Fr Christoph Theobald says, “Each time that
conscience and relationships overcome violence, each time that a link is made
and strengthened by means of a significant encounter, and that sometimes at the
price of someone's life, the Spirit of holiness is at work.” Alec lived the
sacrament of encounter and there is a sense in which he paid the price with his
life. To truly encounter the other is sacramental and, for Christ's ones, it is
not an option. It is a command that comes to us from God himself. If we are
truly living it, it will always be in the shape of a cross. And it need not
involve words — sometimes it's better if the words are few but the commitment
is unmistakeable. It was unmistakeable in Father Alec Reid. The Spirit of the
Lord was upon him.
FR REID’S CONTRIBUTION
TO THE PEACE PROCESS
He had the
satisfaction of seeing
By Dr Martin Mansergh
Many priests serving in parishes or
communities torn by conflict found themselves having to mediate, trying to
prevent further loss of life, ministering to the dying and the bereaved. For
many years, in the 1970s and early 1980s, that was the role of Fr Alec Reid and
many of his colleagues in Clonard Monastery. As its history shows, for over a century
Clonard Monastery and its priests played a very prominent role in the religious
life and identity of the people of West Belfast. Its outreach has been across
divides of many kinds as well as to those from within the community engaged in
activities with which the Church deeply disagreed. Peace work, where trust was
vital, was the most pressing social priority, and one to which a Christian
perspective was directly relevant, and to which it could bring a distinctive
contribution.
From the second half of the 1980s, Fr Alec
began to play a pivotal role in trying to crystallize an alternative to
conflict, which was characterized by a prolonged military and political
stalemate with periodic and dangerous upsurges in violence. In this difficult
and secret work, he had the steady support of the Redemptorist Order and the
use of its facilities in Clonard, Dundalk and Dublin, which hosted a series of
meetings between the leaderships of the SDLP and Sinn Fein and between Sinn
Fein and a representative or representatives of the Irish governing party or
government leading up to the IRA ceasefire of August 31, 1994.
His role went far beyond that of a
facilitator. He sought in papers of his own to analyse the situation and to put
forward ideas that might act as a catalyst for movement. He met those involved
individually at very regular intervals to assess attitudes, reactions and
possibilities for progress. Many of the concepts he was grappling with -
self-determination, human dignity, and justice - were to become key components
in a framework for peace. The mission he was embarked on was related to deep
religious conviction about the importance of finding an alternative to conflict
and about the duty of the Church to be active in seeking it.
A monastery provides a quiet and discreet
setting for reflective discussion of difficult existential issues, including
political ones. At the time, governments in particular were inhibited from
engaging in any direct discussion with those involved with any paramilitary
campaign, but a religious environment emphasized the moral purpose behind a
breach of that taboo. Apart from the benefits of establishing direct
communication for the purpose of exploring possibilities of peace, the
challenge was to identify sufficient common ground, leaving aside the obvious
and for the time being unbridgeable differences, to allow the emergence of an
initiative and to enable it to progress. There were fallow periods,
discouraging events on the outside, while all the time more people were being
killed. While the Redemptorist Order, through its superior, kept a careful
watch on what was happening, not least out of pastoral concern for Fr Reid and
the strains on him, support for what he was doing was maintained, and
eventually bore fruit. While other lines of communication might be interrupted,
the line to Fr Reid was never down.
Fr Reid privately expressed the conviction
in the late 1980s that the gun was an anachronism. It was a source of great
satisfaction to him when he was chosen along with the former Methodist
President Rev. Harold Good to witness the final decommissioning of IRA weapons.
He had the satisfaction while he lived of seeing peace taking root. The
Redemptorists can take pride and inspiration from his and their part in this
achievement.
TOGETHER
WITH FR ALEC
Remembering a
partner for peace
I was delighted in the summer of 1983 when the Redemptorist
provincial, Fr John O'Donnell, asked me to transfer from Esker, Co. Galway to Clonard in Belfast.
