Rev Kevin James Flanagan
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Born 26/08/1928;
Ordained 22/07/1963
Diocese of Wagga Wagga
Kevin James Flanagan, dearly loved priest of the Diocese of Wagga Wagga, was buried on December 28, 2017. This is the homily preached at his funeral by Fr Bernard Moylan who reflects on the life of a pastor of people.
I am here today because Kevin Flanagan and I once made a pact that, depending on who died first, we would speak at the other's funeral. But to speak at Kevin's funeral is a more Herculean task than I anticipated he would have a far easier assignment with mine because Kevin is so well-loved, so well-known and his name evokes so many stories. Without impugning in any way the ministry of others in the region, few, regardless of denomination or creed, would question the assertion that Kevin was regarded virtually as the pastor of Albury. How that came to be, was not only due to the length of time that he spent here but also to the fact that he was blessed with an outgoing, gregarious disposition which excluded no one. He was as comfortable with a Supreme Court judge as he was with a hotel barmaid. When he would come to Sydney where I now live, I couldn't leave him alone for a few minutes without returning to find him conversing with some stranger at a bus stop or exchanging pleasantries with a lady with carefully coiffed hair walking her dogs. Since when, I wondered, did Kevin develop such an interest in toy poodles with a Scandinavian clip? He was a people person through and through and the vocation he chose was, in that sense, not only most eminently well-suited to his personality but one, in these difficult days for men of the cloth, which enabled a bright light to shine on the scattered pieces which now surround an empty pedestal. He was an authentic voice in a pummelled and humiliated church struggling to find its feet again.
But there wasn't much of the cloth about Kevin. He did not wear clerical clothes yet would be one of the most recognizable faces in the whole region. Whether it be in the hospitals, the race course, the Commercial Club or the main street, everyone seemed to acknowledge and respect Fr Kev or just Kevin. It was a fascinating, albeit frustrating experience, to accompany him on any outing constant waving, constant stopping and constant cheery banter. I never asked him why he eschewed the clerical collar but I know that he had an innate aversion to clericalism', that attitude which underscores the privileged status of clergy over the laity. It is virtually impossible to describe the spirituality of the Christian who is a minister on the exclusive basis of his office. Minister and layman are both called to sanctity of life; both are guided by the Spirit who bids them choose, freely and responsibly, their own better way'. Kevin understood that instinctively and, for this reason, he would frequently bewail the immediate donning of clerical collars beneath their pastel blouses and well-tailored suits, by the women ordained in the Anglican Church. To him, it seemed, a wholly unnecessary affectation. He did not take exception to their ordination but he did question their rush to become identifiable clerics. I know that the merits and demerits of clerical dress is a moot point, but for him, priesthood was what you do and what you are, rather than how you dress. It was about service, especially to the vulnerable and the disempowered rather than symbolic status or sacramental power. In his view, cucullus non facit monachum. The cowl does not make the monk.
A man from Murray River country
Like so many others, I encouraged Kevin to retire earlier, certainly before his ninetieth year! I think he knew he should. His once rude health was waning. He had little memory lapses. Breathing became more of an effort. His voice had lost its strength. Riding a bike to the Mercy Hospital became impossible. Even popes now have an expiry date. The years may have condemned - we can do nothing about that - but age did not seem to weary Kevin .He still kept in close contact with people and events. He just couldn't let go. But life, as we know, is a whole series of letting go our youth, our ambitions, our dreams, our health, our independence and he seemed conflicted. The Murray River coursed through his bloodstream from the time he was born on its banks in Tocumwal in 1928. If the Murray River is the life blood of this region, it was Kevin's lifeblood as well. Of all his sporting activities golf, cycling, squash, swimming, tennis, skiing none surpassed his love of kayaking. The river was his cathedral. It was where he came closest to God. He loved the river, the bush ambience, the song of the magpies, the occasional sighting of a platypus, the whiff of the gum trees and, above all, he loved the people of the Murray River region. In those colourful words of Pope Francis, he undoubtedly had the smell of the sheep' about him. His was a ministry of welcome not exclusion. He worked with people as they are, not as they ought to be, perhaps taking pastoral risks to meet human need, even if in the process - again to use the words of Pope Francis the Church gets soiled by the mud of the streets'. So letting-go was just too much. At last, he has finally had to let go but now into the arms of the loving Christ whom he sought to serve throughout his long life.
