Rite and Reason: The recent tragic death of asylum-seeker Paiche Unyolo brought out the best in the people of a small Kilkenny village, writes Pádraig Ó Máille.
Nowadays in Ireland the big church gatherings take place at funerals and weddings. People who have long since given up formal religious practice still come to church for funerals. It has to do with mórtas cine, with the honour of the little village.
But it also has to do with a belief in a divine providence which is active in our lives and which binds us together in our rites of passage. This was borne out very clearly recently in the tragic context of the funeral observances for Paiche Unyolo, a young Malawian victim of a brutal murder.
The Unyolo family from Malawi had come to Waterford to bury their daughter. Piltown, where Paiche's body had been discovered, is a small village in Co Kilkenny, over the border from Waterford, where Paiche had lived. At the funeral service in St Patrick's Methodist Church in Waterford, Father Paschal Moore, parish priest of Piltown, had spoken of his people's shock and grief. He told us that they had come to him, wondering what they could do to express their solidarity with Paiche and her family. He invited us to a service of remembrance the following Tuesday.
The parish community in Piltown prepared to welcome Paiche's family and friends for a simple prayer service to commend her soul to God and to ease the burden of her grieving family and the trauma of their own little village.
On Tuesday afternoon, a bus collected the Unyolo family and friends, some of whom had come from Dublin for the event. We were welcomed in the Piltown community hall by Father Paschal and his parishioners.
After refreshments, we were taken to the little stone bridge under which Paiche's body had been partially hidden for most of two weeks. Already, the scene was awash with flower tributes from local people. We prayed and sang Malawian hymns. We spent a little time in silence before returning to the community hall for what was to be a 30-minute service.
None of us visitors could believe the sight on our return. Already, the car park was overflowing and a long queue of mourners stretched out into the park. It took over 30 minutes before all were seated, and there were still crowds of people outside. A newspaper report the following day set the figure at over 500 people.
A truly imaginative service of remembrance followed. It was deeply sensitive and so moving that the visitors and the family were in tears. After Father Paschal's introduction there were Bible readings in Chichewa, Paiche's mother tongue, and in English. A reflection on the mystery of life and death, light and darkness followed.
Prayers for Paiche's eternal rest, for her extended family, and for her two small children were accompanied by candle bearers who took their light from the Paschal candle. Members of the congregation were then led into a time of contemplation, during which they were invited to come forward and pour a little sand from many individual bowls into a central basin as a symbol of our solidarity in grief.
There was a little awkwardness as the first mourners came forward, poured their sand, and returned to their seats. Gradually, movement became easier. At some point one mourner, in a deeply Irish gesture, turned from the queue and shook the hand of Paiche's father and of the other Malawians in the chief mourners' front row, saying: "I'm sorry for your trouble".
The one and two who followed him gradually became a human flood, until each and every one of the hundreds who remained came and pledged their sympathy to those strangers whose lives and fate had so tragically become their own. In that long moment Paiche was no longer an asylum-seeker: she had come home.
Moving words of appreciation from Paiche's father drew warm applause. There were Malawian hymns from the little group of immediate mourners; prayers from members of other denominations present; an ancestral prayer in Irish; a blessing in Chichewa; a final bringing together by Father Paschal of the different strands of the week that had passed.
Through it all there had been the magnificent music and song from the local choir, under the direction of Father Dan O'Gorman. As we linked hands all around the hall and joined the choir in singing Amazing Grace, I felt deeply grateful.
In this truly inspired gesture from the people of Piltown and their priests, Paiche and her loving family had been granted the dignity denied them by the tragic events that brought us together.
It was only natural, but it seemed like a miracle of organisation and multiplication, that all present were invited to tea and abundant refreshments. In the sharing that followed there was a palpable sense of deliverance for the visitors and for the local community. We had lived together a faith experience at its most profound. We had been part of what is best in Catholic Ireland.
Father Pádraig Ó Máille is honorary consul for Malawi in Ireland