FATHER ALEC REID
[Yesterday I spoke about a Redemptorist Father Alec Reid. As mentioned in that homily I said Father Alec's family when they visited St. Mary's Parish - gave me a nice picture of him and a Special Supplement Magazine or Newsletter telling about his life and story. I decided to scan that Newsletter and put it here in my blog - with the same pride Irish Redemptorists felt about a confrere who gave his life for the sheep. So the following is that Newsletter - with pictures.]
A MAN WHO “LIVED
WITH THE
SMELL OF THE SHEEP”
In Memoriam: Fr Alexander Reid, C.Ss.R.
By Brendan McConvery, C.Ss.R.
At the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday 2013, Pope Francis
talked about the crisis of priesthood. Priests, he said, “who do not go out of
themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries,
managers... and since he doesn't put his own skin and his own heart on the
line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the
reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad — sad priests - in some
sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds
living with 'the odour of the sheep.’”
[Alexander Reid as a little kid.]
Fr Al Reid, who died on November 22, 2013, was a shepherd
who lived with the smell of the sheep and who heard many a word of thanks for
putting his own skin and heart on the line. Alexander Reid was born in the
Leonard's Corner nursing home in Dublin on August 5, 1931, and was baptised in
Haddington Street Church. Following the death of his father, the family moved
to Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, where Al attended the Christian Brothers School. He
was a talented hurler and made it to the minor panel for the county. That
passion for hurling remained with him all his life. After his secondary
education, Al entered the Redemptorist noviciate in Esker, Co. Galway, where he
was professed on September 8, 1950.
Studies for the priesthood followed. He took a BA degree from University College Galway, and completed his theology in the Redemptorist House of Studies, Cluain Mhuire, Galway. He was ordained in 1957.
After the usual few years of pastoral training, the Young Fr Reid was assigned to the community of Clonard Monastery, Belfast.
[Final Profession of Vows Picture]
Studies for the priesthood followed. He took a BA degree from University College Galway, and completed his theology in the Redemptorist House of Studies, Cluain Mhuire, Galway. He was ordained in 1957.
[Ordination day picture with his family.]
After the usual few years of pastoral training, the Young Fr Reid was assigned to the community of Clonard Monastery, Belfast.
Early years in
Belfast
In his first years in Belfast, Al worked with Fr Hugh
Arthurs in the Clonard ecumenical apostolate. The Second World War had done
much to ease traditional sectarian tensions in the city. The crypt of Clonard
sheltered Catholics and Protestants without discrimination during the Belfast “Blitz”
of 1942. When the war was over, the Clonard community offered a series of
lectures each year from 1948 onwards for people from other Christian churches
interested in discovering more about the Catholic Church beyond the sectarian
image that then predominated. Somewhat unfortunately, it was advertised as the
Mission to Non-Catholics and attracted notice from some evangelical groups,
including a young pastor called Ian Paisley. The Rector of Clonard at the time
was Fr Gerard Reynolds. His nephew, also Gerard, would be a companion of Al's
in the peace process. By the 1960s, a richer ecumenical theology in the
Catholic Church was beginning to flower as a result of the Second Vatican
Council and it led to a change in direction in Clonard's ecumenical work. It
was as a result of this change that the young Redemptorist began to forge the
many friendships with members of the other churches, both lay and clerical,
that were to be such a hallmark of his later life.
The Troubles
Sectarian tensions remerged in response to the formation
of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement in the mid-1960s. A civil rights
march in Derry in October 1968 was broken up violently by the RUC. The growing
unrest of the following months came to a head just before midday on August 15,
1969. A sniper on the roof of an old linen mill near Clonard Monastery began
shooting at people in the street below. In an effort to dislodge the sniper,
some of the people set fire to the mill. It was so close to the monastery that
for a time it looked as though church and monastery might go up in flames.
Elderly members of the community were moved for safety to homes of friends. By
mid-afternoon, a full-scale riot was in progress in the streets nearby and
houses in two streets at the rear of the monastery were blazing. Later that
year, “the peace line,” separating Nationalist Falls from Protestant Shankill,
would be erected as a “temporary” wall to provide protection to the people on
both sides. It is still in place.
