Father MacNamara - our beloved "Father Mac" as he was affectionately known to everyone - has died, and what can we say but "Alleluia", for he has gone home to the Lord after a life well lived in His service.
Born in 1916, he became a Christian Brother and a teacher. Then he entered the Dominicans and after ordination served for many years in Trinidad. He came to Kilkenny in the 1960s. Very quickly he endeared himself, firstly to the congregation in the Black Abbey, then to the people of the city, and finally to the county at large.
A true son of St Dominic, he was a learned man who used his talents to spread the Gospel by his eloquent preaching and also by his written word. Many was the religious article he penned for the Kilkenny People, many the editorial he wrote for his beloved St Martin Magazine. Indeed he was, I understand, the first Catholic priest to write a spiritual piece in The Irish Times, sharing a Saturday slot with a confrΦre from the Church of Ireland.
Yes, learned he was, but he was much much more - gentle with the sinner and the dying, concerned about the lonely and the marginalised, friend and confidant of the famous and the humble.
To drive with Father Mac on one of his visits to the sick was akin to driving a celebrity - everybody saluted him, and he waved at each one, rich or poor, old or young. He was not aware of difference, all were God's own.
I saw him cry tears on visiting a sick man who lay in his bed covered not with blankets, but with newspapers, and whose bedroom was lighted not by electricity, but by candle.
Many the radio he procured for the person living alone, many the coat he delivered to the drop-out - all done quietly and without comment. As I have already said, a true Dominican.
He served in the Black Abbey for upwards of 20 years, and twice during that length of time a great sadness enveloped the congregation there.
The first time was when he was seriously ill, and it was feared we would lose him. People gathered spontaneously in the Abbey and prayed for his recovery. The Lord listened and Father Francis was spared to us for many more years.
Then, when he was transferred to St Saviour's Priory, Dublin, again there was desolation, but he never forgot Kilkenny or the Abbey, and we were always in his prayers.
For the past several years, Father Francis was in poor health, but he bore his illness with great patience and fortitude. Now his time of waiting is over, his Advent is done. He has truly gone home for Christmas. We extend sympathy to his Dominican family and to his relatives.
May his kindly soul rest in peace. Leaba i measc na naomh go raibh aige.
U.H.