Address by Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald M.Afr at the funeral of Fr Aylward Shorter M.Afr

I am very grateful to Fr Hugh Seenan who asked me to preach on this occasion of the funeral of Father Aylward Shorter, grateful because I owe a debt of gratitude to Aylward. We spent some time together in London when he was preparing his doctoral thesis in anthropology and I was studying Arabic. After that he joined the staff of Gaba Pastoral Institute, just outside Kampala, Uganda and I returned to Rome to teach in the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. I had hardly started teaching when I received a message from Aylward: There was a post vacant at Makerere University for Christian and Islamic Theology; would I be interested. I applied and was accepted, and so, thanks to Aylward, I spent two years at Makerere, two years which were among the happiest of my life. So I have always been grateful to Aylward for the initiative he took.

The readings of this requiem Mass for Fr. Aylward Shorter contain strong affirmations of faith.

Job, in the midst of his tribulations, declares: “I know that my Avenger lives”, ‘Avenger’, that is to say ‘Defender’ or ‘Saviour’ or, in the translation made familiar by Handel’s aria, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”.

Paul shows the same assurance: “With God on our side who can be against us”, and again: “Nothing can come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

And Jesus himself promises us, as we have heard in the gospel passage: “Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”

This was the faith of Aylward, the faith he lived by; anyone who saw him at the daily Eucharist in Little Ealing Lane could notice the intensity with which he participated in this celebration, even if he was not the main celebrant, perhaps the influence of the Benedictine spirit he had imbibed at Downside. It was the faith which he strove to strengthen in others, especially those who were deepening their pastoral experience at the Gaba Pastoral Institute, or those preparing for the priesthood, at Tangaza College in Nairobi or at the Missionary Institute London.

Jesus, who was sent by the living Father to be the redeemer of humankind, reveals that he drew life from the Father. This takes me back to the opening words of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Another translation has been proposed for the second phrase of this sentence:  the Word was turned towards God, in other words, to the Father who expressed the Word. Jesus was always attentive to his Father, attentive to do the will of the Father; he told his disciples, as we heard last Sunday: “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me”;  and he proved this in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed: Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42).

Aylward was a missionary. Just as Jesus was sent, so he also was sent in the name of Jesus. Just as Jesus was obedient to the will of the Father, so Aylward was obedient to the will of his superiors; this upheld him, strengthened him; it was a source of life for him.

“Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” With this conviction, and with the assurance it give us, we are gathered here today to pray for Aylward. May the Lord have mercy on him and forgive him his failings. Together with the members of his family who have gone before him, and together with the ancestors of the Kimbu of South-Western Tanzania whose life he shared as he was studying them and helping to make them better known, with all those who worked with him, with those he helped and encouraged, may he, in the presence of the Lord whom he served so faithfully, enjoy eternal life. Amen.