Here is an English translation of the homily given by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin at the funeral mass of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe on September 2, 2006:
CARDINAL BARBARIN’S FUNERAL HOMILY FOR FATHER PHILIPPE
SEPTEMBER 2, 2006 AT THE PRIMATIAL CHURCH OF SAINT-JEAN IN LYON
The readings of the funeral mass for Father Philippe were the following:
First reading: Rev. 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Psalm 115
Second reading: I John 1:1-4
Gospel: John 17:6, 14-23
“Yes, I am coming, and will not delay. I am coming soon.”
That word of the Lord, we heard it two times, in the passage from the book of Revelation, which was our first reading. It resonates within us in a strange manner on this day on which we entrust to God the life of a man whom the Lord has just called to Himself, just short of his 94th birthday. Since mid-July, this preaching friar who had spoken and taught so much, was silent, he had entered into silence!
“Yes, I come without delay.” I receive that sentence much as the Lord’s answer to the questions that Father Marie-Dominique Philippe asked Him all through his life, as a child, as a religious, as a professor, and as a founder. A disciple with a burning heart and intrepid intelligence, he questioned his Master about everything: the world, people, mission . . . He was a seeker, who wanted to understand, to receive the understanding of things and people. Yet Jesus’ answer is never a reflection or an analysis; it is His own self who approaches and who gives Himself: “Yes, I come without delay!”
From his youth, Father Marie-Dominique learned from his Dominican uncle, Father Dehau, to consider the book of the Apocalypse as a fountain of hope, a comfort, a support in times of testing. He who “will come to judge the living and the dead” approaches us each day. By the Word of Life and by the sacraments that the Lord left us, eternity comes to pass nearby each one of our days.
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Father Marie-Dominique Philippe was the man of the Source [The French word "source" means both "source" and "spring", as in a spring of running water.]. Contemplating Jesus on the cross, he saw in that love that went on to the end, to the extreme, the summit of all wisdom. He wanted unceasingly to go up to that Source, and he invited us, us his students and you his brothers and sisters, to not “go with the flow,” to never leave the demanding and joyful path that goes up. Men, in the beauty of their existence created in the image of God, in the nobility of their intelligence, the Lord’s disciples will only be truly refreshed with living and vivifying water.
For him, the water of the Spring had a name: truth. Veritas, a word that Jesus chose to define Himself: “I am the truth.” (John 14:6)
Truth, which is the Dominican family’s currency. Truth, a supreme good, which holds an essential place in the prayer of Jesus, as we just heard: “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) Between man who seeks with sorrow and God who gives Himself generously, the meeting point is the sanctuary where we meet to prostrate ourselves and to enter into worship. That is the interior attitude to which the first commandment invites us: “Word of life”: “You will worship” There, all the charity of God is communicated to us.
Worship and charity, for Father Philippe, are without doubt two of the most precious words of the spiritual life. Charity is like a river of kindness which comes from God and goes down onto men. That vision made Jesus thrill with joy, through the working of the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21). It is living in the present, remaining available in a concrete way, in relationship with those near to us. It begins with the splendid experiment of friendship, a subject so dear to Father Philippe’s heart. Friendship, for him, was “the pearl of the human heart.” God knows if he was himself admirable and faithful in his friendships, even in difficult circumstances.
Life did not spare him, and he knew suffering. With a very fine humanity, a sharp sensitivity, he knew how to live those moments that, most often, dumbfound us completely. With courage, with nobility of heart, he set out again, despite testings, in search of a truth that one can find only by charity. He looked at the world, he listened to people, he loved all he knew, with a particular affection for the young! He even said that he had the impression of understanding them better at the age of 90 than at 50. Youth, “I see in it,” he said, “a great desire for light and truth, like a new enthusiasm.” The young were for him a source of inner joy.
