Tom, my friend, the priest.
Father Charles opened his sermon with, “When someone close to us dies a bit of us dies too.” I was at the funeral mass for Father Tom. I first met Tom, as he liked to be called when he started attending our Christian Life Community (CLC) in Spring of 2014. Another member Althea was living with a terminal illness and as one of his parishioners, he felt by attending the group he could get to know and support her during her finals months.
Althea ‘passed on’ in August 2014 and Tom continued to attend and participate in our community. He was always happy for one of us to lead as his life ministry was leading services. Tom was as honest and vulnerable as each of us are within the community. I was surprised as I assumed as a priest he would want to lead and perhaps ‘hold back’ in sharing aspects of his life. I was to learn that Tom was Tom whether with us or celebrating The Eucharist.
He had no need to share profound insights he just shared his interior life the joys and sorrows just like us.
Tom’s friendship had the added effect on me as it continued the healing which has been occurring since I opened up at the age of 16 to God’s power to reconcile me ‘the Northern Irish Protestant’ with my Catholic brothers and sisters.
I had never got to know a Catholic priest well though in God’s plan Tom was the Catholic priest I was to get to know. I was pleased to join with his parish when he celebrated 40 years as a priest and to receive a blessing from him.
We often bumped into each other in the Library and it was the last place I saw him. It was 21st December. As we sat in the library he shared with me that just two days before he had received the news that he had an inoperable form of cancer. I couldn’t help but stretch out my hand to his. He thought he had longer yet it would only be a matter of two weeks later that he passed from this shore to the next. I wasn’t in the habit of hugging priests though before I left him that day I hugged him as Tom, my friend, the priest.
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