For Al Reid it was more of an inconvenience than a
barrier of the mind. Each Christmas morning, for example, Al went visiting old
friends in Cupar Street, on the Shankill Road side of the barrier.
The political situation in Belfast presented the
Redemptorists with a number of stark choices. It was impossible to live and
minister in such a situation of unrest and injustice without trying to come to
grips with the challenges it posed. Many people came to the monastery in search
of comfort at the loss of a family member through violence or internment.
Others came with questions of conscience that challenged the Church. Some who
had once been loyal and practising Catholics ceased practicing, either because
they believed the Church was complacent on the issue of justice on the one hand
or because they believed the Church was too indulgent towards the republican
paramilitaries on the other.
Long Kesh
In the early hours of August 9, 1971, many Catholic men
were rounded up and interned without trial. The majority were young. Providing
pastoral care for them became a priority. Priests, especially those without
regular responsibility for a Sunday congregation, such as teachers and members
of religious congregations, were asked to provide Mass and other pastoral care.
At Reid was one of the regulars. His Sunday often began with an early Mass in
Clonard at 6.30. He would then drive to the Maze Prison (Long Kesh) to offer
Mass for groups of prisoners in the “cages” or H-blocks, as they were known.
Much of the rest of Sunday was spent making phone calls or visiting families to
reassure them that a son or husband was well. “I his was especially the case
when prisoners' visiting rights were curtailed in response to their militant
struggle for “political status” and their refusal to wear official issue prison
garb.
During the “riot season,” which lasted for most of the
summer months, Al was often on the streets around the monastery until late at
night, trying to persuade groups of young people to go home or taking a cup of
tea with an elderly frightened neighbour. Visits to bereaved families and
attendance at the funerals of victims, no matter what their political
allegiance, if any, were by this time a major part of his work. It is
inevitable that such an irregular lifestyle would take its toll.
Having tried in vain to broker an honest deal throughout
the “dirty” and blanket protests of the late 1970s, Al found himself in the
maelstrom of the hunger strikes of 1981. By now there was little left of his
fragile physical resources. He suffered a major breakdown in physical health,
complicated by diabetes.
Early in 1981, his superiors realised that the only way
to force Al to rest was to send him out of the country. There was a small group
of Irish Redemptorists attached to the Redemptorist general house in Rome. They
formed Al's new temporary community.
Al Reid always had a gift for being in the right place at
a historic time. By May, he was well enough to explore Rome on his own. One of
his confreres had given him a ticket for good place close to the pope for the
audience in St Peter's Square on 13 May. As the popemobile came to within a few
yards of Al, a shot rang out. A young man called Mehmet Ali Agca had shot the
Holy Father four times, seriously wounding him.
The way to peace
By summer, Al was well enough to return to Ireland. It is
from this period that the quest to “take the gun out of Irish politics,” as he
himself would often put it, entered a new phase. Through his efforts to foster
dialogue, Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, whose family had long-standing
links with Clonard, and John Hume, leader of the nationalist but non-violent
Social Democratic and Labour Party, were facilitated in their efforts to find
an alternative through private dialogue. Redemptorist monasteries provided
quiet places where meetings could take place. It would be many years before the
talks themselves could be made public. Greeted initially with outrage in some
sections of the Irish media, major figures in both the Irish and British
governments eventually realised that something worthwhile was happening and
entered into the negotiations that eventually culminated in the Good Friday
Agreement of 1998.
The decade of quiet talking was not without heartbreak
and many false starts. The tangle of events surrounding the killing of three
IRA activists in Gibraltar in March 1988 thrust Al Reid into the limelight.
Mairead Farrell, Scan Savage and Danny McCann were all natives of the Clonard
area, whose families were well known to Al. They asked him to help in the
delicate negotiations surrounding the return of their bodies to Belfast for
burial. At their funeral in Milltown Cemetery, a Loyalist gunman, Michael
Stone, launched an attack on the mourners, killing three of them. On the
Saturday of that long week, Al set out to attend the funerals of the three
victims. At the conclusion of the first in East Belfast, he made his way to the
funeral of the other two at St Agnes' Church in Andersonstown. The stewards at
the funeral had hauled from their car two men who seemed to be driving into the
on-coming funeral procession.
