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Address given at the funeral of the Rt Revd Robert Heavener, former Bishop of Clogher
Address at the Funeral Service of the Right Reverend Robert Heavener in St Macartan?s Cathedral, Clogher on Monday March 14th 2005 given by the Right Reverend Michael Jackson, Bishop of Clogher
John 1.14: He pitched his tent among us.
It is no more than a fortnight to the day since Bishop Robert William Heavener celebrated one hundred years of life in the company of his family and very close friends. It is indeed a cause of rejoicing to us all that he attained this significant personal milestone and, as events have subsequently unfolded, it has become a moment in history to cherish.
Were I permitted only three words to describe the life and ministry of Bishop Heavener, I should go for three words familiar and in many ways obvious to us all: faith, hope, love: faith in God, hope in the future, love of people. This trinity of divine gifts and of human qualities wove its way gently and firmly through a life of devoted service and human fulfilment which brought enrichment and delight to others. And it did so in a way which remains a sustained example to all of us who knew him and who in 2005 seek to follow Christ day by day.
This special life was lived in a way which was unique to him and to us ? unique to him because he served the totality of his ordained ministry as deacon, priest and bishop in the Diocese of Clogher; unique to us because it was among us and our families that this gracious person carried out the work of God with generosity of heart, with devotion of spirit and with depth of conviction. It is for this reason that I take the short text:
he pitched his tent among us as my text for this address because Robert Heavener?s ministry was truly incarnational.
The catalogue of parishes and places where Robert Heavener lived and served in Clogher is worth rehearsing. I say this for the sake of the people and places themselves and their witness to Almighty God today as yesterday. I say it also for the sake of what these many places themselves say about the openness and sense of adventure of this most lovable of people, Robert Heavener himself, as he became part of the lives of those communities: Clones, Fivemiletown, Lack, Derryvullen North, Monaghan with Tyholland and then with Tydavnet and Kilmore, Clogher and again Fivemiletown as bishop living in The See House. During his ministry he was also Canon of this Cathedral of Clogher and Canon of St Patrick?s Cathedral, Dublin.
His willingness at all points of his ministry to be one with the people of his locality and his capacity to cross borders and boundaries is still today a great example and inspiration to us as we continue to live life in the Border areas. We challenge the exclusive as an adequate definition of what it is to be a community. We seek to respect in those who are different from ourselves what is good in their lives. We live as disciples of Jesus Christ in the time of the Spirit. All of this was instinctive to Bishop Heavener in his ministry across Clogher Diocese. Such a willingness to go where he must go, to be in Clones, Fivemiletown, Lack, Irvinestown, Monaghan and then again in Fivemiletown as bishop of the diocese is a powerful expression of the vitality, the energy and the interest in what is local to any situation and to any group of people which he manifested.
His faith in God was abundantly clear to those with whom he came in contact. It had an uncomplicated radiance about it and it pervaded his whole being. What is more, it never clouded his sense of humour and his instinct for good fun. Lugubrious Christianity was not for him. It was certainly serious but it was never judgemental. The call to ordained ministry is something which he invested in a happy life, one which would weave its way in and out of the religious and the secular. He was as happy at a furniture auction or at a book fair as he was in church or hall. To be God?s servant was a natural expression and a real expansion of himself. At no point was this truer than when he became a bishop of the church of God. For him the person was the parson, as indeed it ought to be. His faith in God not only sustained him for all his years but enabled him to give encouragement to all ? younger and older alike ? with whom his path crossed. His religion was neither stuffy nor was it light-hearted. It flowed from a deeply-held conviction that he was a child of God and that God had work for him to do with everyone with whom he came in contact. He was, I am convinced, honestly surprised when he was catapulted to the episcopate and he never lost that quintessential naïveté which was his.
His hope in the future proved always to be feature and a facet of his buoyant personality. The time at which he became bishop of the diocese was indeed a time when feelings ran very high, when the tensions, the difficulties and the sufferings experienced by the people of the diocese in The Troubles pushed decent, reticent people to breaking-point. Nobody in the Christian Churches was prepared for this and yet people looked to their leaders as servants of Christ the Healer for guidance, for direction, for compassion and for hope at a time of social disintegration. Bishop Heavener already knew these people. He already had the Air Miles of service. In no sense did he let us down. His deep and broad knowledge of the people of Clogher on all sides, his personal understanding of the ways in which individuals and communities thought, his capacity to read their anger at their loss as well as their aspirations for something better - these are gifts which none of us with any knowledge and recollection of those times will forget. Bishop Heavener retained that constant capacity to surprise, to engage with others young and old together and to accentuate the positive in his way of looking at things and at situations.
Thirdly his love of people is my constant and living memory of him. Nothing delighted him more than an invitation to meet people who were new to him. Nothing was a more positive and creative challenge than a room full of people and the opportunity to speak with each of them. This human quality of companionship and generosity of personality was one of the most delightful ways in which the love of God shone through him to others. In a very real sense, in his neighbour he saw the face of Christ. Very much at ease among the people of his own diocese, he was also totally at ease with people of all traditions and members of the wider community. His enjoyment of the young went hand in hand with his life-long interest in and advocacy of education. It is witnessed to by his contribution to Monaghan Collegiate School and Portora Royal School and his open friendship towards countless ranks of confirmands across the diocese. The whole world in a tangible sense was his parish and subsequently his diocese. Single-minded indeed he was, yet there remained that innocent delight in the company of others, which he brought with him from Wicklow to Clogher and took with him from Clogher to Jordanstown where, at a significant age, he made new friends all the time.
My own association with Bishop Heavener is strong. My father was his Domestic Chaplain. I was one of his ordinands. He confirmed my sister. He attended our wedding. His friendship and concern are real things of real importance, which I have never forgotten. And now that I am, under God, his successor I find myself remembering with deep resonance his honouring of what is local, his fresh perspective on old situations and his ease of movement among all types of people. Underpinning all of this was a trust in God and in others, which was simple and subtle all in one.
Today our thoughts and concerns are with Margaret and Harvey and with their families together with the wider Heavener connection and the people who still link Bishop Heavener with his native Redcross in County Wicklow. We have no desire to presume on their grief or their goodwill. We feel very touched to be part of this domestic occasion as members together with them of the wider Clogher family. Both Bishop Heavener and Mrs Heavener live in our memories. We mourn their passing. We thank God for our knowing them both. And today, in the context of this celebration of Holy Communion ? the specific and entirely fitting request of the Heavener family ? we unite our communion with the communion of saints in the living presence of Jesus Christ among us and within us.
So we commit Robert William Heavener, deacon, priest and bishop, to God Almighty in faith, in hope and in love. He did indeed pitch his tent among us.