Homily of Bishop Leo O’Reilly
at the Funeral Mass of Canon Micheál Kelly
St Patrick’s Church, Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, 9th February 2011
The words of the book of Ecclesiastes in our first reading remind us of something that we might rather forget – that as certainly as each of us was born, each of us will die: “There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die…” Canon Micheál Kelly had a very long life and a fruitful priestly ministry. His time to die finally came early on Monday morning after a short illness. He was active and out and about until a few weeks ago and he was lucid right to the end. He would be eighty nine in a little over a month. He was ordained in 1947 and was almost 64 years a priest. We thank God today for his marathon priestly ministry.
Like many priests at that time he began his ministry in England, in the diocese of Birmingham, where he spent 3 years. He came back to Ireland in 1950 to my native parish of Kill. In Kill he threw himself into the life of the parish, became involved in several organisations, encouraging, inspiring, and courageously reforming where necessary. He visited and got to know everyone in the parish and did the thousand and one things that priests do in any parish.
The records say that he spent only three years in Kill, but the impression he made on my young life and on my family and I’m sure on many others was life-lasting. My mother died the year after he came to the parish and he did her funeral. Some years later when my father became seriously ill he was on the scene again, showing his care and concern for our family even though he had moved to another parish. After my father’s death I found a short manuscript among his effects. It was written in fountain pen in copperplate handwriting. It was the homily Fr Kelly preached at my mother’s funeral and which my father had obviously treasured and kept all those years. I know there are people here from every parish where Canon Micheál served whose lives were touched in ways similar to mine.
Fr. Micheál went on to be curate in Kilallan, where he spent 12 years, and Bailieborough, where he spent nine. One of his tasks in his first three parishes was to build a house for the curate. But while he did that well, he saw he real mission as building relationships, building community. He was first and always a people’s person.
Fr Micheál became parish priest in Castlerahan where he spent 13 years in all before going to Manorhamilton as parish priest and Vicar Forane in 1987. He retired to Ballinamore in 1997 when he reached 75. The wheel had come more or less full circle. He was back near his native Aughawillan, and among his family and friends. But of course he never really retired. Throughout almost 14 years of so-called retirement he was still celebrating Masses and attending funerals, visiting people, especially the sick, helping out where he was needed. The only difference was that he was no longer confined to one parish but covered every parish in a 20 mile radius of Ballinamore.
The secret of Fr Micheál’s long and fruitful ministry was his prayer, his faith in Christ and his imitation of Christ. He took as his model Christ, the Good Shepherd. The priest, who models himself on Christ the Good Shepherd, tries to imitate the things that Jesus did. In today’s gospel Jesus speaks of two things in particular that mark out the Good Shepherd. The Good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Of all the priests I have known I can’t think of anyone who gave himself more generously and unselfishly to the people in every parish he served than Fr Micheál. He was available day and night, perhaps more during the night than the day, and he welcomed all who came. You might say he had no life of his own. He gave it completely to others.
Secondly, Jesus says about himself as the Good Shepherd: “I know my own sheep and my own know me…I call them by name and they follow me.” Fr Micheál knew his parishioners individually, young and old and in between. He made no distinctions. He called them by name and had a great gift of remembering names. And that recognition affirmed people. It told them that they mattered, that they belonged.
Over the course of his 64 years as a priest he called and challenged many young men to consider seriously a vocation to the priesthood and many did and are priests today. I have no doubt that he had an influence on my own decision to become a priest and I’m sure many others here could say the same. Today as we commend him to God we pray that more of our young people will have the faith, the idealism and the generosity to follow his example of unselfish service as priests or religious in the Church.
There are so many things that could be said about Fr Micheál that I haven’t said: his spirit of poverty, total lack of interest in material things, his progressive views on many issues, his strong opinions on everything from international affairs to how to make a cup of tea. But I know he would not want me to finish without a reminder that, like all of us, he was a sinner in need of God’s mercy. So we not only thank God for his great gifts and for all the lives he touched for good, we also ask God to heal all whom he may have hurt or failed in the course of his ministry, to forgive his sins and bring him to the fullness of life eternal.
I offer my deepest sympathy to his brother Thomas, his sisters Elizabeth, Kathleen and Mary, to his nieces and nephews, grandnieces and nephews and all his relatives and friends. We have lost a great priest and a great friend. You will miss him. We will miss him. May he rest in peace.