In a television interview, he recounted the story of that
dreadful day. He had followed the people who had taken the soldiers to Casement
Park.
“They put the two of them face down on the ground and I
got down between the two of them on my face, and I had my arm around this one
and I was holding this one by the shoulder. When I was lying between the two
soldiers, I remember saying to myself, “This shouldn't be happening in a
civilised society.' Somebody came in and picked me up and said, 'Get up, or
I'll f .. g-well shoot you as well,' and then he said: “Take him away.' two of
them came on either shoulder and manoeuvred me out.”
Shortly afterwards, he heard two shots. An elderly woman
told him the bodies had been taken to a patch of waste ground. One was already
dead, the other was still moving and attempting to talk. Al tried to give him
the kiss of life, during which his own face became smeared with the man's
blood. The picture of Fr Reid kneeling beside the two bodies and giving them
the last rites has remained one of the graphic icons of the Troubles. If you
look closely at the picture, you will notice the bloodstain on Al's face. In
his pocket, he was carrying a position paper from Sinn Fein for the attention
of John Hume. It too was stained with blood. He returned to the monastery to
put it in a new envelope before delivering it to its destination. Slowly and
painfully, the various parts of what
would become the Good Friday Agreement were put in place.
It was probably a moment of personal satisfaction for Al
when, with the Reverend Harold Good, a Methodist minister and a long-time
friend, he was able to announce on September 26, 2005 that they had witnessed
the decommissioning of IRA arms and that they “had been put beyond use.”
At Al’s funeral Mass, Harold Good read the section from
the second reading from the Letter to the Ephesians where Christians are
instructed to “put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). He told how on the night before
the final decommissioning of arms, he and Al had to share a bedroom. Before
turning in, both men spent some time in prayer: Al with his breviary and Harold
with his New Testament. His reading for that day was this very chapter. He was
so moved by it that he had to share it with Al, especially the words: “stand
therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around Your waist, and put on the
breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make
you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” It was surely a sign that heaven's
blessing was on their work.
At Reid's part in the Northern Ireland peace process led
to him being consulted by other peace groups, particularly the Basques in
Spain. He was willing to help and made several trips but was hampered by the
language barrier. He tried to learn Spanish, but Basque was beyond him! In
later years, his longstanding health problems erupted again. There were several
stays in hospital and eventually a permanent stay in a nursing home close to
the Redemptorist community in Dublin.
Al, the priest
Al Reid will be remembered rightly as one of the
principal architects of the Northern Ireland peace process. I want in
conclusion to remember Al Reid the Redemptorist and priest. A few years ago, he
celebrated sixty years of professed membership of the Redemptorist
Congregation. Al was loyal to the Redemptorists. They were also loyal to him.
Successive provincials supported his peace ministry. Sometimes, they might have
wondered might it be better for his health to move him for a while to another
community. Mary McAleese, one of the group of laypeople and confreres Al had
gathered as an advisory group, remembered at his funeral that, like an obedient
religious, Al would agree to go to a new community but never quite got around
to making the move!
He was a creative thinker, but he needed theological
resources. He found this support in one of the great Redemptorist moral
theologians of the time, the late Sean O'Riordan, professor of moral theology
at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome. Fr O'Riordan was well acquainted with the
growing literature of liberation theology. One of the main planks of liberation
theology was how to join in the struggle for economic and social justice in the
spirit of the Gospel. Al valued his expertise and advice.
Fr Gerry Reynolds was Al’s fellow worker in the peace
process. With a great deal of experience in religious journalism and
communications, Gerry was often Al's “front man” when a foreign journalist
wanted a statement and Al wanted to remain in the background.
Redemptorists pride themselves in being there for the
poor, the fragile, the abandoned. For many years, Al used to visit the
traveller sites of West Belfast rounding up groups of children to bring to
school. His ministry to the bereaved and the imprisoned, especially the families
of victims of the Troubles, was generous and time consuming. It was not
confined to one side. On more than one occasion, Al was as respected a presence
at a Loyalist paramilitary funeral as he was at a Republican funeral.