I came north on 30 August with a commitment to put my energy into the work of
reconciliation, letting myself he guided by the promise of Isaiah 2:2-5 that
encounter with the living God is the way to peace.
Shortly afterwards, I asked Fr Alec what we
could do to end the violence. “The only way to change things,” he said, “is
through the dialogue which makes room for the Holy Spirit to work in human
history”
That conversation shaped my relationship
with him through the years. We shared a deep conviction that the God at work
among us was master of the impossible. The dialogue must go on to prepare the way
for the miracles of his grace. Alec's work for peace is epitomised for the
people by his persuasion in the early 1990s of John Hume and Gerry Adams to
work together under the leadership of Albert ReynoIds, Taoiseach, to create a
political way forward. The people see my role in various ways, partnerships
with Rev. Ken Newell and with Rev. Sam Burch, the Protestant guest preachers on
the Solemn Novena Ecumenical Day, the unity pilgrims who week by week join
Protestant congregations for their Sunday Worship.
The ordinary believing people who worship in
Clonard and in the parishes of West Belfast connect our endeavours. For them,
both are intimately one. It’s all about changing some strategic relationships.
Such as what Alec says in the mission statement he wrote for Cardinal O’Fiaich
in 1989: “Where the people of Ireland in their nationalist and Unionist
traditions are living together in friendship and mutual Cooperation for the
common good of all and where the people of Ireland and the people of Britain
are living together in the same way.”
It used to embarrass me that people
associated me so closely with Alec. I would speak about my relationship with in
as that of priest and altar server. In the narrower political sense, there is
truth in that. But I know from his friends that Alec would have none of that
way of speaking. I always felt a profound esteem from him. He was interested in
everything we did to break down division. In the larger perspective of God’s
design for Belfast, Northern Ireland and the Church among us, he saw our
relationship as a creative partnership.
The response to Alec's death from such a
wide range of people has increased our awareness of the significance of the
Clonard Reconciliation Mission. A hundred years ago Karl Adam wrote something
like this: “The great apostolic task of the 20th century is to cultivate a
sense of the Church in the hearts of the faithful.” It remains the task of the
21st century. The Vatican Council says: “The
Church, in Christ, is in the nature of a sacrament— a sign and instrument, that
is, of communion with God and of unity among all people” (Lumen Gentium 1.1).
While the church at Clonard is becoming that kind of Church, we still have
miles to go. “Through our ecumenical endeavours we seek to make the “sign” more
compelling and politically influential. Alec would want us to become a Church
that listens to and learns the lessons from the streets.
The reconciliation imperative covers
everything we do. In this Year of the Redemptorist Missionary Vocation we need
to review and renew all our relationships in order to serve more effectively
God's reconciling will. We need to encourage all our brothers and sisters who
celebrate the Eucharist with us in Clonard to make the unity of the Body of
Christ their passionate concern.
May Alec, now that he is freer than ever he
was here, help us to do just that.
FELLOW TRAVELLER
Reflection given by Rev. Harold Good
at Fr Alex’s
funeral Mass
It is often said of someone who has made a
unique contribution that when history is written that person will be given his
or her rightful place. Happily, in the case of Father Alex Reid, neither he nor
we had to wait until after his death for a rightful acknowledgement of his
contribution to the process which has brought us to where we now are.
For me, it is a very special privilege to be
asked to share a personal tribute to my very good friend and brother in Christ.
Fr Alex and I may have appeared to come from
very different directions, as indeed we did. Geographically, he was a Tipp man
while I am a Derry man. Church-wise, we came from two different denominations.
But we soon discovered and took delight in what we had in common. We were not
too far apart in age; we enjoyed the same sort of humour and banter. And we
shared a love of travel. Travelling with Alex was always an adventure!
