Sad news about Fr Shannahan.

I just found out that he passed away this morning at 8am at Mercy Hospital. What an amazing priest. Last time I spoke to him he was 80 years old and he conducted dad’s first year memorial service.

I couldn’t help myself from crying. I don’t know this priest well. He’s conducted many masses that I’ve attended throughout my life. He baptised my kids and my nephew. But other than that there was not much contact.

And yet, I found myself in tears over his passing. And I say passing because now I understand that “it is in dying that we are born to eternal life” but it brought up so much hidden sadness that I haven’t cared to address before.

Sadness at my dad passing away three years ago. Sadness at the loss of a wonderful priest for the Catholic Church. Sadness because of a personal belief that there is a shortage of priests in Auckland, a shortage of newly ordained kiwis wanting to join the priesthood. Sadness that someone who so loved the church and those who were in it and not in it, had left us. And I guess a kind of sadness of being left to fend on my own… wierd as it sounds. He’s one of the few priests I remember now from my childhood. I don’t know many priests now because I haven’t been to many masses to actually know other priests.

I feel a bit guilty today, being the first Sunday of Advent. I should’ve taken my kids to mass, I was awake. And I had the time. And I remembered. And yet I’ve been falling short of so many of my commitments recently. What’s happening to me I wonder. I feel like I’m falling into a different space – not a bad one – but a different one.

I trust in God in my journey through this. I know I will come out well. I know this is just whatever meaning I put to it.

God I thank-you for this wonderful day. I thank-you for this wonderful man you gave to us, Fr Shannahan, who inspired me to be a better Christian and left loving feelings in my heart about the Church. Thank-you God for Advent, for Christmas, and most of all for Jesus Your Son, giving Him to us so that He could die on a cross for our sins.

Thank-you God for giving me all that I ask and empowering me to live a good life.

I love you and I trust in you completely.