Eulogy/ Homily, Requiem Mass for Reg Pritchard MSC
Brother Reg was a deeply private person, but above all a deep man. A man of deep faith who was most faithful to prayer.
I've heard it said that if you want to get to know someone go on holidays with them. On that score Reg and I, usually along with a few others like Terry Barry and Gus Buckley, spent many months over the years on some most memorable holidays during which I came to know Reg rather well both in our conversations and more particularly in many long silences. I recognise the man I got to know within our first reading today from the Book of Job (Jb. 19:1, 23-27) where Job is remonstrating with his friends and with God. Job has been shown certain things in faith - for faith is a way of knowing - a way that quite surpasses our natural ability to discover things by our own reasoning.
If Job's words could be preserved for a future generation he knows already that they will be proved true. Having known Reg at close quarters concerning our mutual faith I know too that Reg was very much gifted with that "knowing faith" of Job which both surpassed and was not in need of the arguments of human reasoning. Specifically that he knew God is my redeemer - my goel - my intimate relative and I shall look on him and he on me face to face.
Reg shared this mystique with our MSC brothers in general. Indeed as an alumnus of St Paul's Seminary which had been conducted in this place and within which the role of the brothers was significant I have observed that whenever attending a reunion of priests formed here and a speaker has mentioned the brothers that remark has immediately prompted a standing ovation, No further words are necessary nor would any be adequate.
Our responsorial psalm today was a combination of Psalms 42 and 43; It is an intensely personal prayer, yet one offered in the name of the community, which echoes the Reg I knew. Those whose prayer is deepest seem also to touch the greater number of us from within so to speak.
Turning to the Gospel of John (Jn.6:37-40) we were told that the Son's tender invitation to us turns on the almighty strength of the Father's will, or as St Francis de Sales put it "There is nothing so strong as tenderness and nothing so tender as real strength". Despite Reg's gruff exterior those of us who knew him well could recognise a most tender person within.
I am reminded of an observation of the former atheist and madly daring victoria cross winner of World War II, Sir leonard Cheshire, who after the bombing of Hiroshima (at which he was Britain's official observer) underwent a profound conversion so as to become in later life a recognised spiritual authority; he was once asked in what did he consider the genuinely masculine to consist; He calmly replied, "there is a certain relentless tenderness about the genuinely masculine". I detect Reg Pritchard being described in those words.
We have just heard proclaimed that it is the almighty Father's will that nothing he has given to the Son will be lost and the Son will never cast out anyone the Father gives him. Like Job, Reg Pritchard simply knew that by way of a calmly held faith.
Edmond Travers MSC
