 sj |
||
|
||
Tribute to Father Mike Judge...
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Tribute to Father Mike Judge... |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: InOBU Date: 29 Nov 01 - 10:27 AM This was sent to me, as it mentions me, but for those who wanted more about Father Mike, I thought I'd pass it on... it was origionaly on the wild geese web site. A Tribute to Father Mychal Judge New York's Irish pack a chapel to recall beloved FDNY chaplain, friend Mychal Judge may be happily 'working the door' at St.Peter's Gate, and heaven would be the fuller for it. But for those many lives he touched on earth, there is an aching sense of loss.
By Gerry Regan
The front page of the program honoring Father Mychal JudgeNEW YORK, Oct. 11 -- It was, literally, an uplifting image, one that drew laughter from many of the hundreds at a memorial service for Franciscan Friar Mychal Judge, slain in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
"He's OK!" "Yea, I know her," "Good man, there," Judge would nudge the celestial bouncer till the horde somehow all entered into paradise. The image drew smiles from those who experienced Judge's legendary ability to affirm others. But these laughs, as heartening as they were, only temporarily assuaged the grief of those many friends he left behind.
The pain of Judge's loss cut across this city's mosaic, on display here in the Irish-style "Month's Mind" service in Good Shepherd Chapel in General Theological Seminary.
Among those offering witness was a recovered alcoholic, a retired city firefighter who turned his life around after a talk with Judge; a woman whose brother died of AIDS, who found Judge the only cleric willing to officiate at a memorial service for him; a woman whose daughter died in the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, when Judge spent 12 hours a day consoling the families of those killed; a fellow Franciscan; and activist Brendan Fay, the organizer of the Queens St. Patrick's Day Parade. Author and raconteur Malachy McCourt served as master of ceremonies.
Lord
Let me meet who
Tell me what
Keep me out
A fellow Franciscan priest told the rapt audience that Judge shared that he was gay when the priest, a much younger man, struggled to reconcile his vocation with his homosexuality.
Clearly, silver-haired Father Judge, by all accounts a genial man with a broad sense of humor, had many admirers and friends, as well, in the tradition-bound, conservative world of the FDNY. He served as the department's Catholic chaplain since 1992. Perhaps, serving as a bridge across this cultural divide was Judge's greatest accomplishments. Cultural -- if not political -- conservative and liberal Irish-Americans, both in evidence here, agree on precious little in New York. Tonight they shared their grief.
Judge was born on May 11, 1933, in Brooklyn, the son of two Irish immigrants from County Leitrim, and was ordained a Franciscan priest in 1961. The back of the program for the service included this excerpt from a letter he wrote dated Feb. 25, on the 40th anniversary of his ordination: "And the future? As on ordination day, only God knows, and he will reveal only what I need to know and to do each day. It will be wonderful -- that's the way God is." This is in keeping with what one speaker said was one of Judge's favorite expressions: "Stay out of tomorrow. God hasn't created it yet."
Conservatives, liberals share at least one thing tonight -- their griefThe friar died after debris falling from the World Trade Center twin towers struck him in the head as he gave the Last Rites to a firefighter. In turn, Judge received the Last Rites from a young city police officer, who in dress uniform, told the audience how he struggled to find a priest for Judge in the chaos after the attacks, only to be told at nearby St. Peter's Church that none were available. The officer returned to Judge, held the priest's hand, and prayed as his life ebbed.
During the service, as darkness descended outside the entrance to the Episcopalian seminary in Chelsea, a gleaming red FDNY fire engine was parked, a tribute in its own right.
Seats were hard to come by in the first hour of the service, which drew several hundred. Lorcan Otway sang his new paean to the FDNY, titled "Remember Their Passing." Mary Courtney and the Irish traditional group Morning Star performed from the altar, alternating with clusters of speakers, featuring voice, fiddle, tin whistle, and squeeze box. During the group's rendition of "Hector the Hero," the acrid odor from the still-burning embers at Ground Zero wafted into the chapel from three miles away. Years from now, that odor will forever trigger powerful memories for all New Yorkers.
Judge had a keen interest in Ireland, it is said, and former New York police officer Steve McDonald, paralyzed in 1986 when shot in the line of duty, accompanied him to Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams was among those who sent his condolences, having met Judge.
MORE ON 'MONTH'S MIND'
Judge seemed inexhaustible to those who knew him. His fellow friar recalled that Judge was the only person he knew that burnt out an answering machine every year. "It glowed," he said, and laughed when he recalled Judge telling him to "Slow down."
Judge was one of the few priests who ministered to people with AIDS in the early '90s, recalled one man. Judge came to comfort the man's companion, who was dying of AIDS. After giving him Communion, Judge gently lifted the man out of his wheelchair, and embraced him.
Those who spoke, many of them presumably strangers to each other, created a portrait of a selfless man, who made each of them feel special. They took some comfort in realizing that Father Judge lived -- as he died -- relishing his vocation and passionately serving others.