The irony is that I know of few people who could have better filled in their days of retirement. He loved dinner parties, he loved sports of all types, he loved the theatre and the movies, he loved traveling. He loved life in all its myriad facets. Retirement for Kevin would never have meant sitting alone wondering whether to have a shave or complete the crossword puzzle. He had too many things to do, far too many people to visit. Although he appreciated the good things of life a gourmet meal or a nice malt whisky - he never over-indulged in anything. He was, on the contrary, quite abstemious. The pleasures that life offered, he took in small sips rather than big gulps. He knew exactly when enough was enough and so was able to maintain his svelte figure throughout his entire life. He always dressed conservatively but neatly and for years gloried in the name given him by the late Fr Peter Quinn dapper Dan'.
A friend to all, a man of the people
But service was essentially what it was all about for Kevin. He refused to show the slightest petulance toward those who incessantly interrupted him during meals. He was a soft touch and word quickly passes around. He found it hard to say no' to anybody and he attempted the impossible task of pleasing everybody. That would occasionally get him into some thorny predicaments. The number of people whom he accompanied as they passed into the world beyond would be legion. He held their hands, they prayed together, if possible, and he would later quietly move among the newly bereaved family members, somehow knowing what to say at a time when words do not come easily. Having that special predilection for the marginalised and those with whom life had dealt harshly, the prisoner, the reject, the fringe dweller, were high on his list of priorities. Long before Pope Francis, he had taken to heart his words that a healthy church is a church of the streets that isn't afraid to take risks and get bruised.' That risk-taking that Pope Francis calls for can get messy. But life itself is messy. Not everything always runs according to plan. Knowing that the church has also much to learn from the experience of such people on the margins, he treated them all with real not simulated respect. The local Koori community also quickly came to acknowledge that they always had a friend in Fr Kev and he would be the one to whom they would frequently turn in all of life's crises. His family was likewise never neglected and knew that they could call on Kevin in all the changing vicissitudes of their own lives.
Kevin said he had originally wanted to be a missionary priest and in 1971 was given permission by then Bishop Frank Carroll to work temporarily among the Huli people in the Southern Highlands of PNG with the American Capuchins. He took to this work like a fish to water, trekking miles in rugged conditions, mingling with fairly primitive indigenous people - the area was totally uncharted until the 1930s - learning their customs and their language was a joy for him. He never lost that affection for the people of Papua New Guinea and could well have stayed there forever. I accompanied him in 1991 when he returned for the 25th anniversary of the Capuchin foundation in Mendi and I witnessed for myself the genuine fondness that the indigenous people still held for him. Yet, he must have been quite robust to endure the unhealthy climate and harsh conditions of the Southern Highlands, for when I returned home after my very brief stay, I was immediately admitted to hospital with amoebic dysentery.
While he was in the missions, we used to send money to aid in their work. Immediately upon returning to Australia, Kevin bought himself a Volvo, at that time one of our most prestigious cars. We taunted him with questions about how that was possible and queried what had really happened to our mission contributions. He always chuckled. He revelled in self-deprecating humour and self-mockery. He also had a liking for the whimsical and the absurd, Pythonesque comedy, the two Ronnies' repartee and Fawlty Tower imbroglios would send him to bed still giggling.
But paper work and administration were never Kevin's forte. He would willingly admit to his dereliction in that area perhaps another reason why PNG suited his pastoral style. He would prefer to be holding a glass of champagne mingling with people of all kinds, discussing the footy or the Easter Racing Carnival or the latest foreign movie. When a mother was once searching for her child's unrecorded baptism at St Patrick's, Albury - Kevin was an assistant there before moving to Nth Albury she confirmed to me again and again that Fr Kevin had performed the ceremony. Why, he was even at the party afterwards' she assured me. That perhaps is the problem', I ventured to suggest. We were eventually able to update our records.
Creative, authentic and spontaneous
Liturgy was another area in which Kevin never felt unduly constrained. He put his own interpretation on Christ's pronouncement about the Sabbath being made for man, not man for the Sabbath and applied it loosely to liturgical matters. Like a good party, petty rules could never hold him back. He did tell me that when in the Manly seminary with Tony Doherty - they were the senior members of the class both having worked prior to entering - they often felt as if the clock had turned back and they had reverted to being schoolboys. He was once given permission by the seminary authorities to visit a dentist in the city but with the strict proviso that he return straightaway with no deviations supposedly to avoid the temptations of the Corso and the Manly promenade. But on the way back, he suddenly decided to do something especially daring and went into one of those art deco Greek Cafes, popular at the time to imbibe a coffee. While nonchalantly sipping the illicit brew, he suddenly noticed two seminary professors enter the shop. There he was with no escape route, caught in flagrante delicto. Petrified with fear of dismissal from the seminary for arrant disobedience, he slid beneath the table of his cubicle until both he - and they - disappeared. The comicalness of the situation didn't escape him a black-suited, grown man in broad daylight skulking beneath a milk bar table. As the charismatic pastor of Redfern parish in Sydney, Ted Kennedy, used to say: They kept us in short pants'.
