Posts made in July, 2008

BROTHER FRANCIS BARKER, SSS, 85

Posted by on Jul 9, 2008 in Community, Province | 0 comments

THE Province of Saints Peter and Paul (Great Britain-Ireland) announces with deep sorrow the death of BRO. FRANCIS BARKER, SSS. He died peacefully last 6th of July 2008 at the age of 85. Brother Francis is assigned at our Liverpool community at the time of his death. He was born on 29th March 1923. He made his profession in the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament on the 8th of September 1977. Rule of Life Number 13 of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament says ” Comforted by the prayer of the community and by the Eucharist received in viaticum, our brothers will then be ready to die in the Lord.” “The death of a brother shall be celebrated as a paschal event, in a prayer filled with hope. We will faithfully carry out the prescribed suffrages for our deceased.” The funeral Mass for Bro. Francis is on Tuesday, July 15, 2008, 1.15 pm at the Blessed Sacrament Shrine, Dawson Street, Liverpool, England. Let us pray for the eternal repose of the soul of Bro....

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Homily: Funeral Mass of Bro. Francis Barker, SSS

Posted by on Jul 8, 2008 in Provincial Corner | 0 comments

Gospel of st. John 14: 1-7 Like the disciples in the Gospel, our hearts are troubled. We have lost the one we loved in death. Death seems cruel and beyond our understanding. There is only one in the world who can comfort and console us – Jesus Christ. He told us that if we believe in him we will never die, that we will all rise again. We can believe him, because He proved his words were true by overcoming death himself, when he rose from the dead. In today’s Gospel, just before his own death, he tells us that he is going to prepare a place for us. Although we are sad, we are happy for Francis because he has achieved the goal, the purpose of his life – the place prepared for him by God, the place set aside for him for all eternity – a place of eternal adoration. For us who mourn him, it is the end of his life here on earth, but for him it is the beginning of a new fuller life with the Lord. All his life he was a true Christian, as an Anglican, and as a Roman Catholic from the age of thirty-two. He never lost contact with his Anglican roots throughout his life – he was very ecumenical, and brought with him into our Church so much of what is great in the Anglican Church, and gave us a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Anglican tradition. Part of Francis’ own greatness was born out of his Anglican faith. He joined the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament thirty-three years ago to prepare for this hour, the hour of his entrance into glory and eternal adoration. He pursued this goal of eternal adoration with relentless determination. As a religious he appears as nothing if not exemplary in his prayer life. All his religious life he was faithful to daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament – he had wide interests, but it was around this central practice that his life revolved. How often he prayed for this moment, read about it, looked forward to the day when the sacramental veil would be removed, and he would see his Lord face to face. He had that deep love of Scripture, which is a mark of the Anglican tradition – he would often sit in Church in the evenings in Winter or Summer, reading and then falling asleep. Again, in this critical hour for Christ, the disciples ask Jesus to show them the way, and Jesus tells them that he is himself the Way, the Truth and the Life. But once he had departed from this earth, he wanted his disciples to show the way to others. Bro. Francis showed us all the Way. He showed us how to live life here on earth, how to get the best out of it, and also how to prepare for eternal life. He showed us the Way in so many ways: Through the depth of his culture – his interests were wide and without limit. Through poetry – he always kept a book by his bedside, including Gray’s Elegy, which he once told me he considered to be the greatest poem in the English language. He had a passion for the fine arts, and his knowledge of them was truly learned. He loved classical music, especially Mozart – for him, listening to Mozart was a spiritual experience. But outside his religious concerns, his chief and most commanding passion, which at times took control of his personality, was his love of talking on the subject...

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