Obituary Notice
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ER. Lolium DEVE CP —_ A priest who lived and preached the compassion of Christ. It is the present mind of the Church that funeral homilies should not be panegyrics or sermons praising the departed Christian. This restriction has not, I believe, commonly created difficulties within the Congregation of the Passion. In the case of Father Colum Devine, however, the matter is different. And if] had to give a title to my homily, it would be “A priest who lived and preached the compassion of Christ”. Today we give back to God a precious gift God has given us. Because the gift is so precious, our hearts are torn. And still we gather in God’s presence to celebrate that gift. Something of a paradox, I know — sadness and celebration. For the inspired passage we heard from the Gospel of John speaks to us.on two levels. It reproduces the emotion in our hearts and it forces on our minds an all-important message of Jesus. There is no answer to death that will satisfy the philosopher. In the face of suffering and death, human wisdom is bankrupt. Peace will come not from logic but from trust — trust that stems from love, love of a God who, John’s Gospel tells us, “so loved us that He gave His only Son” to an excruciating cross [Jn 3/16]. As you listened to the Gospel passage, the mystery-laden message of Jesus, did you notice that he was not satisfied with Martha’s act of faith? Oh yes, she believed, believed in life — but in another life: “I know that my brother will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” [Jn 11/24]. No, says Jesus, that’s not the point. “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” [26]. Shall never dies. This is not a pious exaggeration, a sop for those of us who sorrow. This is not my private opinion. This is the faith and trust of the Catholic Church, spread across the centuries and the nations. The most rapturous, the most consoling words in the Gospel are the short words Our Lord spoke to his apostles the night before he died: “I have life, and so you will have life” [Jn 14/19]. Jesus said to Martha, “I am. ..the life” [Jn 11/25]. Jesus not only has life, he is life because the Holy Spirit, that Spirit who gives life, is his Spirit, and this Spirit, this life, this Spirit of life, he gives to us. And so for Colum while there is much to mourn, yet we can rejoice too. How does one recapture seventy-three years of vigorous life? How does one recapture Colum? Each man and woman whose life he touched, and we are many, each one of us has his or her own memories. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1930, he came of a pious and happy family of 6 boys and 4 girls, Malachy and Rose were his parents. As a young Christian in search of the true following of Christ, Vincent, as he was baptized, renounced the discipline of marriage and the urgent claims of family life, to join the Passionist community in England, one of the earliest provinces of this world-wide Order, a province proud to have been founded by Blessed Dominic Barberi and Ignatius Spencer. So fifty odd years ago the Devine family gave their brother to the Passionist family, and they themselves, through him, became a treasured part of that family. Colum was eighteen when he made his vows, and six years later was ordained to the priesthood in 1955. He thus truly became “a man for others” in the way of St Paul of the Cross, his founder and mentor — and he never looked back. After ordination, like many another before him and since, the young Colum went off to Rome for post-graduate studies in the Angelico University, to listen to interminable lectures in Latin, to absorb the atmosphere of the Eternal City and above all to dream dreams about his future ministry as a Passionist.
To his great delight, on returning from Rome he was assigned to the community at Minsteracres, and there he blossomed. Minsteracres was formerly a fine country mansion, behind which was a medley of outhouses and stables, mostly in ruins. - It was due almost entirely to Colum’s vision and enthusiasm, and the way he could communicate this to others, particularily to the men of the North East, that the retreat center was built from such unpromising material; it is now a place of warmth, welcome and solitude; a place where, for forty years, many thousands of people, believers and unbelievers alike, have found peace of mind and consolation of soul. At the same time as he was masterminding the building of the retreat center, he was also involved in a busy schedule of teaching and preaching — particularly preaching; one of the principal reasons he joined the Passionists. And that, in a nutshell, is the story of Colum’s many years of ministry: lifting the burden of guilt and anxiety that so many of us carry; to show by his preaching of the Passion, that our God is a God of infinite love, care and compassion, and not a tyrant who hates and punishes and threatens his creatures, an attitude prevalent in so many minds. The ministry of preaching, by means of missions and particularly retreats was his vocation, his beloved vocation, although his brethren on two occasions had no hesitation in electing him their Provincial Superior. He had previously been appointed Regional Superior of our young mission in Sweden, but serious illness prevented him from taking up that ministry — an intimation, perhaps, of what was still to come. But life on earth is subject to decay; and four years ago he became seriously ill with the cancer that would eventually kill him. In St Joseph’s Hospice, where he spent his final month, he gradually became more and more weak with the numbness that was slowly enveloping him. He will have abandoned his body without much regret when the Lord called him a week ago, a small exchange for experiencing fully the truth for which his priestly spirit sought. In its classical meaning a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace (namely the Divine presence). In his opening address before the second session of the Second Vatican Council in 1963 — that most singular grace of our time — Pope Paul VI provided a more contemporary definition: “a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God”. I should like to think that in such a sense St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney is truly sacramental — a place imbued with the hidden presence of God. The love and concern shown by all for Colum, by the Chief Executive Sister Teresa, the other sisters, the doctors and the nurses, truly demonstrates a sacramental perspective that sees the divine in the human, the infinite in the finite, the spiritual in the material, the eternal in the historical. For believers, therefore, all reality, including death, is sacred. Death is unremarkable. We all must most surely die — please God with dignity, surrounded by family, brethren and close friends, anointed with God’s holy oil, as Colum was. It is life that counts; a life transformed in Christ, a life whose risen quality is already manifest on earth as in today’s Gospel reading: “whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies” And so we can ail unite in prayer: O silent God of the silent dead, living God of the living, who cali to me through silence, O God of those who are silently summoning me to enter into Your Life, never let me forget my dead, my living. May my love and faithfulness to them be a pledge of my belief in You, the God of eternal life. Theodore Davey CP 11" February, 2003
Mass in memory of Colum - a wonderiui human being What price can we put on a smile? How much is a smile worth? My enduring memory of Colum will be his smiling to each of one of us, as he waiked for the last time from his room here in tie monastery before returning to St Joseph's Hospice. What price can we put on a smile — particularly when tiat smiie was the unfailing greeting, given to everyone Colum met throughout the whoie of his life? Tt was his sniile coupled to his voice with that unmistakable distinct never to be modified Trish accent that characterised Colum’s larger than life presence as he meets us as brother, as an uncle, as a member of a tight nit family as a friend as a feiiow Passionist - that made us realise we were in the presence of someone who is larger than life. Colum was larger than life in every sense of the word — most especially in dedicating himseif body and soui to the pursuit of all that is good in a humanity touched by the niystery of Jesus. As we gaiher to celebrate his iife in this Requiem today, let our sadness at his ioss be tempered by what Colum himself will be saying to us— what he said in fact, right to the end — “I am fine, everything is fine: it is good to be here where we all are 1l6w.” Colum speaks indirectiy to each of us now, through each other as we welcome one another to this celebration of his life: you his dear sisters and devoted brothers: you his many other close family members — one of you only ten weeks old! All of you wie have iraveiied from far and near because you regarded him as a special friend. You who cared for him to the end. And you and me feilow Passionists whose lives have been so enriched through our brother Colum who dedicated hiniself compietely to Passionist life with us — let as all rejoice im this shared Eucharist with someone who teaches us ali in his own special unique way, a littie more of the value and price we should put on a smile and a word of warm greeting. 2603-02-11 Nicholay
Source: Obituary Notices, Provincial Archive, St Joseph's Province. Passionist Congregation.