Homily by Revd Canon Stuart Wilson

A homily preached at a Requiem Mass for Fr Augustine, at St  Peter’s Residence, Vauxhall 19th October 2017

In the Yorkshire of my youth, bus companies didn’t do beautiful. The bus I took to Mirfield in the early sixties was called the Yorkshire Woollen District Transport. My mother called it the Heavy Woollen bus! It dropped me in the Huddersfield Road and I then had to walk up the hill to what was affectionately known by the locals as t’Resurrection. That bus brought me into contact with Fr Hoey. I was a teenager and the Mirfield community were having a young mans’ weekend. Our Vicar had encouraged us to go. Br Michael of the Community led us but he was a lay brother so he called on a colleague to help us make our confessions. That task was given to Fr Hoey. That’s how it all began.

A month ago I made my last journey to see Fr Hoey here in Vauxhall. Those 50 plus years had seen many changes for the both of us. This time my mode of transport was a private car hired for me and Lady Anne. Not only had the transport changed but I had changed and certainly that last time I saw Fr Augustine he had changed too. It seems strange to say this about a man of 101 but for the first time to me, he looked old!

Yet in many ways there was the same man I had met all those years ago. A friend commented to me this week that Fr Augustine was, to use a modern phrase; comfortable in his skin. Certainly he cared how he looked and made sure his skin and his hair were the best they could be. The truth was he always looked well. His cassock and clothing immaculate. They were important; they were almost sacramentals. They attracted you to him. However, he was comfortable in his being. The outward form pointed to an inward presence. He was wonderfully different in the best sense of the word.

I love our first reading for it tells of real life. There is a time for almost everything and a season for every activity. I guess Fr Augustine knew that, after celebrating 101 birthdays. But the reading also goes on to say, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.”

Fr Augustine knew about eternity in the human heart. His task was to teach so many this truth. In a book he gave me all those years ago; a book I still have – My Day With Jesus – the opening note says Christian prayer has been beautifully described as the “the talking of a child with its heavenly Father”. Countless people will have been grateful for the care he took over getting them to come and talk with the Lord.

He not only challenged us to a loving heart but also challenged us to change the way we lived so that throughout our lives our hearts could be made more loving by the Lord. We were encouraged to make a rule of life because that is the way to grow. Confession was important because it is only when we are conscious of sin that we can begin to understand what is at work in us through Christ’s self-giving on the Cross.

We gradually understood that the Mass, the Eucharist – in which that self-giving is made present to us – can be entered into, and experienced for what it is; a privilege, not an obligation.

Fr Augustine loved the Lord but especially when you encountered him in the Blessed Eucharist. Pope Benedict in Sacramentum Caritatis writes, “may the Holy Spirit kindle within us the same ardour experienced by the disciples on the way to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35) and renew our “Eucharistic wonder” through the splendour and beauty radiating from the liturgical rite, the efficacious sign of the infinite beauty of the holy mystery of God.” These could well been word from Fr Augustine’s mouth

Like the Emmaus disciples, Fr Augustine wanted to share his joy with his brothers and sisters in the faith. For true joy is found in recognizing that the Lord is still with us. He is our faithful companion along the way.

We who remain still have work to . Again to quote Pope Benedict: “Let us encourage one another to walk joyfully, our hearts filled with wonder, towards our encounter with the Holy Eucharist, so that we may experience and proclaim to others the truth of the words with which Jesus took leave of his disciples: “Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the world” (Mt 28:20).”

Fr Augustine could not live far away from that source of Love. He encouraged initiatives that made the Eucharist the central act of a person’s life. He knew Paul was right in writing to the Corinthians. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance and in so many places: Yorkshire; London; Manchester; Sunderland; Westminster; Walsingham Vauxhall.

A prerequisite of living this life of closeness to the Lord was Silence. I am sure there are many here who remember how exasperated he got when silence was drowned by noise. Music in the lift or in other small spaces was always a source of frustration. Silence was the key to hearing God voice. Fr Augustine came to understand that the Lord’s voice needed to be heard in the most unlikely places. The early monastics had gone into the desert because it was there they would have the battle with the devil. Fr A was convinced that in the 20th century, the real desert was the city and the real struggle was in crowded streets and urban build up. LIVING in silence, in prayer; in witness to the Lord was so important in our crowded cities.

Fr Augustine had a love for his brothers and sisters who lived the common life of the religious – he even shared a common life of sisters and brothers in his time at the Royal Foundation [of St Katherine]. The self-offering in consecrated life was so wonderful for him. He knew that in that intimacy the Lord spoke. The High Priestly prayer of Jesus in our Gospel fits so well the call to religious life. “I have made your name known to them.” Religious had a special call and he treasured it. Fr Augustine was so happy to be here at St Peters Residences – to be family.

I asked a long-time friend of Fr Augustine what struck her as most distinctive [about him]. She said it was his love for Our Lady. Through him, she had learnt to love Mary as a friend and to trust the power of her prayer. Those latter years in Walsingham were amazing. He sincerely believed that Walsingham was the key to unity. He told us in no uncertain terms on his 100th birthday. Part of our inward peace tonight is that we know he will meet with all those heavenly friends whom he taught us to love.

There is so much more to this man. The anecdotes are legion. He was; he is an amazing man. The writer of Ecclesiastes says: “He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Only in heaven will all become clear but it seems to me that tonight we begin to realise how even now the Lord is beginning to un-fathom the mystery of heaven for us.

It is no accident we are in the Sisters’ chapel; it is no accident we are with the Lord of the Eucharist; it is no accident that in prayer we talk like children to their heavenly Father; it no accident that all this is done in silence; in quietness and in peace. Fr Augustine has not given up encouraging us. At the altar Heaven and earth meet; it is here we meet with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

For me and I guess for you, this knowledge was, in no small measure, due to the teaching, the care and the love that Fr Augustine shared with us during his earthly pilgrimage.

Thank you Lord for giving us Augustine. Thank you Fr Augustine for showing us the Way of the Lord.  Rest in Peace.