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Father Philippe was truly indwelled by hope in his search for truth. He was convinced that one can always go deeper, to the origin of the philosophical question. Philosophy, for him, begins with the observation of the world that provokes astonishment and leads to amazement. Like a child, the philosopher poses his questions and must never fear to go to the essential. One could say that his philosophy is ambitious. He does not intend to stop with commentary on texts, with analysis or with description of situations. Ardently, he seeks truth. Metaphysics is for him neither a luxury, nor a superior science. And he is happy to see that “a poor country woman,” as he said, Marthe Robin, encouraged him to continue this difficult work, rather than to go to preach retreats in monasteries. The Church needs it. With a great interior energy – that is the thumos of truth – he continues his search and asks still and always.
For him, philosophy is a via inventionis, a road of discovery. One goes out, one seeks, one hesitates, then one perceives the order of things, relations are established, and it is a wonder to share with others what one has discovered. Such is the joy of one who teaches philosophy. All that, of course, closes nothing, stops neither with a circle of friends nor with a school. Father Philippe surprised by the diversity of his contacts: he maintained fruitful relationships with intellectuals from diverse disciplines and philosophies very different from his own. He spoke often of his meetings with artists, for whom he had a real admiration and perhaps a wisp of envy.
How beautiful is intelligence open to a variety of cultures, expanded by the observation of the world and the broad love of all those whom He has given to us to be near! It is ready to welcome the revelation, with a real breadth. In theology, St. Thomas was very quickly given as master to Father Philippe, by Father Dehau and by the Dominican order. Theological work is a rational path in which all of spiritual life is engaged. It is a mysterious adventure, for the revelation is a love that gives itself and leads us in its vigor. In reading what Father Philippe wrote of the “three wisdoms”, I have often thought that the last two, theology and mysticism, are so dependent that they merge. For him, surely, as for the great cantors “practiced in divine music” who have carried the Christian message to us since Antiquity, “theology is written on the knees.” That is the Apostle John who tradition calls “o theologos”, the theologian. And, in fact, when Father Philippe gave conferences or courses, his audience perceived a grace which invited them to enter into prayer.
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The texts that we have heard in the liturgy of the Word are all clearly Johanine: Saint John, whom he loved, and who Saint Thomas taught him to love more. St. John, whom he gives as a model for his proximity to the Lord. St. John, who can do so much, according to him, to clarify the Church’s present and future. “In the renewal of the Church,” he said, “it is necessary that there should be that perspicacity of intelligence, that purity of heart, and that youth which, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, characterize the holiness of St. John.” But if I stopped there, I would have the impression of having said nothing yet.
For Father Marie-Dominique Philippe was first of all a priest. His ministry and all his life are situated by the Cross of Jesus. It was enough to see him celebrate Mass to understand that the Eucharist was not for him a treatise of theology, but first of all a mystical adventure that leads to the source of salvation. Entirely given to his mission, he was always accessible to those who addressed themselves to him, patient to listen to them. In his attention to their regard, his proximity with the mystery of the Cross and his intimacy with Mary showed through. He wanted to invite them into the love of communion that united Mary and John, the image of the incipient Church, at Golgotha. His compassion was for him the source of an immense hope, sometimes excessive. He was convinced that, whatever his misery, a man is awaited by God’s mercy. From any wound, he could be cured, be raised, reappear. Sometimes this fatherly heart trusted, trust too much, beings so fragile that he should have had more closely accompanied, and perhaps tested more, brothers to whom he should have listened more, for a fairer discernment. If he searched for all paths to healing, it was especially with the intention that the testimony of the Father’s love be close to each one.
This mystery of compassion finds, for him, an exceptional model in the presence and silence of Mary at the foot of the Cross. It is the moment when Jesus trusts his mother to the care of the beloved disciple: “Woman, behold your son. . . behold your mother.” (John 19:26-27) Several among you would have liked, I was told, for this passage of St. John to be read, as it is foundational for your community and in the whole life of the Church. Finally, you chose to contemplate the sacerdotal prayer, the Lord’s long and precious message, on the vigil of His passion. That prayer helps us to understand the depths of the mystery of compassion. When we understand the words by which Jesus evokes his union with the Father, “That they may be one, as you, Father, you are in me, and I in you (17:21), we understand what the unity can be that He proposes that we live with each other, in our communities, in the Church or in the family. The source is in the Trinitarian communion, and the first example of it is offered to us by Mary, the All Holy, and John, the beloved disciple, at the foot of the Cross.