Ironically, the best known of our shared
journeys was a highly secret one. Like a couple of Old Testament Patriarchs, we
set out not knowing where we were going or, more correctly, where we were being
taken. But, for Alex, that journey was to be a culmination of all that he had
longed for, prayed for, and worked for. I shall not forget that moment when he
whispered in my car, “There goes the last gun out of Irish politics.” What a
moment, for him, and for all of us!
That journey was one of many we were to
share across these islands and across the seas. And on those journeys I soon
discovered that Fr Alex possessed two essential gifts for good travelling. The
first was the gift of instant friendship. When welcomed aboard by a flight
attendant, for example, a typical conversation would go like this: “And what is your name, dear?” “Marie
Therese.” “Marie Therese! What a beautiful name. I've always loved that name...”
and/or “I have a sister (or an aunt, or a cousin) by that name.” I was always
fascinated by the number of relatives with the appropriate name. But whatever
we had paid for, from then on we would be treated as Business Class!
It was a wonderful gift which he used to
such good effect on his journeys into unknown political territory and to build
trust with and between strangers.
The second was his ability to fall asleep
and wake up upon arrival! In a way this was how he coped with situations and
conversations which he felt to be irrelevant or pointless.
But Alex and I were fellow travellers on was
what for us w the most important journey of all — our journey of faith, two
fellow pilgrims often stumbling, seeking to follow in the footsteps of Jesus;
the same Jesus who had called each of us to follow him and who, when we were
not much more than schoolboys, had called us into ministry, a ministry of
reconciliation, in which each of us rejoiced.
This is not to say that Fr Alex and I were
not aware of the historic doctrinal differences between the two traditions from
which we came. Of course, we were. One could not grow up in any part of this
island without being aware of those differences. But for Fr Alex and for me,
difference was not about division, fear, bitterness, hatred or bigotry. We had
simply been born into and lovingly nurtured in two traditions within the
Christian
family, two traditions from which each of us
brought something which enriched the faith of the other. We were like two
fellow travellers with their packed lunches, each of whom had brought food to
share with the other.
Interestingly, as a study of Church history
reminds us, this should not be so surprising, for historically Redemptorists
and Methodists have much in common.
Both of our movements were founded in the
mid-18th century, one founded by Alphonsus Liguori, the other by John Wesley,
both of whom shared a passion for social justice and the practical application
of the Gospel. So, in the tradition of the founders of our respective orders,
Fr Alex and I discovered that we brought this same passion to our shared
journey.
For us, a passion for peace with justice;
for an end to bigotry and bitterness that invades and destroys the human soul;
for the sanctity of each and every human life; for an end to violence; for the
healing of our land; and a passion for a Christ-centred solution to our
conflict and conflict wherever it existed.
[Rev. Harold Good and Fr Alec Reid]
So, I have to confess, on our shared journey
of faith, Fr Alex and I did not spend precious time and energy debating
academic, theological issues. Neither of us was particularly interested in the number
of angels one could dance on the head of a pin! For us, the pivotal question
has been: “In the harsh reality of our broken, divided world, what does it mean
for us to live in obedience to the mind and will and purpose of the Christ who
has called us to follow him?”
Of course, as so many of us discovered,
these journeys were not always easy. There were many twists and turns,
diversions, obstacles and roadblocks. Inevitably, there were those who did
their best to discourage and divert us. At times it was a lonely journey, at
others a weary one.
But for Fr Alex in such moments, his
standard response was, “Leave it to the Holy Spirit.” To which I would often
respond, “Be careful, Alex, don't push him!” But how right he was, for he knew
we had to wait on God's timing.
Now, this earthly part of Alex's journey has
come to an end, but, for him, an even greater journey has just begun. And so,
on behalf of all of us who have been his fellow travellers, I bid him an
ancient blessing:
“Go forth good friend upon your journey from
this world
In the name of the Father who created you;
III the name of the Son who has redeemed
you;
In the name of the Spirit who has sanctified
you;
And all the people of God,
Aided by angels and archangels
And the whole company of heaven.”
And may your journey from us bring you to a
place of real and lasting peace, a peace you so richly deserve. Amen.
