Tribute
to Monsignor John Lennon St Therese's
Parish Edmonton Diocese of Cairns 27 May
1930 – 28 August 2006
Homily
By Bishop James Foley at the Funeral Requiem Mass St
Therese's Catholic Church on 31st August 2006
God
‘s providence is evident in the death of John Lennon. The
hand of a loving God seems everywhere present in the sudden no
nonsense way of John’s dying and in the effIciency in what
has happened since here in the parish of Edmonton which would
have done his own organising abilities proud!
Right
now and even here, God’s hand and John’s help has not
abandoned us. In this fine light church, John took particular
pride in the unusual Stations of the Cross. They are photographic
and by a young Brisbane artist, Cameron Stelzer.
Take
the last three Stations (pictured beside). In the renewed order
of the Fourteen Stations, No. XII is Jesus’ Crucifixion and
Death - the climax of Good Friday. Station XIII has Jesus’
body laid in the Tomb the strangeness of Easter Saturday. While
Station XIV is the Resurrection life restored: renewed
enlightened as on that first Easter Sunday.
In
the depiction of the death of Jesus two photo images have been
interposed. Two consecutise frames are ghosted: a head and
face upright still alive! Then a head, the face are slumped down
to the left shoulder - dead!
The
moment of death is as sudden as that: in the twinkling of an
eye (I Cor 15: 52); in a split second; in the click of a
camera shutter.
In
Jesus’ death the sheer weight of his exhausted body became
just too much to lift up again to maintain the sheer effort of
struggling to breathe. Jesus died between a faint, shallow breath
and a final but tailed breath.
At
a little before 2.30pm on Monday afternoon, the 28 August, John
Lennon died with and in Christ (2Tim 2:13).
It
is as if John’s own body had become just too pained, just
too tired out, just too old to continue to hold his Self -
his large mind, his big heart, his noble Soul.
In
words in this Mass: When the body of our earthly dwelling
place lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in
heaven. (Preface of the Dead, I) Or, as St Paul declares in
2Cor 5:1: We know that when the tent that houses us on earth
is folded up there is a house for us from God, not made by human
hands but everlasting, in the heavens.
In
Station XIII Jesus’ body is laid in the tomb. His
enshrouded body is prone, somehow suspended and appears to float
above or is resting but lightly on the burial bier. Swirling
above this oddly wrapped rested body, three points of light have
become protracted, elongated, and hover, vapour or ribbon-like.
This is achieved by means of time lapse photographs.
This
is Holy Saturday in the Liturgical Year. The only intimation
Scripture gives us of this strange stage is from the letter of I
Peter: in the spirit, he went to preach to the spirits in
prison (3:19). The words of the ancient Apostles Creed put it
starkly : ‘He descended to the dead.”
This
is the region, the phase John - and we, to a limited degree -
occupy in these very days. This is that in-between time. John has
crossed that threshold. We still remain on this side of
that threshold.
The
details, any distinct picture is still obscured necessarily,
inescapably for us. ‘Now we are seeing a dim reflection
in a mirror (1 Cor 1 3:1 2) or the things that no one has
seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all
that God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9).
Both
our simple piety and more elaborated theological reflections too
frequently develop too precise a picture or map of the landscape
of the After Life.
Monsignor
John Lennon's own instincts and insights may accord better with
the New Testament and the nuanced Tradition of the Church.
At
our Priests’ Meetings,from his own mouth, and from the
occasional comments I received about John’s preaching at
funerals, it was clear that he was rightly cautious about some
rather quick and easy Express Lane transportation immediately
after death. It is not simply the case that at the moment of
death we enter some lift, an elevator, on the ground floor and
are whisked without any further stops at intermediate floors, to
arrive instantaneously at the very top floor. Apparently John
resisted the attractive but rather facile notion of immediate
glorification the presumption the instant, full and final
Resurrection immediately at the point of death.
John
was given to use more the language of a Purgatory. This
word carries the sense of some place bleak and punishing. Such a
“Purgation” became an issue much disputed by
Protestant Reformers.
Yet,
this intermediary rather than immediacy is a powerful, subtle and
hope-filled concept. It suggests some place or period or phase of
transition - suspension - purification - perfection. Here Western
philosophical categories may he of help. In Immanuel Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason (1781) has as its crucial fulcrum
point the aesthetics that communion phase where the subjective
knowing self engages with the objective known world via the Inner
Form of Time and its Outer Form - Space: you need space to
measure/mark time!! Yet space/time cease to carry their
conventional understanding or significance when passing from one
order of reality to another. In that non-statement: in eternity
(=no time) there is neither time nor space!
We
are moving here, like Alice in Wonderland into the mysteriouser
and the mysteriouser!!
Lest
this is to preach in the terms of philosophy (I Cor 1:17) there
is the apocalyptic imagery of our first reading It will never
he night again and they sill never need lamplight or sunlight,
because the Lord God will he shining on them (Rev 22:5).
So
it may be better and safer to return to our Gospel reading at
this funeral Mass: Jesus’ reassuring promising words: There
are many rooms in my Father’s house; if there were not I
should have told you. I am qoinq now to prepare a place for you
and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to
take you with me; so that where I am you may be too. (John
14:2). Jesus speaks of many rooms: degrees, stages, floors or
levels of intimacy within the love of God (in the language of
John).