He often celebrated the early morning Mass in Clonard. On
one occasion, after a night spent on the streets during the rioting season, he
sat down after communion. One of the men in the congregation, observing that he
was sound asleep and possibly guessing the cause, shook him gently and said
with that directness of Belfast men, “Father, you wouldn't mind finishing the
Mass, would you? We have to go to work.”
[Al Reid - upper back row left - on a Redemptorist student hurling team.]
Al was not a great man for holidays. At most, he might
take a few days away, and a friend would always arrange a ticket for the
hurling final. A regular feature of his year, however, was at least one
pilgrimage to Knock with a busload of women from the Falls. Most of them were
victims of the Troubles - sons or husbands in jail, children shot dead or
injured in explosions, along with the inevitable family and social breakdown
that was the unspoken legacy of those deadly years. Al sang to them on the bus
(he had a lovely singing voice), prayed with them, heard their confessions and
just talked to them and got their life stories. He may have said little, but
they felt better because someone had listened to them without interrupting or
telling them what they should be doing. People like these regarded Al as a holy
man, not in the conventional sense of holiness but a person of extraordinary
goodness and generosity.
A humble man of
faith
In the midst of the turmoil, Al brought with him a quiet
sense of peace, which was born out of faith. As President Mary McAleese
recalled at his funeral, he had a code for telling you how the peace process
was going. It was shaped by his passion for the hurling fortunes of Tipperary.
When things were looking up, “the Holy Ghost was playing very well at midfield.”
When things were going badly or there seemed to be another road-block, “The
Holy Ghost is on the sideline” or perhaps even had “missed the bus!”
He was characteristically modest about the many
international honours that were bestowed on him, both in Ireland and abroad, in
the aftermath of the success of the peace process.
Al Reid's work with paramilitaries and republicans did
not always endear him to ecclesiastical authorities. He was aware how open to
misinterpretation his work was and that it might easily be used to embarrass
his religious family as well as the Catholic Church as a whole. He kept his
religious superiors updated about what he was doing. The late Cardinal Thomas O
Fiach warmly encouraged him and was in regular contact. It was with the same
sense of the importance of oversight of a delicate ministry that Al sought the
counsel of others, including Professor Mary May McAleese, whose work with the
Redemptorist Peace Mission would provide her critics with ammunition during her
first presidential campaign.
After several years of deteriorating health, Fr Al Reid
died in Dublin on November 22, 2013, fifty years to the day after John F
Kennedy. He was buried in Milltown Cemetery Belfast.
[Father Al Reid's Funeral]
THE LESSON
OF FATHER ALEC’S LIFE
Reflection offered by Rev.
Dr Ruth Patterson at the ecumenical
service for Fr Alec Reid at
Clonard Church, Belfast, November
26, 2013
During the last few days there have been
thousands of words used as many different people have sought to express their
thoughts and feelings on hearing of the death of our dear friend and pilgrim
for peace, Father Alec Reid. Tonight I have been asked to reflect on the lesson
of his life. There are others who are far more qualified than I to comment on
the effectiveness of his huge contribution to our peace process. My only
qualification is that we were gifted with a friendship which I deeply valued.
Like anyone who finds themselves on a road
less travelled, his journey was a lonely one. And for him, Restoration
Ministries, my community, was a safe place where he could drop in unannounced
and simply be himself. For someone who had promises to keep and miles to go “before
he slept,” to be able to make a phone call from any number of unnamed
destinations and just talk was, I think, for him gift and certainly for me a
huge privilege.
I cannot separate Alec the man from Alec the
priest and Alec the peacemaker. He was his vocation — and the Spirit of the
Lord was upon him, holding these three roles together in one person. He had
feet of clay, like the rest of us, but, with deep humility, allowed himself to
be seized by vision. It was not so much he who had chosen such a course but
rather, to paraphrase a one-time secretary-general of the United Nations, Dag
Hammarsjold, the way that had chosen him and he must be thankful. Archbishop
Desmond Tutu once described himself as a prisoner of hope. Alec was similarly
convicted. He never, ever gave up. One of the biggest challenges during the
Troubles was to simply keep on keeping on trusting that there would be an end,
a good outcome. For such a frail looking man, often plagued by illness, he had
huge tenacity.