THE POWER OF LOVE
Reflection offered at Fr Alec's funeral
Mass,
Clonard Church, Belfast
by President Mary McAleese
[Fr Alec with president Mary McAleese, her husband Martin
and on the right Clonard rector Michael Murtagh]
Over two hundred years ago in his famous
hymn William Cowper wrote that, “God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to
perform.” It is hard to believe Cowper wrote that without having met Alec Reid.
The hymn is based on the words of Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts.”
Alec, known to some as Al, Alex, Alexander
or just plain Fr Reid, may at times have seemed like an enigma, a puzzling or
inexplicable occurrence - but he was far from it. He was a priest. Not a
liturgy and lace man but a humble and ever faithful servant of Jesus; a man who
really bought deeply into the idea of the healing power of love, who saw all
human beings as sons and daughters of the one Father, and members of the one
human family.
This was and remains utterly radical
thinking in a community divided against itself by a toxic history which we did
not create but which we too often recreated. In this world of people barricaded
against one another by contempt, fear and hatred, battling against one another
in a conflict that lasted too long and cost too much in wasted human life,
there seemed precious little space for a culture of Christian love to flourish,
for we Christians had mostly decided to love only our own and to remain
estranged from those who were not our very own.
Into this tightly bound world of vanities,
where people refused to talk to other people because of a long list of
becauses, where violence sharpened tongues and hardened hearts, there came the
rather quiet and humble figure of Fr Al Reid. He saw spaces for hope to grow
where others saw impregnable irredentist citadels. He saw ways to soften
hearts, he found words to persuade the estranged to talk to one another, to
take a chance on one another, to find common ground. He believed we were better
than we had become, dragged down by the dead weight of an ignoble history. He
believed we could between us construct all alternative strategy that would
allow us all to live humanly and decently in peace and good neighbourliness,
our identities intact, our political ambitions reconciled, our future no longer
soured by the poisonous spores cast by the past.
Alec believed that when no one else did,
when it all seemed hopeless and he seemed daft, as he toggled between people
and groups that over their dead bodies would ever talk to one another. And as he
trundled his badly typed alternate strategy day in and day out year after
bitter year, he never lost faith in God or hope in us. It took a dire toll on
his health, is those of us who were close to him know only too well, but he
never complained and the work never stopped.
Even when his quiet, prayerful, pastoral
care of the embryonic peace had been of seminal help in the construction of
historic ceasefires and the Good Friday agreement itself, Alec kept on working
in the service of peace, in the service of Christ and the great commandment to
love one another. Invited by the Church to help if he could, in his latter
years he quietly brought his distinctive genius to bear on the Basque problem,
living often in great discomfort and under stresses we cannot imagine with an
ailing body that needed to be cared for but which he refused to put before his
work as priest, pastor, peace-maker supreme. I remember the day of the Madrid
bombing. Alec was in our house when the news came that suggested, wrongly as it
happened, that ETA might have broken their ceasefire. He physically crumbled in
front of me in pure distress. Just as he had done on the phone to me the day of
the Canary Wharf bombing. I saw then what he so often tried to cover up, the
dreadful personal toll that the needless and unconscionable taking of human
life took on him. His work on those days lay in ruins. His faith in humanity was
sorely tested but not his faith in God, for always in those moments Al would
reach for the same words: By the grace of God... with the help of the Holy
Spirit... by the power of prayer...
Al talked a lot about the Holy Spirit and
almost invariably in sporting terms. As you might expect of a Tipperary man,
the images were of the Holy Spirit togged out in the Tipp colours wielding a
hurl and him centre forward on the best Tipp team ever. For over twenty years
Al would land regularly to our house. I would ask him how he thought things
were. The Holy Spirit is on the subs bench, he would say, or worse still, the
Holy Spirit was after getting an unmerciful clatter and was carted off field
wounded. Ominously, he would say he was going to miss a few matches. On a
really bad day, Alec, a tad impatient, would say the Holy Spirit had missed the
team bus. On a rare good day, the Holy Spirit was playing a blinder. He was
dominating the midfield and had holes punched in the net with his miraculous
goals. Al described them with passion as if he had watched them live in Croke
park.
