Father Philip Buckley's Funeral - St Christopher's Cathedral Tuesday, 23 NOVEMBER 2010

FUNERAL HOMILY

FATHER PHILIP BUCKLEY

ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHDERAL

TUESDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2010

Two days after I left Phil in the Intensive Care Unit of the General Hospital, Vienna, Austria, I visited St Martin in the Fields Anglican Church, London.  Outside the church is a square block of sandstone on top of which is a simple carving of a naked newborn baby boy with attached umbilical cord.  Carved around the stone are the words of the gospel we have just heard – ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us’. Our God is not aloof but rather as we will celebrate at Christmas, Emmanuel, God-with-us.


‘The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.’  The Hebrew term ‘dabar’ can refer to ‘word’ and also a ‘thing’ or ‘deed’.  The word of God, therefore, refers to God both speaking and acting. God’s word is powerful, it achieves its’ purpose. At the dawn of creation God spoke and it came to be.  God spoke through his prophets and in the fullness of time the very Word of God, Jesus the Christ dwelt amongst us and human history changed forever.  In word and deed the Church continues to speak and act in Christ’s name.  Fr Phil spoke and acted in Christ’s name and good things happened; lives were touched and people continually and lovingly affirmed him in word and deed as their pastor. You do so by your presence here today.


As we know Phil was born at Nimmitabel up on the Monaro and tomorrow he will be buried there.  A stage in his journey will end where it began and a new stage will begin, as St Paul reminded us in our Second Reading,
“having died with Christ he shall return to life with him.”  


Called by name in the waters of baptism, God claimed Phil with an everlasting love.  To paraphrase what Fr Kevin Flynn recently said at a funeral I attended, “Why did God love Phil? Because God loved Phil.”  Nurtured in that love by his family, relatives and friends and by the Josephite Sisters at Nimmitabel, Phil was to slowly mature in his awareness of that initial call through his celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in gathering with the faith community at Sunday Mass and in being Confirmed to further the mission of the Church.  That call, the word of God breathed deep within his being, saw Phil as a boarder at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers College, Goulburn consider a career as an aeronautical engineer, consistent with his excelling in mathematics and having obtained a Commonwealth
Scholarship.   Qantas’s loss was to be our gain as Phil decided instead to enter the seminary at St Columba’s College, Springwood in 1960 and after further study and formation at
St Patrick’s College, Manly he was ordained at the then St. Patrick’s Church, Braddon by Archbishop Eris O’Brien on 22 July 1967.  Phil used to joke that he was a little concerned about the validity of his ordination, as back in the Braddon presbytery immediately after
the ordination Archbishop O’Brien, whose mind was starting to wander, asked the newly ordained Phil who he was!


Besides the list of parish and various other appointments at the front of our Mass booklet, Phil was also committed to the Cursillo Movement, Marriage Encounter, Family Groups and
numerous other initiatives to foster a living faith within his people. His support for his brother clergy was evident in his earlier membership of Jesus Caritas and more recently ‘F-Troop’, the latter being his clergy support group of which I am also a member.  Years
ago Phil told me that when pulled over for speeding on Adelaide Avenue and asked if there was a reason for doing so, he said that he was the Catholic Hospital Chaplain, which was true, and he was on his way to a call from the Emergency Department, which was not true. With lights flashing, the policeman led him to the hospital and on arrival after waving thanks and running into Emergency, Phil did not emerge till the policeman had departed the area.


I first met Phil when I was a seminarian and he was stationed at Garran with the late Monsignor John Kelly.  I mention this because it s illustrative of Phil’s ability to relate to all manner of people and clergy in particular.  When Monsignor Kelly was seriously ill, Phil was his point of reference amongst the clergy and again when the late Father Dermott O’Hurley was retiring as Parish Priest of Yass, he indicated that he would like to do so as pastor in residence, with Phil, his then Assistant Priest, to succeed him as Parish Priest.  So it came to pass and a beautiful relationship was built on.  Like Phil, Dermott had a good sense of humour. Phil told me how they put the container of ashes of a deceased parishioner, for whom they were awaiting a forwarding address, on the mantlepiece of the presbytery dining room.  Dermott would ash his cigarette in the ashtray on the container and accuse the deceased of putting on weight.


