly soul and body all flowed in and out of each other very naturally.

John lived his life as an advantage, not in the sense of taking advantage of people or of having advantage over anyone else, but it was the advantage of life itself to be lived happily and always with hope.

Over the past few days we have spoken a lot about the vast variety of friendships he had and maintained, the variety of people with whom he related, all the different people who came to see him. It is quite an astonishing array of people and he had a unique capacity for keeping us all within his kind embrace.

He was at ease with himself and so was at ease with any person (or most persons) – it could be people in high office or it could be with Jack my homeless friend in Hastings whom he always asked after.

The Interior Castle of St. Teresa of Avila has come to my mind quite a lot as I have pondered John’s life. She writes of her vision of the soul “as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of a very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions” It’s if John himself was like a beautiful single diamond, clear crystal, having many rooms within him and each of us occupying our own particular place in his life. When I said this to Donal he said, “and it was John who decided exactly which place each one of us would occupy.” This is true!

I am really grateful for the place he has given me, truly astonished by the place he allowed me to occupy in his life. I wasn’t much part of his rich social life and so didn’t often or even ever get to meet the great friends who shared that with him. 

What I experienced from him was a genuine love that saw the best in me when I couldn’t see it myself, a love that protected me, guided me, brought me on holidays, a love that was always kind. And also a love that was free to depend on me whenever that was necessary.

Perhaps my place came into focus last October and November when he became ill and I just happened to be in Rome and it fell to Rory and myself to deal with his illness. As well as being his brother in community, his personal friend, Rory had to do all the practical thinking and planning and getting things done.

What John asked of me is that I would pray with him, anoint him, hear his confession. “It was God who sent you” he said. With me he was not afraid to speak of death, never feared that the Sacrament of Anointing was a reminder of death. It was all part of the supreme advantage and his natural destination because it was not death itself that was his destination but the person of God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit together with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the young Blessed Carlo Acutis and all the array of John’s loved ones. 

In this context his choice of Gospel is appropriate, Jesus saying to John personally, “I am going now to prepare a place for you…in my Father’s House where there are many rooms.”

We read this Gospel to him the other morning shortly before he breathed his last. You could sense Jesus whispering this in the depths of his soul.

The place prepared by Jesus in Eternity has its beginnings in all the places that John occupied in this world, beginning with his home in Ballydaff, the family who loved and shaped him right up until his last breath; the various Pallottine communities within which he became the man and the priest that God called him to become; the ministries through which he served and all the people with whom he served. Thurles, Tanzania, Rome, Corduff, Dundrum and all the places he visited as Provincial, an office he occupied with great humility

It is one of the most blessed features of our Pallottine life that our families so naturally become part of our community experience. This we witnessed beautifully in the sad and lonely days leading up to John’s death. Family and community became one reality. We moved in and out of each other effortlessly and we were all there together with him to urge him on, the love of Christ in us urging him on towards the gates of paradise.

Eternity begins here on earth and in a rather lovely meditation St. Vincent Pallotti ponders this link between the ordinary things of life and the life of heaven. To God he says, “You have given us all kinds of delicious food and drink to taste, so that we may fall in love with the delights, the sweetness of heaven.” That we may fall in love!

What we do now relates to Eternal Life, what we taste, what we love and enjoy, the table that we share together all these lovely things are connected to heaven and somehow prepare us for it.

And that brings us to the first reading from Isaiah in which God makes this promise, that He will prepare for His people a banquet of rich food and fine wine. What could be more appropriate for John.

The most significant of all banquets, the table of the Eucharist is what gave him an abiding connection with heaven and it was particularly beautiful to celebrate a simple Mass with him in his room. Martin did this regularly. We both did this by his bed in his last few days. We touched heaven, we experienced the supreme advantage.

The last words he spoke on Wednesday were that he needed to go to the Lord, it was time for him to go and, even though it would take him three days to make that journey, it happened at the end of the Fourth Watch of the night which is a sacred time of blessing in Scripture. 

It was during the fourth watch that Jesus walked on the water and took hold of Peter’s hand. On August 23rd just as the hour of 6am passed, Jesus walked on the waters of John’s life, took hold of him and brought him home.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

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