The Homily At Ron's Requiem Liturgy

At Our Lady of Lourdes Church
8th February, 2005
by
Robin Koning SJ
 Who lived with Ron in the Huron Street Community
 from 1999 until he went to the Jesuit Infirmary.


             In our Jesuit household on Huron Street, Ron was the token Canadian.  Not that there was anything token about Ron, of course.  But for the last 6 years, there has been a strange assortment of Jesuits and other priests living at 569 Huron - a Filipino, an Indian, an Englishman, a Texan, a Korean, a Frenchman, a Malaysian, a Hawaiian, a Congolese, a Vietnamese-American, a Beninese, and an Australian.  In the midst of all these cultures was Ron, the sole Canadian, enthusiastically mediating Canada to us, a task he enjoyed because he loved Canada.  He never forced it upon us, but would respond to questions asked or interest shown - explaining Canadian wildlife, weather, politics, sport, history, geography.  He left no doubt that, to properly understand Canada, one needed to understand the Maritimes and the East Coast experience.  For he loved his Haligonian roots, and looked forward each year to his trip home in August to rest by St Margaret's Bay and spend time with his family, to revisit old sites.

             And, of course, to be near the sea.  The sea forms a good image for Ron's roots - for all those aspects of his nature and early history on which God built with His grace.  Hence today's Gospel, set by the Sea of Tiberias.  The story begins simply enough.  It is after the Resurrection, all the drama of the passion now dissipated - life in ordinary.  Peter says, "I'm going fishing," and his friends say, "We'll come with you."  It's as matter-of-fact as that, with a simplicity Ron would have appreciated - an outdoor activity, on the water, with friends, and with a minimum of fuss.  Ron loved creation - walking briskly around Toronto in any weather, encouraging his lawn and discouraging the weeds, swimming out east, sailing with friends on the lake.  He delighted in telling of the time he skated on a frozen lake in the moonlight at some Jesuit villa.  Skating and skating for miles, and revelling in it - until he came across a deer carcass and then heard wolves howling nearby, and discerned it was time to race for home.  Skates with Wolves.

             In the midst of Ron's life near the sea, back in Halifax, as he completed university - in the midst of his sports and studies and student politics and socialising (he remembered warmly the dances of his youth, as well as the Irish dance nights at Regis) - in the midst of all this, he felt drawn to something different.  Some experience in the midst of his everyday life told him, "It is the Lord," and inspired him to step out of the familiarity of the boat and to hasten to his Lord.  He went to Guelph, to the same land where he will be buried tomorrow, alongside generations of his Jesuit brothers.  There he began his formation - a time of being fed and nourished by the Risen One, like the disciples by the sea.  And of being invited by Jesus, as Peter was, to bring his own fish to the meal - to bring to his Lord and to develop the gifts with which he had been blessed by that same Lord.  Through it all, a growing companionship with Christ - a deepening response to the gently persistent questioning of Jesus, "Do you love me?"  

             In giving his Yes to that question, Ron received his mission - feed my lambs, tend my sheep.  He fulfilled his mission primarily through his teaching; I'm sure Sr. Margaret will share more about those rich years.  But his teaching was but one expression of the eager mind that engaged all that presented itself.  Even his reading of the breakfast newspaper, which he enjoyed later in the morning than most of us, was highly interactive - you could overhear him chuckling at some human foible, grunting at some outrage.

             Over the last few years, Jesus' question, "Do you love me?" took on a different texture for Ron.  His devotion to Christ had never been an affectation or a public show, and this instinctive resistance to any naïve or emotional sense of what loving Jesus and being loved by Jesus might mean was only reinforced in his final illness.  At dinner one night, one of the guys said he had to prepare a homily.  Someone else said, "Just tell them, 'God loves you.'"  Ron's comment was: "When I hear that, I just want to go - 'blah.'"  He was well beyond any place where the love of God could be equated with easy words of piety or nice feelings.  

             But love God and live in God's love he did, as was evident in his handling of his illness.  I saw no sign of self-pity - plenty of anger, to be sure, at perceived inefficiencies of the hospital system (and, inevitably, the politicians responsible) or a doctor who treated him like a machine rather than a person.  But not self-pity.  His grounding in love was evident, too, in a genuine self-acceptance which allowed him lovingly to share vulnerability with others.  In his last months at home, some of us enjoyed a few simple pleasures together - dinner on the verandah on those long summer evenings, outings to Edwards Gardens, or Christie Pits - walking a little, or just sitting and watching the passing parade.  One recovering from a foot operation, one mourning the death of his father, and Ron facing his decline.  The crippled, the mourning and the dying, we joked.  But that summed it up in a way - each carrying a brokenness, and Ron's gentle way with his making it easier for us all to share that vulnerability in simple, unfussy companionship.

             As Ron's love deepened, so too did his hope.  He who always seemed so at home in nature, with his lean, wiry strength and athletic skill, now entered into a deeper level of union with the created world - with creation in its pain and imperfection and tension, what today's epistle called creation groaning:  "The whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now;  and not only the creation, but we ourselves … groan inwardly while we wait for … the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8:22-23).  Through his sick body, Ron entered into that inward groaning of creation, yearning for the freedom of the children of God to be revealed once more in his body, slowly coming to realise that that would only come through the redemption of his body in the resurrection.  At times, the burden seemed too much; yearning became impatience for death. By mid-December, he was dismayed that he would likely not die by Christmas as he had wished.  But over the last month, his hope was further purified as he came to accept that his resurrection would come, not according to his plan, but in God's time.  

             A deepening love, a purified hope - both grounded in a growing faith.  Ron no longer had the option of responding to Jesus' question in active ministry.  It was as though Jesus were now saying, "Do you love me?  Then surrender to me.  Do you love me?  Then let go to me in this situation.  Do you love me?  Then trust me completely."  It was a call to follow in a very different way.  No longer could he fasten his own belt and go wherever he wished.  Now someone else was fastening the belt around him and taking him where he did not at all wish to go (Jn 21:18).  It was difficult for Ron - difficult for the eager inquirer not to have the strength to read;  for the keen conversationalist not to have energy to engage with his visitors;  for the teacher not to teach the last course he had prepared; for the Maritimer not to return to the sea and his family one last time;  for the athlete to watch his body waste away; for the long-term member of the Regis community to move to the infirmary.  Being taken where he did not wish to go.  

             Though he struggled with it, Ron gave himself to this surrender, slowly but surely, letting go more and more, until, over the last few weeks, he seemed to be graced by his Lord with a new level of acceptance.  Earlier on in the infirmary, he had a sense of mission - to challenge what he saw as the outmoded theological opinions of some of the older men, perhaps concerned that they were at risk if they approached the pearly gates in such a state.  But in his last few days, he allowed himself to be ministered to by them, and they took turns at his bedside, praying prayers for the dying.  A surrender leading to a deeper peace and serenity.  When Jesus says that Peter will be taken where he would rather not go, John adds that this indicated "the kind of death by which he would glorify God" (Jn 21:19).  Then Jesus says to Peter, "Follow me."  Ron, too, was taken where he would much rather not have gone.  The kind of death by which he gave glory to God was a long journey in which his love was deepened by God, his hope purified, his faith lived out in growing surrender to his Lord.  And when Jesus was ready, he called to Ron, for the last time in this life, "Follow me."