A word used very often in the New Testament
is endurance. Alec had that in abundance. At the funeral of Martin Luther King,
the President Emeritus of Morehouse College where King had been a student said:
“He was not ahead of his time. Every man is within his star, each in his time.
Each man must respond to the call of God in his lifetime and not in somebody
else's time.” Then he listed, like a roll call of faith, those who, throughout
the centuries, had to act in their lifetime. “None of these,” he says, “were
ahead of their time. With them the time was always right to do that which was
right and that which needs to be done.”
Alec followed the star that had risen for
him and remained true to the light that had fallen into his heart, not only for
a way out of our conflict, but also for so many who were and are victims of
those hard years, including the families of the disappeared. His commitment to
peace was not confined to Ireland, as we know, but was global, most notably in
the Basque region in Spain. Like a bridge over the troubled waters of violence,
loss and anguish he laid himself down. It was his time and it was the right
time. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him.
Beatitude
person
For me, and many others, Alec was a
beatitude person. If you break the word down it simply means, “Let this be your
attitude.” First and foremost, he was a citizen of that upside down kingdom
whose hallmarks are mercy, humility, purity of heart, a hunger for justice,
peacemaking and a willingness to pay the price to see right prevail. Ray Davey
of Corryincela used to say to us, “Jesus never ever said, 'Blessed are the
peace lovers.' He said, 'Blessed are the peace makers.”' This world has far too
many armchair pundits for peace but too few of those who are willing as
'children of God' to embark on such a messy and costly journey. With eyes wide
open, Alec set out on such a path. Why? For him there was no option. The Spirit
of the Lord was upon him.
Sheila Cassidy, in her book Good Friday People, speaks of those like Alec who
travel this way, “As they walk they will, each in good time, arrive at their
Kairos moment, the point of choice, of decision, of a stiffening of the sinews
because danger is in the air and there is no going back.” His attitude was
shaped by his citizenship and inevitably he had all effect oil the world around
him.
Beyond his public persona, Alec had the
maturity of someone who knows who they are and has moved beyond the either/or
and the labelling, judgemental response that call characterize so much of our
living. He knew who he was. He refused to let his actions be determined by the
label others put upon him nor did he categorise or box the other. What he
always saw was another human being in desperate need of help. Within him there
was a huge well of tenderness. Patrick Mathias says that tenderness “involves
compassion, the capacity to suffer with the other person with the vision of a
shared future.” If this is not too strange a comment to make, I think Alec
already lived, in the now, that shared future because he had been grasped by the
vision of peace and unity. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him.
Love
of Church universal
He had a love for the church universal but
was not blind to its shortcomings. He was able to say some hard things without
being destructive. In many of our conversations he used to say to me, “Ruth,
when this is all over (this meaning the Troubles) you and I will have to sort
out Mother Church!” He was also a strong advocate for greater involvement of
women in Church and State, being totally convinced that had there been more
women in key positions of influence the conflict that affected all of our lives
for so long would have been resolved much sooner.
In recent months Pope Francis has delighted Catholic
and non-Catholic alike by his bias for the poor, by calling for a culture of
encounter, making space for honest dialogue, a daring to enter into complex
webs of relationships, a recognition that this is a kairos time to show mercy,
an acknowledgement that the feminine genius is needed wherever there are
important decisions to be made — and much else. In all of this Alec was truly
his brother. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him.
Central to the belief system of the small
and struggling Algerian Church is what they call the sacrament of encounter as
they try to understand how a tiny Christian community can manifest the love of
Jesus in an overwhelmingly Moslem culture and environment. They have been
seized by the ethical urgency of encounter. It is the call to enter into
relationship with the other, a relationship that becomes a source of life for
both.
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
his efforts bear fruit
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
By Gerry Reynolds CSsR
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]
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)
(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.]