In the history of the Church, Father Marie-Dominique rightly loved those in whom he recognized that mystery of compassion. You know their names: St. Dominic, who often exclaimed: “My mercy, what are sinners going to become?” St. Catherine of Siena, John of the Cross, “my old friends,” as he called them. Of St. Thérèse and her “little way,” he said: “She touches what is deepest.” Then, we must mention Marthe Robin, who lived the Passion of the Lord each week and who mattered so much to him, St. Faustina, and Mother Teresa very indwelled by the cry of Jesus on the Cross: “I am thirsty!” But always, and first of all, St. John and the very holy Virgin Mary.
One among you told me, “Never have I heard anyone speak of Mary like Father Marie-Dominique Philippe.” For him, in the company of this Mother, one grows in the spiritual life, which is to say that one becomes little again, until being only a little one like the Beloved Son nestled at his Mother’s breast, “the fruit of her womb.” Mary invites us too to learn the path of the Source, the Source of a love that Jesus alone knew and that, by the Incarnation, he came to reveal to us: “No one has ever seen God: the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, it is He who has revealed Him.” (John 1:18). For him, it was more important to form his students’ spirit and heart in this mystery of the compassion than to write books for them. He especially loved to communicate to them the thirst to receive God’s gifts directly.
I would like to address myself most especially to you, the sisters and brothers of the “St. John family.” On April 8, 2001, some bishops were brought together with the bishop of Autun to tell Father Philippe of the French Church’s recognition, and to listen to him reflect on its charism and its foundations. He had come with some brothers, chosen from his close collaborators. He explained to us his profound attachment to the successor of Peter and spoke to us of the exchanges that he had had with the Holy Father. One day, he told us he had received from him a clear message: “Tell your brothers that the true founder of the Congregation of St. John is St. Dominic.” His bull of canonization, he explained to us, presents St. Dominic not as a monk or an apostle, but as a vir evangelicus. In that, he follows Christ. It is not a question of knowing if he is contemplative or active, since Christ was both at the same time: a being turned toward the Father and entirely given to his brothers. “Vir evangelicus, there it is for us, in the Congregation of St. John, the essential expression.” That sheds an additional light on Marthe Robin’s view of Fr. Philippe: “He is a man who profoundly saw the Gospel.” And, so that the word vir does not imply any isolation (!), he added: “A little contemplative who gives himself totally to God . . . putting all his confidence and his hope in Mary, is there anything more beautiful?
Father Philippe thus leaves you the figure of St. John as a treasure. One could say that he went up from St. Dominic to St. John to touch the Lord more closely. He wishes the renewal of your theological life by the perspicacity of intelligence, to serve faith, by the purity of heart, to serve charity, and with the vigor of youth, to serve hope.
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I would like to close with some words of St. John himself. Which ones to draw from the readings of this Mass? There are those that join our prayer with that of the Church: “The Spirit and the Bride say: “Come!” (. . .) Let the one who thirsts come forward” (Rev. 22:17), and those that invite us to mission: “That which we have contemplated (. . .) we testify to it. We announce to you that eternal life.” (I John 1:1-2). “Bring to others the fruit of our contemplation,” here is what the apostolate is, according to St. Thomas. While the deacon proclaimed the Gospel, did you not have, as I did, the impression that those words came to us at the same time from Jesus and from Fr. Philippe? They evoked the work of your founder among you and his view of your future: “I have made your name known to them . . . I do not ask you to take them out of the world . . . Consecrate them in truth.” The prayer of Fr. Marie-Dominique is based on that of the Lord for all of his disciples: “That they may be one.” It also includes the vast range of all those who will be touched by your apostolate or who populate your prayer. “I do not pray only for those who are here, but also for those who will hear their word and will believe in me.” (v. 20)
May the power of that prayer be a great comfort for you in the accomplishment of your vocation and of your mission. As Pope John Paul II invited us in entering into the new millennium: “Let us go forth in hope, with the support of Christ, with love for men.” Duc in Altum!
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