Obituary Notice
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\ FR CUGIND KENNA Coavkey py dirba, Ae CP SISTERS NEWSEGITCR OO TE ey i i NEWSLETTER Year 20 ___October 2003 Issue 7 It is October 29" and I am running late again with the Newsletter. My apologies — though this time it was the printer at fault. It cheerfully accepted all the work allotted to it but soon fell to printing one inch or so and then spewed out page after page of blank paper! Eventually I decided to fall on my sword like a true Roman and end the matter there and then but one of the community suggested I might go with five others to our Albert Hall and watch “The Merry Widow’. It was a real tonic! The words and music are not exactly ‘grand opera’ but the actors/singers from the Catholic Choral Society were excellent and made this« light’ opera a veritable treat. So here we are with news: some sad; all, I hope, interesting. Fr Eugene CP Fr Eugene first came to our Parish as a student towards the end of the 1930's. He regarded Sutton as his second home, though he was always Liverpool at heart, supporting the football team which bears the city’s name. . : Ordained as a Passionist in 1940, he used to tell of saying his first Mass in his own Parish of All Saints, Anfield, in May of that year during the Luftwaffe's blitz on Liverpool. The 1950's found him teaching the new students in Sutton Monastery. He was also very much involved with the Young Christian Workers movement (YCW) and is fondly remembered by many people in the area for the great work he did as their chaplain. Later, in the 1970's, he re-established contact with many of these same people to involve them in the Family & Social Action group, which followed the same principles as the YCW. _ The 50's were also a golden period for the Altar Servers of St. Anne's Parish. Stern discipline - arrive 15 minutes early, hair combed, nails clean, hands and face washed, shoes brushed - was the order of the day. There are gentlemen reading this who are shuffling uncomfortably in their seats at the memory!!! Not the students, or indeed the priests, escaped Eugene's caustic tongue if they were anything less than perfect in their approach to the liturgy. . For about 12 years Sutton survived while Eugene worked, first in New Zealand and then as rector of the English church in Avenue Hoche, Paris. It was here that, as-he never failed to tell you, he met Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, from whom he was constantly. delighted to receive a Christmas card each year.
The 1970's found him back in Sutton, achieving what'is arguably his greatest memorial. Aftera lengthy period of hard negotiation with the Coal Board over compensation for the damage caused to the old Church by mining subsidence, funding was secured that helped to build our new Church. He was the happiest man around on the Feast of Christ the King 1973 when Archbishop Beck blessed and opened the Church of St. Anne and Blessed Dominic. The summer and autumn of 1973 were an extraordinary time in the history of the Parish. The shrine of Blessed Dominic was moved from the old church to the beautiful shrine we all know. Fr.Ignatius Spencer's remains were removed from the ‘tomb’ of the old church to the beautiful shrine we all know. Fr. Ignatius Spencer's remains were removed from the ‘tomb’ of the old church, re-coffined and buried alongside Dominic. The remains of Mother Mary Joseph (Sr. Elizabeth Prout) were exhumed from the graveyard and re-interred in the shrine. All of this was expertly organised and supervised by Fr. Eugene. ‘Mention should also be made of the work done in support of the Passionist Swedish Mission which had its office in the monastery basement. From here he travelled all over Britain preaching and encouraging people to support the mission in Sweden. As a preacher and missioner he was also in great demand. Soon after the new church was opened, a group of Parishioners approached Fr. Eugene with what was at the time a revolutionary idea — that of holding a Flower Festival. To his credit, _ once he was convinced hat it would be ‘doing something good for God’ he accepted the idea enthusiastically. The rest, as they say, is history: The Passionists have served Sutton very well over the past ¢entury and a half. To one Passionist in particular, we take this opportunity to stay, ‘Thank you and may you rest in peace.’ Chair of fonvk Genel my Anne ¥ Od Dum wee