In
this very passage are also the often overlooked words of Jesus: I
shall return to take you with me (John 14: 3). This reverses,
turns upside down and inside out, that common, though
non-biblical notion, that at death the departed one goes on some
journey, crossing the River Stix so you need to place coins on
closed eyes to pay the ferry man!! These are non-Christian
notions, relics from Pre-Christian or pagan understanding of
death and beyond: that we “pass over”!?!
If
we must think in terms of any movement or journeying after death,
then it is rather The Lord Himself who is active and we are
passive. There is a profound truth in Jesus’ words, I shall
return to take you with me: so that where I am you may be too.
This resonates with Psalm 22,
The
Lord is my shepherd there is nothing I shall want – He
guides me aIong the right path. He is true to his word - If I
should walk in the valley of darkness no evil should I fear. You
are there with your crook and your staff – with these you
give me comfort - Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me
all the days of my life and in the Lord's own house shall I dwell
forever and ever. (Psalm 22)
Here
there is a delicate and difficult aspect of Christian faith an
uncertainty about that in-between of my own individual death and
everyone’s Final Resurrection. In other terminology: there
is a distinction between Particular and General Judgements. This
severely perplexed some first generation believers for whom St
Paul shed some enlightenment (IThes 4:1318).
All
these spacio-temporal considerations need however to be balanced
against the intimate, immediate and forgiving words of Jesus on
the Cross to his fellow repenting victim, aptly from the Luke
tradition Indeed, I promise you, today you will be with me in
paradise (Lk 23: 43).
Now
we stand on very sacred ground. What is revealed in the New
Testament is the absolute centrality of Resurrection. As Paul
puts it starkly, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is
futile and my preaching is in vain. (ICor 15:13 14).
With
that assurance, let us move from the uncertainties of the present
phase in which we find ourselves. Such uncertainty is a crucial
cause of our grieving. There is that sting of death (1 Cor 15:55)
within Station XIII the Holy Saturday, the Entombment is the
strange in between time (perhaps it is this which contributes to
the unluckiness of the number 13). Yet we can and do move beyond
this in Faith. Again in words from this Mass the sadness of
death gives way to the bright promise of immortality - Lord, for
your faithful people life is changed not ended (Preface for
the Dead I).
As
Christians we have utter certainty in the Resurrection The Easter
Sunday Event. The tomb/the grave is found empty! The chains of
death cannot hold HIM. Death does not take and consume all and
everything of us. We shall rise with Christ (I Thes 4:16,)
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
trumpet will sound, the dead will he raised imperishable, and we
will he changed. (ICor 15:52)
Station
XIV in this series in Edmonton church has a human hotly
IRRADIATED - as at the Transfiguration - His face shone like
the sun and His clothes became as dazzling as light (Matt
17:2).
The
depiction in Station XIV is the simplest yet starkest in all
these Stations. It has only one human form indistinguishable
individually – young/old – male/female - large/small.
The face is unrecognisable because it is so much AGLOW. The body
has indistinct lines or blurred boundaries a certain aura about
it.
This
is our only Faith, our Hope and our Destiny. We believe in the
Resurrection of the body and Life everlasiing , Amen. (Apostles
Creed).
Let
me conclude iy trying to capture or summarize all of this in
another more concrete way by moving from the art of the Stations
of the Cross to the architecture of church buildings.
John
Lennon’s material contribution was extraordinarily
extensise. Over forty four years serving Cairns Diocese as a
priest he was responsible for building, organizing and
restructuring to an extent that no other person has done in this
Local Church’s now almost one hundred and thirty year
history (from a Vicariate Apostolic based on Cooktown founded on
30th January 1877). There are three major church buildings which
reveal John Lennon’s heart and mind.
The
first, St Monica’s Cathedral was built between 1965 and
1968. John, as bishop’s secretary, had a secondary but
significant role. He commented once - rather resentfully - that
he received only the blame for all the cathedral’s defects!
The cathedral, especially with the former flaming red glass was
Good Friday. I recall one Good Friday, a day not unlike today -
somewhat grey and overcast, when the red glass actually worked
rather well. At the afternoon Good Friday service a powerful
purple glow pervaded the whole space reflecting appropriately a
sense of the Lord’s Passion and Death.
In
the second church building John Lennon was more immediately
involved, It carries his own stamp: St Francis Xavier’s
Church,West Cairns, built in the 1977.
It
has a prayerfulness about it. There is something deeply, darkly
contemplative. With due respect to West Cairns parishioners who
are here, dare I say that there is also something somewhat heavy
and sombre about St Francis Xavier’s. It weighs in upon
you. It constrains and contains you and focuses mind and heart,
It is inwardly directed! It is a Holy Saturday church where in
one sees as through a glass darkly.


Monsignor John
Lennon's final resting place facing the altar and Blessed
Sacrament at his beloved St Therese's Church Edmonton.
Now
and here we are in John Lennon ‘s final and finest church
building, St Therese’s, Edmonton. Into this building went
all his energies and extensive experience, working with his
friend, the notable Brisbane architect, Robin Gibson. This
building is utterly different from the other It is white, light
and uplifting in every aspect. Compared with the other two
buildings - this shouts RESURRECTION.
This
church’s clear light and clean lines express those
ultimate, inescapable experiences, living, dying and rising those
very threshold and marker points of existence.
Here Jesus’
absolutely assuring words gather us all up: I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through
me. (John 14:6)
Bishop James Foley
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