'Stay out of tomorrow. God hasn't created it yet.' -- Father Mychal Judge
RELATED LINKS: |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Nov 01 - 06:32 AM Thanks for posting this InoBU.
That's a great prayer of his. Is it one he made up himself, or one that he was fond of and got from somewhere else? It'd sing well - it'd be a great chorus to a song. Or it could be sung effectively as a round. Here it is again, laid out more as a song than a prayer:
MYCHAL'S PRAYER
We lost our parish priest, a great man called Father Pat Bennett, from Thurles in Co Tipp - he died of cancer on Monday. That quote ""Stay out of tomorrow. God hasn't created it yet" made me think of him. And he'd have liked that prayer." He was always saying that people shouldn't go round worrying about saving their souls, that was something God took care if. It was our job to look after the world, ad each other. On Remembrance Sundays, and lots of other times, the saints he'd most like to talk about would be Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
|
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: InOBU Date: 30 Nov 01 - 06:40 AM I believe Mike did make up this prayer. I am seeing some folks who knew him very well this Sunday at the fundraiser for the Ardoyne school, I will ask them. My condolences at the loss of your friend. ALl the best, Larry |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: GUEST,carabbas Date: 30 Nov 01 - 08:49 PM Wild Geese website - would this be it? I see they are Pittsburgh based, rather than New York, but they do have a link to the Mudcat. |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: Mickey191 Date: 30 Nov 01 - 09:39 PM InOBU, Thanks for your lovely piece on Father Judge. I was so impressed with the humanity of this man as I watched his funeral mass. The stories that were shared were so heart warming and joyful. I've never known a priest like that, sorry to say. Would that the next Pope have some of these qualities. |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: GUEST,mgarvey@pacifier.com Date: 01 Dec 01 - 12:18 AM Great tribute...my niece is in Queens...married to an Irish "immigrant.." Legal by now I think. She said that there are a number..my sister couldn't remember if it was 16 or 26...of illegal Irish immigrants..to say nothing of probably many others who died...they aren't showing up on lists because people are afraid to report them..anyone else heard this? mg |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: Cappuccino Date: 01 Dec 01 - 03:51 AM I, too, love that 'stay out of tomorrow'. I'm compiling a book of quotations for our charity, and I'd like to include that, if you reckon it would count as a decent tribute. - Ian B |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: GUEST,Annraoi Date: 01 Dec 01 - 09:28 PM A fireman friend of mine from Belfast has just returned from NY. He had gone over to present a cheque to a benevolent fund for the bereaved. On a visit to Ladder 4, where he had lost a personal friend, he learned that the six firemen who had carried Fr. Judge out of the wreckage left his body on the altar of a nearby Catholic church, covered the body with a sheet and placed his helmet on top. They then returned to the scene and all six were killed. Now THAT is devotion to duty. You wnat a quote ? When he asked sone of the firemen how they stuck the relentless efforts they were putting into search and recovery with very little sleep, one man said to him "Sleep? Sleep in Heaven!" Annraoi |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 03 Dec 01 - 07:08 AM Legends are growing around this whole thing. That's how it should be, and I believe in "Print the legend" - but I'd love to know if that story you gave there about the six firemen, Annraioi, is factually true or not. It deserves to be, and it could be. Can you or anyone add anything? |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: InOBU Date: 03 Dec 01 - 07:19 AM I met the police officer who graved over Father Mike and carried him, maybe with others,I couldn't say, to the church where he was laid out at the foot of the alter. He is convinced that carring Mike to the church saved his life, quite unintentionaly, as the tower fell as he cared for Mike. Who lived and who died was a roll of the dice, folks in the building actualy lived if they were lucky enough to be in a pocket, and others like Mike died from odd chance, I sang the song about Engine 33 last night, two firefighters in the pub, for the School on the Ardoyne, one woman firefighter one man, well what can I say, all the best Larry |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 03 Dec 01 - 11:22 AM Thanks InoBU - that's as good a story.
"Engine 33" that's a good name for the song. I'll us it for it, if that's all right. It has an extraordinary effect on people. |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 04 Dec 01 - 10:48 AM Thanks, Larry, for the information about Father Mike. A friend of mine, from our Volunteer Fire Department at home in Germany, had visited the FDNY last year and went out to some missions. There he knew Father Mike, and was very grieved when I told him about your song, where his death was mentioned. I'm now able to tell him more. Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: Tribute to Father Mike Judge... From: InOBU Date: 04 Dec 01 - 05:07 PM Hi Wilfred, I have mentioned you and your comrads in Germany to some of the family memebers of fellows mentioned in the song, (Robert King and Mike Boyles sisters). It means alot to them that folks in Germany have heard the song played and so, thanks from me and them. Cheers Larry |
| Share Thread: |