- wHAT WE ‘OWE: TO FATHER EUGENE KENNAN CP, RP Father Eugene Kennan oe was born «on 27 Tuly 1917, took hisS four Vows: asa Passionist on 21 January. 1936, was ordained a'priest on 28 ‘April 1941 and, after a long’ and debilitating illness, -died in Nazareth House, Crosby in the early hours of the morning of 12 October 2003. On Sunday. evening, 19 October, his remains arrived unobtrusively, twenty minutes ahead of schedule, at the Church of St Anne and Blessed Dominic Barberi, which he had built thirty years.earlier. Only Father Luke, Father John, the parish priest, John Knowles, one of Eugene’s faithful friends, and Sisters Mary Rose, Mary Campion and I were present. Fathers Richard and Aidan CP arrived as the coffin reached the sanctuary steps and Sisters Mary Jude, Maria Dominica, Mary and Dolores arrived from Warrington shortly afterwards. At 6.30° p.m. Father John, assisted by St Anne’s Choir and Readers, led the Service of Reception, partly centred on Father’ Eugene and partly on St Paul of the Cross, whose feastday it was. Then the four Passionists wheeled the coffin into thé Shrine of Blessed Dominic, where priests, Sisters and” twenty-three parishioners said the Rosary for the repose of his soul. It was a. quiet homecoming for one whose monument was all around us but one that he, as Vice-Postulator ‘of Blessed ‘‘Dominic’s ‘ Cause; would: have ‘considered’ ‘an appropriate ‘entry into his final’ vigil in Dominic’s Shrine, in the’ company of those two .Servants of God; Father Ignatius Spencer arid Elizabeth Prout, Mother Mary J oseph of Jesus. The Requiem Mass was at 11 o’clock on Monday, 20 October: The church was full. Father Nicholas CP, Provincial, concelebrated the Mass with Fathers John, Richard, Luke, Mark (White), Aidan, Timothy and two secular priests. Brother Gabriel CP was also there, as were Sisters Nora, Francis Clare, Maria Savio, Mary Rose, Eileen O’Riordan, Cyprian, Mary Jude, Mary, Dolores and I. The liturgy was gently beautiful, beginning with ‘My Song is Love Unknown’ and including “Yahweh, I know You are near’, ‘Here today I the clay’, ‘Keep in mind’, ‘I, the Lord of Sea and Sky’ and ‘I watched the sunrise’, as well as the Plain Chant Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei and the Final Commendation, ‘May the choirs of angels come to greet you’. The homily was given sensitively by Father Aidan, who had known him very well. A brief account of his connections with Sutton (written by both priests and parishioners[?] and enclosed with this paper) was distributed with each copy of the form of service. No doubt Father Eugene would have given many missions and retreats to the Sisters of our Congregation, for, as Father Aidan told us, he was a very good preacher and much sought after for missions and retreats. Whenever he was resident in Sutton and particularly as Rector, he had a great deal to do with our Sisters there, both in the convent and in the school. The peak of his relationship with us, however, was undoubtedly when he obtained permission for us from the Home Office to exhume Mother’Mary Joseph’s coffin from St Anne’s cemetery. Sister Wilfrida recalled the circumstances when Sister Cyprian and I went over to Lytham from the Requiem to give her a first-hand account of all that had happened. “I do want the Sisters to realise”, she told us, “how much we owe to Father Eugene.” Then she recalled how, when she had visited the USA, she had seen the large, beautiful Crucifix the Sisters there had erected over the grave of our Founder, Father Gaudentius Rossi CP and how ashamed she felt that the grave of our Foundress, which the Sisters over there longed to visit, was no more than a little corner in St Anne’s crowded graveyard. Speaking to Mother Consolata when she returned to Mt St Joseph, Bolton, Mother Wilfrida had been assured that everything possible had been done to try to persuade the Home Office to let us give her something better but the authorities had remained adamant and, to make the centenary of her death in 1964, Mother Consolata had had to be content with placing a new headstone over ' the grave. Feeling utterly frustrated, Mother Wilfrida ‘prayed’ to the Foundress, “Well,
. Mother Mary Joseph, if you. want to eet up, you'll have to get yourself up.” She did, with the help of Father. Eugene. Lecce: _ _ After Blessed Dominic’ s Beatification in 1963 the National Coal Board agreed to level the floors of St Anne’ s chureh and to straighten the walls, windows and ceiling but the state of the church remained. so unsatisfactory that.in 1970 the Borough Surveyor told the .Passionists that iin his opinion the entrance to the church and the area of the front wall had become. dangerous. As a result much of the church had to be closed. Finally, in 1971, it became clear that the old St Anne’s church would have to be replaced. As Father Aidan said in his homily, Father Eugene inherited from Father Christopher, the previous Rector, the task of negotiating with the National Coal Board for payment for a new church. He did so successfully, with the result that in 1973 he was building the new Church of St Anne and Blessed ‘Dominic and a new Shrine for Blessed Dominic, into which the coffin of Father Ignatius Spencer would also be placed, as it would have to be removed from the crypt. .He realised, and informed Mother Wilfrida; that, if the Home Office would agree, the coffin of Mother