Funeral Homily by Bishop Philip Boyce

Tuesday, 7^th February, 2006

Fr. Peter McMahon RIP.

 “I am the Resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me,

even though he dies he will live “  (Jn. 11.25).  

  Father Peter McMahon has left us, quietly, peacefully, in the darkness of the night.  His beloved sister, Rose , kept watch, as she had over the past months during which she nursed him with exemplary care and dedication.  We all knew Fr. Peter had not long to live, but the end came suddenly and unexpectedly, ‘like a thief in the night’.  He himself must have felt that the end was near, for he called his confessor the previous evening, and received the last Rites of the Church.  We may rightly believe that the words of the Book of Wisdom, so often read at funeral Masses, apply to his immortal soul:  “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, no torment will ever touch them…they are in peace” (Wisd 3:1).  For all of us, who have faith in the Resurrection of Christ and in our resurrection with him, “our hope is full of immortality.”  Such was the hope that sustained the vision of Fr.Peter, and made him a faithful servant of the Church, as an ordained priest of Christ.  

          Indeed, it is this vision of hope that sustains the life of every priest.  As a boy or young man, he hears the call of Christ: “Come, follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men”.  Urged on by this attraction to Christ, he leaves aside a worldly career, and dedicates himself exclusively to the care of souls and the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation. I was reminded that at the Mass of his Golden Jubilee, he asked the preacher not to praise his own person, his gifts, the promising career that he left behind, but solely to exalt the dignity of the priesthood.  

 The Christ every priest follows, is no dead prophet but the living Lord, who holds in his guiding hands the destiny of the world and the course of history.  This priestly mission demands dedication and sacrifice, generosity and perseverance.  However the priest is sustained by his faithful love and his strong faith in Christ Jesus, in whose service he spends all his days.   

Like St Paul , he is sustained by the News he preaches, namely, “ Jesus Christ , risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David ”.  On this account, he bears all hardship “for the sake of those who are chosen, so that in the end they may have the salvation won by the Lord Jesus” (cf. 2 Tim 2:8ff).  

          Saddened by the loss we have suffered, we are consoled as we think how all this was lived out with the utmost fidelity in the life of Fr.Peter McMahon.  He was born on 21^st August 1927 of William McMahon and Mary Houston.  He received his primary education between 1932 and 1940 in Lettershanbo and Ballykerrigan National Schools .  For the next five years, during the Second World War, he was in St Eunan’s Diocesan College , Letterkenny, for Secondary education.  He then trained for the priesthood in St.Patrick’s College, Maynooth and was ordained by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid on 22^nd June June, 1952.  Apart from one year of further studies in Maynooth (for the Higher Diploma in education),  he was to spend 18 years teaching in St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny (1952-1953; 1954-1971).  He was exceptionally talented in Mathematics and was an outstanding teacher of that subject in St Eunan’s College.  He was very demanding on his pupils, but those who managed to follow his lessons achieved significant results.  

          He then was put into parish work.  For ten years (1971-1981) he was Administrator in Glenswilly; then for a short period Parish Priest in Killymard, in Ramelton and finally Parish Priest of Gartan and Termon from 1985-2000.  Feeling the strain of advancing years, he then took on the curacy of Glenvar as Assistant Priest from 2000 – 2005. He had a short period of retirement in his bungalow in Glenswilly. In the months of his final illness he was remarkably calm and resigned to God’s will.  Even in his final days, he was in good spirits and never complained.  He went peacefully and confidently to meet the merciful Love of his Creator. May he now rest in eternal peace with the angels and saints.  

The passing of Fr.Peter McMahon is a great loss for us all.  He was one of that group of elderly priests who were very faithful to their priestly duties throughout their lives and into advanced age.  He was always committed to his duties;  a loyal member of the presbyterate.  He was frugal in his ways; exact and reliable in everything he did.  For the past twenty three years he served as Diocesan Financial Administrator, and always had the books done up every year, correct to the last penny.  Finance advisors and Bank employees always had a healthy, almost reverential respect for his judgment on things financial.  

I shall miss him.  He gave wise and far-seeing insight to me, and to Bishop Hegarty before me, in his position as Financial Administrator.  It is as if a light has gone out with his death. A star has fallen and we feel the darkness.  However, the Lord always provides what we need.  The light of his Resurrection overcomes the darkness of separation and loss. Christ came as a light into this world (cf. Jn 12:46 ).  When he rose from the dead,  He scattered the darkness of this world, and asked us to be light in this world, and to walk as children of the light (cf. Eph 5:8).  

This is our Christian hope and consolation.  They cannot be quenched, even by death itself.  As we lose Fr.Peter in his physical presence, we thank God for having given him to us, to the diocese and to all whom he served as a priest during his fifty three years of devoted ministry.  May he now rest from all his labours and receive the reward of the just.  

“O God, you have decreed that all men

must die, but concealed from them

the hour of their death,

grant that we may pass our days

in the practice of holiness and justice ,

and that we may deserve to leave

this world in the peace of a good conscience

and in the embrace of your love. Amen.”