BRENDAN MACDONNELL (O.S.A) GONE HOME IN THE TIME OF WAITING.

 

Some years ago, when I was a novice in the Augustinian novitiate, I had the privilege of listening to one of Brendan's homilies. He began by referring to the death of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, whose unforgettable last words were "Noli timere", which means "Do not be afraid". These words encapsulate a sentiment that Brendan himself would want to convey as we bid him farewell, a reassurance not to be paralysed by grief or fear. Brendan would want us to embrace peace in the face of death, to face its inevitability with acceptance, not shock.

The usual religious sentiment of someone “going to a better place” will, no doubt, cross our minds as we move through this moment of loss. Yet Brendan’s outlook extended beyond such platitudes. He embodied an understanding of the Heideggerian assertion that we are "Beings-towards-death". As the Spanish philosopher Julián Marías reminds us:

"If mortality were merely possible, but not necessary, if man were 'exposed' to death but not directed toward it, if he were simply mortal but not moriturus, he would have to reckon with death as an eventuality, but he would not reckon with it as a condition shaping his life. Hence, death functions in the detail of life, especially in everyday life. We know that we can die at any moment, but precisely because it may be at any moment, it is neither necessary nor probable that it be this moment. But the future-oriented structure of human life brings us inexorably to its projection, and this is structured into foregrounds, middle grounds, and backgrounds."[1]  Brendan recognised the deep truth in this. Death is not simply an abstract eventuality; it is a defining structure of life, shaping the contours of our existence. It dwells not only in our grand gestures but in the minutiae of everyday life.

This moment of farewell obliges us to acknowledge a truth that resonates in the striking last words of Gerard Manley Hopkins: "I am happy, so happy. I loved my life." The American poet Christian Wiman observes how rare and heartening it is to witness someone express such joy in an occasion so often dominated by grief. Hopkins’s words beg the question: how could one who so deeply loved life find happiness in its end?

Wiman offers an answer:

"The capacity of dying into the life that one has loved rather than falling irrevocably away from it." [2]

Brendan exemplified this capacity. He did not flinch at the presence of mortality. Instead, he lived fully, deeply, and with great awareness of life’s fleeting beauty.

And so, as we mourn Brendan, we celebrate him. We honour his life by acknowledging his acceptance of death, not as an enemy to be feared, but as an integral part of the human condition. Brendan would urge us not to seek refuge in simplistic certainties, but to find grace in the tension between presence and absence, permanence and impermanence. Perhaps the most authentic tribute we can offer is to embrace the complexity of grief without losing sight of the joy that Brendan’s life brought us. To confront the chaos of loss with the courage to say, "Noli timere."  In the tension between life and death, in the love of the finite, lies a hope that defies easy explanation.

And that, perhaps, is Brendan’s greatest legacy.

 MAY HE REST IN THE QUIET OF THE INFINITE

Hemen A. Emmanuel O.S.A

Colegio Mayor Mendel. C. del Rector Royo-Villanova, 6, Moncloa - Aravaca, 28040 Madrid

Madrid, España.

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[1] Marías, Julián, Metaphysical Anthropology : The Empirical Structure of Human Life. , Translated by Frances M. López-Morillas, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971. pp. 199-200

[2] Wiman, Christian. "Dying into the Life." Commonweal Magazine, 15 May 2019, www.commonwealmagazine.org/dying-life . Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.