Mary Joseph (Prout). could.also be laid in Blessed Dominic’s Shrine. It was at this point that Mother Wilfrida made her provocative prayer to the Foundress. In the meantime, approaching the Home Office, Father. Eugene had explained the necessity of translating coffins into a new Shrine and had had.no difficulty in obtaining the necessary papers. As he filled them in, he realised that it would be possible to seek permission for three coffins to be moved: Blessed Dominic’s from his Shrine in what had previously been the Chapel of St Paul of the Cross in the old church; Father Ignatius Spencer's from the crypt of the old church; and Elizabeth Prout’s from a grave in the cemetery. He phoned Mother Wilfrida ... The Home Office gave permission for. all three coffins to be removed, all in the strictest secrecy, of course, and in accordance with the instructions fromn the Home Office, the Holy Office in Rome and the Archbishop of. Liverpool. How Father Eugene. nianazed to achieve i ihe temoval: ‘Of a coffin from. tlie crypt and another from the cemetery in the strictest secrecy was described to me in writing’by John Knowles, one of the participants, a few years ago, when I was writing St Anne's Sutton, 1850 - 2000. It was ona June day in 1973, John told me, that Father Eugene said to him, “I want you to be at church after the evening Mass”. Accordingly, John was.there, as were a number of other men, all having received the same request. As they chatted, they failed to work out a common link that would explain their united presence. “Then”, wrote John, “Father Eugene appeared and led us in a prayer to the Holy Spirit and ended with an invocation to Dominic to help us - this ought to have given us a clue.” In fact, it didn’t and so, still mystified, ‘they moved to the back of the church and down into the ‘tomb’, as it was universally known. This was a place that John had often been led to as a small boy and he had always remembered it as a cool, damp, dark and musty-smelling place, where one knelt against the cold marble, said a prayer, kissed the tomb. and climbed up the nine or ten steps as quickly as possible. Blessed Dominic, of course, had not been there for ten years but Father Ignatius Spencer was still there and it was not really the place one would have chosen to be on an evening in June. Once, they were in the crypt, Father Eugene explained their mission: they were to remove the coffin. of Father Ignatius Spencer and take. it into the monastery library, where the next day the. coffin would be opened and the body taken out for examination as part of a process which might, at some time in the future, lead to Beatification. :“When we recovered from the shock”, wrote John, “the general conclusion was, ‘Easy really, two planks of wood, slide the coffin down onto the floor!!”” Now we realised why in our party we had a joiner and the local undertaker. ‘No’, said Father Eugene, with all his considerable. authority. We had forgotten that the coffin had been there since 1864 and in any case it must be kept level at all times so as not to disturb the contents and spoil any autopsy. It was just about this point that everyone
wished they could leave! The only solution was to put our hands under the coffin, draw it out, holding it level and carry it up steep steps, probably above our heads. Easy really or it would have been if none of us had had any imagination. I cannot remember whether it was a joint act of faith or whether anyone was brave enough to be first but we all put our hands into the unknown depths of the sarcophagus, not knowing what we would touch (109 years is a long time for a body to decompose). Oh ye of little faith! Ignatius had shown signs of holiness during his life and on his death his wooden coffin had been placed inside a lead one. Our only problem was the weight and our own disbelief at what we had just done.” . The story, however, did not end there. “Next we were ushered into the graveyard and taken behind a shroud of tarpaulins into the area identified as the nuns’ graves. Our next task was to remove headstones etc. in order to prepare the grave for opening on the following morning, when the top three coffins would be removed so that the bottom coffin of Mother Mary Joseph [Elizabeth Prout] could be lifted out and examined in a way similar to that of Ignatius Spencer. In a wonderful way”, John ended, “considering the nature of what I had done, sleep came easily that night and without any nightmares.” John Knowles was not present on 20 June 1973 with Father Eugene, Mother Wilfrida, Sister Cyprian and the three doctors: Dr F.S. Mooney, Sister Martin Joseph Taylor CP and Dr M.M. Walker, when the four coffins were removed from the grave, Elizabeth Prout’s remains.examined and replaced in a new coffin, which was then temporarily returned to the grave in a polythene bag. He was, -however, one of those who later returned to the