Alec patiently but relentlessly punched
holes in our thinking. He let light in where we were content to sit in
darkness. He skilfully set up the goals that others scored, against the odds,
against the run of play. In unlikely backrooms he helped coach key members of
the underdog cross-community team that no one rated and, by the mysterious ways
of the Lord, it became the team that was to score the great goal of peace. Now
with the well-designed custom-made tools that are the Good Friday and the St
Andrew's Agreements, as John Hewitt says, we build to fill the centuries'
arrears.
[Former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese
(1997-2011)
and her husband, Martin]
It will take a lot of hands to fill that
mighty gap and thankfully today there are many hands doing the work. But once
not so very long ago, there were just a few and among them a humble, simple
priest and pastor who looked in the faces of all he met and saw not just
Catholic or Protestant, Loyalist or Republican but brothers and sisters in
Christ, children of the one God, children made in the image and likeness of
God, men and women capable of making peace, sustaining peace and living together
in peace, by the grace of God.
May Alec himself now rest in his own richly
deserved and hard-earned heavenly peace.
THE ROLE OF THE SERVANT
OF CHRIST
IN A SITUATION OF CONFLICT
From
the homily delivered
by Fr Michael Kelleher at the Mass
for Fr Alec Reid at
Marianella church, Dublin
God bless. God bless you. If Fr Alec were
here this morning that's what he'd be saying to people. Fr Alec was a man of
God. It is impossible to really understand his life and work without taking God
and his faith in God into account. Fr Alec saw himself as a servant of God in a
situation of conflict. For Alec, all those who are baptized are called and sent
to be servants of Christ. In situations of conflict all baptized men and women
are called and sent by God to engage with that situation of conflict in a
Christ-like way. For Fr Alec, the primary role of the servant of Christ in a
situation of conflict is to be the pastoral agent of the Holy Spirit in the
midst of the conflict.
The first thing to highlight is “in the
midst of the conflict.” The Christian must know the conflict “from within”
rather than “front without.”
The crucial role for the Christian is to
help in identifying the human, moral and spiritual questions, especially the
moral questions of good and evil, which are involved in causing and driving the
conflict; then in trying to answer those in accordance with the Spirit of
Christ, as Christ himself would, no matter what the personal or community
consequences may be.
The serving Christian could not survive such
a mission or, much less, accomplish it without the Holy Spirit and the power
which the Holy Spirit alone can give us. In his Letter to the Ephesians
(4:7-13), St Paul outlines how we, as individuals and as communities, have been
endowed with the Holy Spirit; gifts, for example, like understanding, wisdom,
prudence, courage, patient endurance and, especially, the gift of compassionate
love, which are all crucial to the role of the serving Christian in a situation
of conflict.
The Christian is sustained by confidence in
the Spirit's enabling power. This assures him or her that, however great or
even impossible the adversity faced may appear to be, there is always a way
through, always a way out, always a way forward, which will be found once he or
she waits on the Spirit's guidance and relies on the Spirit's saving power. A
relationship of personal trust in the Holy Spirit is, therefore, central to the
role of the serving Christian in a situation of conflict.
For Fr Alec, Jesus was the model peacemaker.
Jesus lived in the midst of human conflict until he became bone of its bone and
flesh of its flesh. He allowed himself to get completely caught up in all its
dimensions of good and evil, from the level of the individual to the level of
those who wielded political and religious power. As a result, Jesus became
embroiled and, in the end, fell victim to the violence, both moral and
physical, which is endemic to so many situations of human conflict.
Jesus used companionship as a means of
exercising his pastoral influence and leadership. The word “companion' derives
from two Latin words which mean “one who eats bread with another.” Jesus often
used the table of food and fellowship as an ideal setting for explaining and,
indeed, symbolising his message. The companionship practiced by Jesus was of an
all-inclusive nature. Jesus was companion to all kinds of sinners. He was
accused and rejected for associating with the wrong kind of people.
