He was, for the record, a monsignor. But to a legion of saints and sinners inside South Boston and well beyond, he was simply \u201cFather Tom,\u201d or \u201cFather Mac.\u201d<\/p>\n
He loved a cold Heineken or two, a good piece of political gossip, cheering the Red Sox, immersing himself in the wisdom of the great theologians and philosophers, saying the rosary, studying scripture, counseling a mayor or a Senate president, feeding the poor, comforting the handicapped, fighting for the elderly and offering absolution to scoundrels.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and I lost a great friend,\u201d Ray Flynn said, two days after cancer managed to silence the Rev. Tom McDonnell\u2019s indomitable heart. And we are just two among the multitudes.<\/p>\n
He married Ray and Cathy Flynn, buried their parents, baptized their six children and, just a few days before his own death, baptized the 17th Flynn grandchild.<\/p>\n
Not only did he baptize my son, he left me a gift that will last forever. In the first hours after my wife\u2019s passing last year, I picked up the phone to hear the endearing croak of his voice. \u201cI am going to be there,\u201d he told me, \u201cI want to say the homily for Karen.\u201d And so he did. Never mind that he was tethered to an oxygen machine and confined to a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
Tom McDonnell was the boy from St. Angela\u2019s in Mattapan, the B.C. High grad sent off to Rome. \u201cThey saw him as bishop material,\u201d said Sister Peggy Youngclaus, \u201conly that\u2019s not what Tom wanted. The words he asked to be carved into his headstone are those he lived by each day: parish priest.\u201d<\/p>\n
And St. Augustine\u2019s was the parish he embodied. Set on the slope of Dorchester Street, between the Old Colony project and the edge of Southie\u2019s lower end, St. Augustine\u2019s was where Father Tom lived the gospel in the face of busing\u2019s roiling turbulence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe belonged to everybody,\u201d said Sister Peggy, who taught first grade at St. Agustine\u2019s school, and over a span of 40 years shared a \u201cministry of God\u201d with the priest she called \u201cmy best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe taught me to listen deep enough to try and catch the echoes of scripture in life, \u201d said Jack Forbush, a bank manager who, at 16, first met his \u201cfriend and mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n
For just about all of his 73 years, Father Tom lived a life of redemption and forgiveness, of wit and humor, of endless charity and deep compassion. I know how prepared he was to go home to the God he made real here in the street.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t make it any easier to lose him. Come Saturday, the neighborhood he graced and the friends whose lives he touched will cram St. Monica\u2019s Church – St. Augustine\u2019s was shuttered – to say Godspeed, Father, but not goodbye. Never goodbye.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An alert reader sent this my way: a heartfelt appreciation in a Boston paper for a man who evidently touched many lives. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the Year for Priests than with this remembrance of one priest in particular, from columnist Peter Gelzinis: He was, for the record, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-this-and-that","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n
"The words he wanted on his headstone are those he lived by each day: 'parish priest'." - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/the-words-he-wanted-on-his-headstone-are-those-he-lived-by-each-day-parish-priest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""The words he wanted on his headstone are those he lived by each day: 'parish priest'." - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An alert reader sent this my way: a heartfelt appreciation in a Boston paper for a man who evidently touched many lives. 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