grave, took the new coffin from it again and carried it steadily into the monastery. For Father Eugene these exhumations and the examinations of the remains of Father Ignatius Spencer and Mother Mary Joseph (Prout) remained the highlight of his life, to be described in detail at every opportunity, even if the unsuspecting listeners happened to be having their dinner! I was present when in 1994 he even boasted to Archbishop Worlock that he was the only priest in England who had ordered five coffins on.a use-or return basis and/he-had returned three of them! . The exhumations, however, were only the first stage and it was Father Eugene who meticulously organised the second part too, that of translating the remains to the new Shrine. Once again John Knowles was privileged, as he told me, on 30 July 1973, to be one of Elizabeth Prout’s coffin-bearers on her journey from the monastery library to the sanctuary, from the sanctuary to the hearse and from the hearse into the side-chapel of the new church of St Anne and Blessed Dominic, where her remains and those of Father Ignatius Spencer were gently laid to rest. As we walked behind the clergy last Monday, following Father Eugene’s own coffin down Monastery Lane to the cemetery, I could not fail to remember how thirty years ago in similar glorious sunshine he had led that other procession, when we joyfully followed the coffins of Father Ignatius Spencer and our own dear Foundress. Blessed Dominic’s coffin was placed.in his white marble tomb in his new Shrine on 24 September 1973. The following day, in the presence of a few Sisters of the Cross and Passion, Father Eugene and four other Passionist priests said the first Mass in that side-chapel. Finally, the new church was opened officially by Archbishop George Andrew Beck of Liverpool on 25 November, the feast of Christ the King, 1973. In his Foreword to the Commemorative Order of Service, Archbishop Beck wrote that the opening of the new church was a matter of joy not only to the Passionist Fathers but to the Archdiocese of Liverpool and to the whole Catholic community in England and Wales. Father Dominic, he continued, was a figure of national importance in the story of the Catholic revival in this country during the nineteenth century. His Beatification was a sign of the Church’s assurance that he was a man of God guided by the Holy Spirit. They must hope and pray that before long he would be known as St Dominic Barberi. Two other saintly people were buried at St Anne’s, he added, Father Ignatius Spencer, Passionist and Mother Mary Joseph, the
Foundress of the Cross and Passion Sisters. These, too, were persons of outstanding holiness, “We must not”, he wrote, “anticipate the judgement of the Holy See but it is not altogether fantastic to think that in the future St Anne’s may be the shrine of three saints intimately associated with the development of Catholic life in this country during the past 150 years.” For that eulogy of our Foundress, we must thank not only Archbishop Beck who wrote it but Father Eugene who made it possible. Throughout this same period, he was also the Chairman of the Governors for St Anne’s School, Sutton and for the Catholic secondary school, St Cuthbert’s, both of which were having new schools at that time. “I was never happier”, he used to say, “than when I was building two new schools and a church, moving Blessed Dominic’s Shrine and exhuming Father Ignatius Spencer and Mother Mary Joseph.” On 18 October 1975 he also filled Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King to capacity-for the celebrations for the Bi-Centenary of the Death of St Paul of the Cross. Again, Father Eugene’s work for us did not stop after Elizabeth Prout was re-interred in her sepulchre below the floor of Blessed Dominic’s Shrine, for it was with his advice and under his guidance that Mother Wilfrida began the remote preparations for the Introduction of her Cause for ultimate Canonisation. On 22 November 1975 Mother Wilfrida and her Council decided to ask Father Eugene to be the Vice-Postulator of her Cause and at Mt St Joseph Convent, Bolton on 22 March 1976 they held the first of a series of meetings with him. Father Eugene was also present with Bishop T. Holland of the Diocese of Salford in St Chad’s, Manchester on 2 July 1976, when a commemorative plaque in honour of Elizabeth Prout was placed in the Lady Chapel. On 31 July 1977, when Sisters participating in the General Chapter in Horsforth went on pilgrimage to Sutton, Father Eugene was there to greet them, saying, “You are welcomed here on this historic occasion when all the members of the General Chapter assemble for the first time at the shrine of the Mother Foundress. The first Chapter was held at Levenshulme; your present one is at Horsforth, but the inspiration for both is here at Sutton where your first Superior General is enshrined.” On or about 11 January 1978, like