There was music there
On Sunday, May 20th, I had the privilege of celebrating Mass in St Patrick’s Church, Oram. It was a Month’s Mind Mass for Tom McBride – Big Tom, who had been a family friend since my childhood. I was happy to be asked and grateful to the local priests for making me feel welcome. I did not know what to expect but had assumed it would be family and perhaps a few locals and friends. I was shocked to find the church filled to capacity with people from all over Ireland and possibly overseas as well as some people outside the church. On my way to Oram, I had tried to think a few thoughts I might share. They weren’t written down but I thought I’d try to remember them now and include them here. I think this more or less reflects what was said yesterday. I am thankful to Tom and Rose’s family for asking me to be celebrant at this Mass. It gave me the opportunity to give back something to a man who had much to give and gave it freely. May he rest in peace. Amen.
There was music there in the Derry air
like a language that we all could understand
I remember the day when I earned my first pay
And I played in a small pick-up band
There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth
I was sad to leave it all behind me
For I learned about life and I’d found a wife
in the town I loved so well
I used those words earlier today, speaking at Mass in Kilkelly. I used them for this Pentecost Day when we’re told that people could hear God’s word spoken clearly and meaningfully to them in their own language. This surprised and encouraged them.
Phil Coulter taps into this in his memory of his home town of Derry, describing the music as a language “we could all understand”. What was that music? It must have been a sense of place and belonging, a feeling of being at home and with people who mattered and people to whom you mattered. It’s a good description. The music invites lyric – words wrapped around it and through it that meaning may come through.
We gather to remember a man who knew that language and who had the ability to speak it and sing it to people all over Ireland and beyond in a way that all could understand. It’s a wonderful gift and a gift freely accepted by Tom and put to lasting good use by him. It’s that music – that lyric that brings us here today. I firmly believe in the power of music and slong and that God has a central part in the power of both to bring people to a peaceful and certain place – often at times that are not peaceful and in situations that are not certain.
The disciples, we are told, were locked away in a room. Everything in them knew it’s not where they should be, nor was it where they were needed but fear prevented them from going outside. Into that room, on this Pentecost Day, came the power, the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, throwing open the doors of the locked room and sending the apostles out to be the people they needed to be – preachers of the word, players of the music, shapers of the lyric so that his message could reach the ends of the earth.
We gather with Tom’s family today. We know that they can feel that sense of being locked in the room – locked in a room called “grief”. Few of us here, have not had this experience but for Tom’s family, the experience is doubled by the loss of Rose as well. They are here today as children who have lost their parents, grandchildren who have lost their grandparents, sister who has lost a brother – as people in grief. Like the apostles, it is understandable that they would find it difficult to leave this room, no matter how much they might want to. It’s a difficult room and a difficult place. While we could say that Tom and Rose were not especially young, equally we could say they were not especially old. Age is not the issue today. Loss is. The loss of parents, grandparents, brother – ones very much loving and loved. When my own parents died, people might have asked how old they were. I’d say my mother was eighty-six and there’d be a look almost saying “well what did you expect?” Even moreso when my father died at ninety-one. Of course there’s truth in long lives lived but the reality is their ages don’t matter. They are still a massive loss to us. Parents, the ones who gave us life and shaped our journey.
So we are asking today, that the doors of this room called grief might be opened for Tom’s family. Allowing them move again, be happy and content again and strength-filled again. This is what they deserve. They, like all who loved Tom, must listen for the music in the air – that language we can all understand.
Since Tom’s death, I’ve looked at a lot of YouTube videos – more that I might have looked at were he alive and I’ve enjoyed them. One in particular, where he was playing music and was accompanied by one of his grandsons. I thought it a lovely moment and a real reminder that the gift had been passed on. There’s comfort in that today. The tune must be shared and must be carried beyond locked doors that it gives joy to people again as it has so surely done in the past.
Coulter finishes his song with an acknowledgement that things have changed forever and that there’s no going back but that hope remains. I believe that’s where we are at today. Tom’s life will live on in that music – that lyric – that language that we can all understand.
Now the music’s gone but they carry on
For their spirit’s been bruised, never broken
They will not forget but their hearts are set
on tomorrow and peace once again
For what’s done is done and what’s won is won
and what’s lost is lost and gone forever
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day
in the town I loved so well ….
For the man – the song – the music we all loved so well.
