Fr Tom Freyne, R.I.P.

THE BODY OF CHRIST, AMEN News reached us on Friday night that Fr Tom Freyne had just died. May he rest in peace. For almost seventy-two years, Fr Tom ministered to and through “Corpus Christi” – the “Body of Christ”. Faithful to the end, he celebrated priesthood and faith with equal solemnity and energy and our prayer is that he rest now, in the presence of the Risen Christ, in whose memory he broke and shared the Bread of Life for so many years.

Fr Tom requested to be buried at Kilmovee Parish Church – an important presence in his life. A few years ago, some of his friends in France shared with me Fr Tom’s reflections. Primary among them, his recall of Kilmovee and its church:

But one is consoled by the new Kilmovee, young and undaunted entering the third millennium. The beautiful church cared for with such love and devotion. The lovely marble altar at which I served so many Masses and on which I offered my first Mass on June 9th 1941. Yes, that is always there. 

That church of so many memories. My earliest memory is of going to Mass with my mother in the dark winter mornings when the only light in there came from the two candles burning on the distant altar. The Mass, which has always been a mystery, really felt like one then in my young mind. The dear Curate, Fr. James O’Connell who lived so near to us all, whose Mass I so often served, and who was there to assist me at my first Mass, a happy moment for a priest whose work in a parish may not always be consoling.

May he rest in the peaceful shadow of the Parish Church he loved so well. Amen.