For Fr Alec, the passage I read earlier from
St John's Gospel was central to his understanding of peacemaking: —The Word
was made flesh and lived amongst us.”Jn 1:14). For Fr Alec, this was and is the
crucial Scriptural guideline for the serving Christian in a situation of
conflict. He or she must, like Jesus, become personally involved in its full
flesh and blood humanity until he or she knows it by heart in all its reality.
Fr Alec saw himself as doing that: as becoming personally involved in the
conflict's full flesh and blood humanity until he knew it by heart in all its
reality. The picture of Fr Alec with the two corporals is an example of that.
He literally has blood on his face from giving the “kiss of life” to one of the
two men.
Following the example of Jesus, Alec had as
a central strategy to create compassionate companionship with all the
participants in the midst of the conflict by engaging in direct, ongoing
communication and dialogue with them. The aim was to identify the moral and
spiritual dimensions of their various positions with a view to deciding on a
Christian pastoral response to each of them. For him the first and crucial
activity was to listen — to listen in a spirit of Christian compassion and
discernment to the viewpoint of the party with which the ministry was in
dialogue.
Fr Alec always had a thing about people's
names and made a point of using a person's name when talking with him or her.
In this simple but important gesture he acknowledged and respected the dignity
of that person. For Alec, respect for the dignity of each human person was a
crucial attitude.
For Alec, listening was and is crucial to
the process of resolving a political conflict because it is by listening to the
conflict itself that one discovers the formula for peace. The crucial
Scriptural guideline in a situation of conflict is: “The Word was made flesh
and lived amongst us.” In other words, the way to peace is to be found within
the conflict itself. His experience was that it can always be found there
provided those who are seeking it listen to the conflict in a spirit of
Christian compassion and discernment. Just listen to the conflict in a spirit
of Christian compassion and discernment and you will begin to find the Words of
Peace taking flesh. Within a conflict, whenever and wherever the serving
Christian, with the help of the Holy Spirit, hears the word of truth, the word
of justice, the word of compassion, he or she is hearing the words of Jesus. He
or she is listening in effect to the message of Jesus for the resolution of the
conflict.
Fr Alec's ministry of Christian
reconciliation in the north of Ireland also involved his co-working with other
men and women, clergy and lay people, from different Christian traditions,
filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, who had the time, skills, experience
and, especially, the stamina for such a demanding mission.
Fr Alec had a deep conviction about the need
for women to be equal partners in any human process, especially processes of
conflict resolution. This conviction, which he often stressed, was felt very
deeply by him, and was most likely arrived at through the deep friendship,
courage and wisdom he was gifted with by the women in his life. He often said
to me that the Northern conflict could have been resolved much more quickly if
there were more women involved!
There are several images of Fr Alec that
will remain with me forever. One of them is of Alec giving the thumbs up to
Queen Elizabeth during the State banquet in Dublin Castle. A couple of months
ago I was in Rome and I saw a postcard of Pope Francis giving the thumbs up. I
bought a copy for Fr Alec and told him on my return that Pope Francis had given
him the thumbs up. He got a hearty laugh out of that.
Over the past few years we have had some
hearty laughs together. 'The little postcard was in Fr Alec's bedroom in St
Vincent's Hospital when he died and the undertakers put it in the coffin with
his remains. I saw it there and smiled. I pray and am confident that Jesus, the
Redeemer, the Supreme Peacemaker, the Word made Flesh, will have given Fr Alec
the thumbs up last Friday as he arrived in Heaven.
Alec was a good companion; he was a fond
friend and had good friends. We will miss our Redemptorist colleague and
friend. We will miss his courage, his vision and his remarkable modesty. And we
will be proud of him always.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis. Amen.
[May
his soul be at the right side of God. Amen.]