the Sisters involved, Father Eugene received an invitation from Mother Wilfrida to attend the first meeting of the Mother Mary Joseph Commission, in Waterdale Crescent convent, Sutton, on the following 19 March. I well remember, as an insignificant little Sister who had dashed down from frozen Scotland the previous night, spending the meeting wobbling on the edge of my chair, overwhelmed by his wisdom and the August assembly around me! By the end of it, under his excellent chairmanship, we had our programme ready. As we reported on our exertions at the second meeting on 24 June 1978, we discovered that, as usual, Father Eugene had not ‘let the grass grow under his feét’: he had already written some articles for the Liverpool Sunday Pictorial. It was Father Eugene who at the next meeting in St Gabriel’s Hall, on 25 November 1978, spoke of the need to approach the Archbishop of Liverpool about setting up a Historical Commission, which would consist of a Sister historian, a lay historian and a priest. It was decided that, provided Archbishop Worlock agreed, Father Eugene would be the priest and I would be the Sister historian. By a happy chance, a few days earlier Father Eugene had received an enquiry about Father Ignatius Spencer from Bernard Aspinwall, a Catholic historian in Glasgow University, whom I already knew because we had been in the same History Honours Class at Manchester University in the late 1950s and so it was through Father Eugene that we. found our lay historian as well. Archbishop Worlock gave his approval to this Historical Commission on 6 January 1979 and it held its first meeting in our convent in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland on 7 April that year. Hence for the last twenty-five years I have had the pleasure and privilege of working closely with Father Eugene on the Cause of Elizabeth Prout. Throughout all that time he has been like a big brother to me, gentle, encouraging and always supportive. .
Other Sisters have, of course, worked with him too: Sisters Albertus and Wilfrid in organising relic envelopes; and Sisters Paul Mary, Bernadette Doran and others, as well as the Sisters in Sutton, in organising the Public Pilgrimages in honour of Mother Mary Joseph from 1981 onwards. His expertise in dealing with police and traffic control, the liturgy, sick and disabled pilgrims and catering were always invaluable, whilst his’ sermons on these occasions never failed to be inspiring. If ‘Mother Mary Joseph’s Day’ has become as much part of St Anne’s annual programme in the spring, as ‘Dominic’ s Day’ is an annual event in the summer, it is mainly thanks to Father Eugene Kennan. The Introduction of Elizabeth Prout’s Cause by Archbishop Worlock in St Anne’ S, Sutton on 18 May 1994 was the fruit of Father Eugene’s labours. It was not the end of them, for, reappointed by the Archbishop with Bernard and myself as the Historical Commission responsible for producing the Documentation for her Cause, he entered a phase when his own theological expertise was of particular importance. There was also a lot of drudgery and I recall several trips to see him in Broadway in the lovely Cotswolds, which culminated in his sitting in his office, patiently signing our authentication of hundreds of transcripts. . ‘From Broadway he returned to Sutton ‘and for a time displayed his customary energy in preaching in different ‘churches on Blessed Dorninic, as well as ‘making a reprint of Father Alfred Wilson’s pamphlet-life. As I worked in Sutton on the archives of St Joseph’s ‘Province, however, from 1999, I noticed a ‘gradual deterioration in his health, which was much more remarkable after he had spent a time in Highgate. Finally he had to move to Nazareth House in Crosby. I visited him there several times, with Sister Cyprian or alone, and, although becoming a little confused, for a time he remained happy and interested. One of my last memories is of my taking him a box of Celebration chocolates and of the two of us sitting eating them. “Have another”, he said, “so that I can have one too”; and he took a handful, which, like a happy schoolboy, he popped into: his mouth in quick succession. The last time I saw him, however, about two months ago, he was unable to speak. It was clear that the end was not far off. “What an organiser he was!” exclaimed one of the parishioners, as we turned from his grave. “He has organised the weather for his own funeral. Look at those clouds! They are just like angels’ wings!” and he pointed to long, white wisps against the radiant blue of the sky. Dearr Eugene! Our trend, Father and brother! May he rest in peace. Sister Dominic Savio CP, 21 October 2003. @ Passionist Life -= _COMMEMORATIONS | _— seen Pe, eee ee Lo : . oa 018 PARE eteamn remeron roast The centennial Of the death of St. Gemma Galgani
Source: Obituary Notices, Provincial Archive, St Joseph's Province. Passionist Congregation.