Kevin's budding clerical career could well have ended on that fateful day and Albury might have been deprived of one of its most revered pastors. Perhaps the somewhat cavalier attitude to minor rules he regarded as quite fatuous, had its genesis in St Patrick's College Manly.
Kevin was, above all, a respected and holy priest even though I might sound a tad flippant concerning his all too relaxed modus operandi. People quickly sense the authentic and it was his very humanness which drew people to him. We even minister best sometimes from our own weakness and brokenness which help us to acknowledge our need to depend completely on God and to connect to others in heart-to-heart ways. It can be in and through our wounds and imperfections that we become useful in God's hands wounded healers' as the late spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, called such ministers. Even St Paul had to admit that God's power is at best in weakness. What works is not knowing it all and having it, not uncompromising rigidity, which like bad religion masks the face of God, but mercy and compassion, illustrated in the unexpected papacy of the present incumbent from Argentina, admired by many but unsettling to quite a few. Kevin rightly saw mercy and compassion as being at the very core of a priest's ministry and he was also able to find grace and holiness in a secular world that struggles to name its spiritual longing. At the conclusion of the 2014 Extraordinary Synod, Pope Francis said that the church must never be afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and sinners
not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on peoples' wounds'. That well describes Kevin Flanagan's church.
Like the rest of us, Kevin was certainly human and he had his failings and his foibles; in fact, he could be, at times, quite exasperating. Even canonised saints are not devoid of character flaws. Having recently read Renzo Allegri's La Vita ed i Miracoli di Padre Pio, I was struck by the fact that this pious, miracle-working Capuchin monk who bore the wounds of Christ on his body could also be, at times, quite brusque, even rude, and had a very short temper. When Jesus was complimented by the rich young man seeking spiritual guidance, he replied: No one is good but God alone'. In other words, perfection resides solely, uniquely and exclusively in God.
A man of prayer
But, most importantly and most essentially, Kevin was a man of prayer, as every successful minister of the gospel must be, and he loved his chosen work. One of the many ways in which this shone through was his unflagging good humour and his untiring patience. Controversies and areas of friction wouldn't deflect him and, while he might be mildly critical, he never allowed cynicism or rancour to slacken the hand he had placed so resolutely to the plough fifty four years ago. We all have different personalities and, if some things can induce either tears or laughter, as they often do, Kevin invariably opted for the laughter. I never once saw him lose his temper or even his cool. He may have but I never witnessed it. And during his final months on this earth, in great discomfort, struggling for every breath, his once vigorous body disintegrating and having to submit to the indignity of others attending to all of his needs, he never complained. He tried in fact to assume an air of normality.
But just as Kevin finally has had to make the definitive surrender, the Lord bids us to let go as well. Letting go is very hard. The apostles didn't want to let go of Christ but he told them that if he didn't go from them, he couldn't send the Holy Spirit. Mary Magdalene wanted to hold on to the Risen Jesus but he gently told her not to cling to him because he had not returned to the Father. Although for many, Kevin Flanagan is the only parish priest in the parish of North Albury they have ever known, they, too, have to let him go. Every life involves many leave-takings, great and small. This is one. There will be others.
It takes the lived Christian experience to convey this idea of letting go and it takes a poet to put the experience in a nutshell. Cecil Day Lewis, the Anglo Irish poet laureate and father of the actor, Daniel Day Lewis, wrote a poem called Walking Away, occasioned by watching his son walk off to school for the first time. I quote the final few lines:
I have had worse partings but none so gnaws at my mind still
Perhaps it is roughly saying that God alone could perfectly show
How selfhood begins with a walking away
And love is proved in the letting go
We believe that Jesus' cry on the cross: It is finished', is not an ending but the perfection of a task given him by the Father. It is said that a Roman officer, observing the tide of battle flowing successfully for his troops and with the knowledge that the enemy had been routed, would sound the trumpet and similarly shout aloud: It is finished'. For Kevin, too, the battle of life is over. Rest and victory are his prize. The best is yet to come, beyond what mere human words can even attempt to describe and no one is more deserving of that prize than Kevin James Flanagan. May his magnanimous soul now rest contentedly in the happiness of God's home.