Phil was ordained two years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, a time of change in society and time of both angst and enthusiasm in the Church.  However it was the enthusiasm for renewal not the angst about change that found a resonance in Phil’s ministry and more especially in our Archdiocesan Synods of 1989 and 2004. Phil was to the fore with the preparation and conduct of the latter as Synod Coordinator.  Those synods called the faithful of the Archdiocese to discernment and collaborative ministry and Archbishop Mark’s more recent call for prayer, communion and mission found a willing response in Phil’s life and parish ministry.


The celebration of Sunday Mass was central to Phil’s life.  His liturgical demeanour there and in celebration of the other sacraments and his engaging homilies reflected a servant leadership born of the love of God, tested in the ruck of life, refined in prayerful communion and renewed in outreach.  Isaiah told us that God will prepare a banquet for all peoples on his holy mountain.  They will celebrate the victory over death; they will celebrate life.  In word and deed Phil feed many in the name of God; he named and manifested the source of life. A teacher put it more simply when she said that for pupils, parents and teachers “Phil was like a father to our school, caring for us and loving us like our dad. Through Phil we knew Jesus.”   If like Phil we live out the mystery of life which is celebrated in our Eucharist today, dare we not hope that we will gather with him at the heavenly banquet?


Helpful as it is to recall Phil’s appointments, commitments and style of ministry, one must probe a little deeper to fully appreciate him. Most if not all of you would be aware that Phil was a ‘dry alcoholic’.  He keenly felt the sting of the founded ultimatum of being told to give up the grog and go into rehabilitation at St John of God Richmond or resign as Parish Priest of Yass.  Some years later he experienced another ‘dark night of the soul’ while on a 30 day Ignatian retreat at St. Bueno’s, Wales.  He then owned that his image of God was demanding and manipulative and he bluntly told God so and how he regretted what he had given up to follow him.  Sitting with his frustration and anger, Phil was graced with a tangible experience of God’s loving presence, being called anew by name.  Easter was not just something that Phil believed in, it was something he had personally experienced.


Phil daily drew on the insights of Alcoholics Anonymous and more especially the spiritual writings of Franciscan Father Richard Rohr. Phil was graced to experience that it is in one’s brokenness, contrary to the promptings of one’s ego and pride that true growth begins.  The pain of the cross is the necessary precursor to the joy of the resurrection.  The transformation in Phil was manifest in more recent years in his practice of ‘Centering Prayer’.  It was with an awareness of God’s abiding love – an awareness that there was nothing that he could do to make God love him more and there was nothing he could do to make God love him less – as Fr Kevin said, God loved him because he loved him – that saw Phil, when challenged by deteriorating health, develop an openness to whatever life offered, even death. To the end and always, he drew on his lifelong bitter sweet experience to develop a sensitivity to little children, to the young couple preparing for marriage, to the divorcee and the widowed, to the wayward youth, to the couple with a midlife crisis or the aged and infirmed gentleman who shuffled to Mass. They were his people and together they
encountered their God   

As you know, Phil, like Christ, the Word become flesh, was always grounded.  Phil loved a bet on the horses and a flutter on the pokies. He was renown amongst the clergy for his love of a game of cards. He was an Eels supporter with a soft spot for the Raiders and he followed the Brumbies. He took pride in telling me that he had topped his footy tipping competition this year.  He was especially close to family and relatives and he cherished presiding at their numerous baptisms, weddings and funerals and partaking in their social gatherings.  He had good intentions about exercise and from time to time undertook a walking programme and he was a retired golf hacker.

He liked to travel.  I had the privilege of travelling with Phil and Justin Barwick to New Zealand where we stayed with some of my relatives.  Phil and I also travelled to Canada and the US and we had a very enjoyable trip to Wilpeena Pound, South Australia.
During the latter I witnessed Phil’s elation at the great Makybe Diva winning her third Melbourne Cup.  My only regret on those trips was that Phil did not yet have the little machine that countered his sleep apnoea and more particularly his loud snoring.

Phil enjoyed sudoko and crosswords; he would have a paperback on the go and he would enjoy an engaging movie; he would regularly attend visiting art exhibitions at the National Gallery and he was always up
for a trip to a big budget musical in Sydney; he enjoyed the beauty and solitude of the bush; he was a gardener of sorts and of late had enjoyed his courtyard garden at Page; he was a warm host and while no master chef he enjoyed being in
the kitchen; he had eclectic musical tastes and he enjoyed liturgical singing and the singing of ditties as well as the sharing of jokes and he was especially sensitive in the face of tragedy and brokenness;  he was a friend and confidant to many, including a number of his fellow clergy, all of whom held him in the highest regard, not the least because, like me, they experienced his sensitivity as a confessor and  witnessed his engaging manner during the annual Clergy Assembly and Clergy Retreat at St Clement’s Galong, a truly holy place for Phil and for so many of the clergy gathered here today. His absence from last week’s annual clergy retreat was palpable.

For all that Phil, like all of us was far from perfect.  His warm smile could give way to a furrowed brow, pursed lips and fiery eyes when he wascritical and judgemental; he liked to be in control, he could be stubborn and moody and he liked it done his way; he could lapse into negative patterns of behaviour and if truth be told on a few occasions we nearly came to blows. Finally, his preference for dress track pants, black shoes and pressed down shirt collars was a comfortable if not a particularly good look.  Again, like all of us, his shortcomings both frustrated and endeared him, being markedly outweighed by his basic integrity.  Phil had journeyed to that place where he had developed that especially appealing trait: he was himself.  In his presence others were unwittingly graced with being who they were, not who they could be or should be. Phil loved people because Phil loved people. We sense that in the photo of Phil on the front of our Mass booklet.  Phil is wearing red vestments following a celebration of Confirmation.  Here was a man who more often than not produced the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

As I noted at the outset, we will soon celebrate Christmas.  The joy of Christmas is only completed in the Passover of Easter; our God is with us in life and in conquering death. In Phil’s life and death, God was and is
with him and with us. I grew in awareness of this mystery as a result of Phil gifting me with a set of Richard Rohr’s CD’s titled “Great Themes of Paul”.  Rohr notes that the phrase ‘in Christ’ was used by St Paul more than any other. I believe that ‘in Christ’ Phil reflected the glory of God as in him the Word was once again made flesh and lived among us. God spoke to Phil disguised as his life and Phil sought to respond with him, through him and in him. How appropriate, therefore, that following on the Year of St Paul and the Year of Priests, that we, the Priestly People commend our brother Fr Phil to the fullness of life ‘in Christ’ at the heavenly banquet.

I know that I speak for so many when I say that we are more human and therefore closer to God for having known Phil. His brother Terry, sister Moya and extended family are especially conscious of that. So too are close friends Bishop Pat Power, Fathers Alan Hart
and Paul Huthnance, Sr Mary Corkeron, Herbie O’Flynn, Pauline Abbey, Peter Walker, Donna and Terry Grounds, Margaret Rose, Lou Mackey, Mary and Denis Morris and, forgive me, so many more of you. Certainly sentiments of graced awareness were to the fore with Philomena or Phil Billington, Director of the Catholic Education Office, Bendigo and close friend and collaborator of Fr Phil’s and Neil Harrigan, Archdiocesan Director of CathlicCare and his wife Mary who were privileged, like me, to visit Phil in Vienna, where it should be noted that he was receiving the very best care from an obliging and very professional staff.

I spoke to the unconscious Phil about all manner of things, though he may not have heard any of it except with the ear of his heart. I prayed for him on behalf of the community of faith and on my own behalf and before leaving I blessed him and told him that I loved him as a friend and as a brother priest. I told him to get his lungs working after the manner of the young sprinter he had claimed to be and finally out of character for me but so easy in the circumstances, I kissed him goodbye on the forehead. He was my mate and I miss him. And yet with the faithful departed Phil is forever close ‘in Christ’ who seeks to be all in all. Pray for him and for all clergy.

May Phil rest in peace and may God be merciful in judging him. And may we, like him, listen with heart and mind to the Word made flesh who seeks to transform us as he did our brother
Phil.  

Monsignor John Woods