Charlies Funeral

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Charles Gerrard

27 November 1979

18 March 2003

Requiem Mass 23 March 2003

Celebrant Father J. O’Melia OMI
Concelebrant Reverend Father Athanasius OCSO
Organist Paul Collins
Soloist Fionnuala Murphy

Organ music

‘De Profundis’ (Spoken)

De Profundis clamo ad te, Domine, Domine, audi vocem meam!

Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord; Master, listen to my voice;

Fiant aures tuae intentae ad vocem obsecrationis meae.

Let but thy ears be attentive to the voice that calls on thee for pardon

If thou, Lord, wilt keep record of our iniquities, Master, who has strength to bear it?

Ah, but with thee there is forgiveness; be thy name ever revered.

I wait for the Lord, for his word of promise my soul waits:

Patient as ever watchman that looks for the day, Patient as watchman at dawn, for the Lord Israel waits.

The Lord with whom there is mercy, with whom is abundant power to ransom.

He it is that will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

[CELEBRANT]Lord, grant them eternal rest.

[RESPONSE]And let perpetual light shine upon them.

Si delictorum memoriam servaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit.

Sed penes te est peccatorum venia, ut cum reverential serviatur tibi.

Spero in Dominum, sperat anima mea in verbum ejus.

Exspectat anima mea Dominum, magis quam custodies auroram. Magis quam custodes auroram, exspectet Israel Dominum.

Quia penes Dominum misericordia et copiosa penes eum redemption.

Et ipse redimet Israel ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.

Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Si iniquitates observaverius, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?

Gathering Hymn ‘Angel Voices’

Francis Pott, 1832-1908

ANGEL voices, ever singing

Round thy throne of light;

Angel harps, for ever ringing,

Rest not day nor night;

Thousands only live to bless thee,

And confess thee,

Lord of might,

Thou, who art beyond the farthest˘

Mortal eye can scan,

Can it be that thou regardest˘

Songs of sinful man?

Can we know that thou art near us,

And wilt hear us?

Yea, we can.

Honour, glory, might, and merit,

Thine shall ever be,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Blessèd Trinity.

Of the best that thou hast given,

Earth and heaven

Render thee.

Welcome by Priest and opening prayer

Reading I J. and M. Gerrard

John Chapter 6, Verses 1-15

After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias.

And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.

And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.

And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Phillip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?

And this He said to prove Him: for He Himself knew what He would do.

Phillip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that everyone one of them may take a little.

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto Him,

There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?

And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about 5000.

And Jesus took the loaves: And when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

When they were filled, He said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

Therefore, they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said This is of a truth that profit that should come into the world.

When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take Him by force, to make Him a king, He departed again into a mountain Himself alone.

Psalm 23 ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ (Sung)

The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want,

He makes me down to lie˘

In pastures green, he leadeth me˘

The quiet waters by.

My soul he doth restore again

And me to walk doth make

Within the paths of righteousness,

E’en for his own Name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale,

Yet will I fear none ill;

For thou art with me, and thy rod˘

And staff me comfort still.

My table thou hast furnished

In presence of my foes;

My head thou dost with oil anoint,

And my cup overflows.

Goodness and mercy all my life

Shall surely follow me;

And in God’s house for evermore

My dwelling-place shall be.

Reading II J. Gerrard

Matthew Chapter 5

And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain: And when He was set, His disciples came unto Him:

And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit: For their’s is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: For they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: For they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: For they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: For they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: For they shall see God.

Blessed are the peace makers: For they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: For their’s is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: For great is your reward in heaven: For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Ye are the salt of earth: But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?

It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

Gospel

Homily Peter Gerrard

Prayers of the Faithful Friends and Family

Offertory Hymn (soloist) Ave Verum (Mozart)

Ave, ave, verum, corpus, natum de Maria Vergine:

Vere passum, immolatum, in cruce pro homine:

Cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit et sanguine:

Esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine, in mortis examine

Our Father (Ar nAthair) – Soloist

Our Father who art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth as it is in Heaven

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive those who trespass against us

Lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil

For thine is the kingdom

The power and the glory

Forever and ever

Amen

Communion:

Priest to invite congregation to communion or to receive blessing

Quiet moment after communion

Hymn. ‘Be thou my vision’ Irish Traditional Melody

BE thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought in the day and the night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,

I ever with thee, and thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, and I thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

High King of heaven, when the battle is done,

Grant heaven’s joy to me, O bright heaven’s son,

Christ of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Recession – Saint Saens Symphony No 3 for Organ

C. Gerrard, Charlies eldest sister

I'm going to read a poem by Derek Mahon -
Everything is going to be all right. I had it pinned on the wall of my office above my desk. I chose this poem, firstly, because it has always helped me, when I felt down, to remember how it feels to be up, and I hope it will help you all to remember that: everything will be all right. And secondly, because this is what I would have liked to say to Charlie.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT.
Derek Mahon.

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but ther is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

_____________________________________________________

A. Gerrard, Charlies second eldest sister

Charlie's life and death produce an interweaving of emotion - sadness, happiness, conflicting in a subtle blend. These poems capture something of what I am feeling.

Purpose
Desmond O'Grady

I looked at my days and saw that
with the first affirmation of summer
I must leave all I knew: the house
the familiarity of family,
companions and memories of childhood,

I saw my life and I walked out of it,
as a seaman walks out alone at night from
his house down to the port with his bundled
belongings, and sails into the dark.

The Avenue
Paul Muldoon

Now that we've come to the end
I've been trying to piece it together,
Not that distance makes anything clearer.
It began in the half -light
While we walked through the dawn chorus
After a party that lasted all night,
With the balckbird, the woodpigeon,
The song-thrush taking a bludgeon
To a snail, our taking each other's hand
As if the whole world lay before us.

___________________________________________________

E. Gerrard

John Addey.

Love doesn't end with dying
Or leave with the last breath
For someone you've loved deeply,
Love doesn't end with death.

___________________________________________________

I have no words, and when you have no words you ask the poets to speak for you, this is a poem by Patrick Kavanagh from his book No Earthly Estate

A Prayer for Faith.

O give me faith
That I may be
Alive when April's
Ecstasy
Dances in every
White-thorn tree

O give me faith
That I may see
The angel of
The mountainy
Places of Dream's
Infinity.

__________________________________________________________

Jeremy Toettcher. His poem for his best friend, written with the assistance of Johnny Egan.

Dropping Round to Belmont.

As it always started, Jer won't you have some tea
And with some smiles and some giggles, he poured a cup for me.

Relaxing in his kitchen, all my troubles went up in smoke
Perhaps in considering the boy who mattered most

Soaking in his presence, t'was I was put in my place
By Charlie's consummate manners, politeness and his taste.

The Gentleman Charlie would never slag or jest
the weakness in me - akin with all the rest.

The host Charlie, - Jer won't you have some grub
Sit down there lad, I'll quickly whip some up!

Girls, drinks and spell-checking, his trials in New York
Living for the moment, whilst still being late for work!

The Gerrard's gift to us, inviting, generous to the bone
Full of friendship, goodness, deserved of a throne.

Dropping round to Belmont, a pleasure not a chore
Bittersweet memories, I'll cherish forever more.
So cheers for the company, the jokes and the story,
Locked safe in my heart, my best friend

The rest are to come :

J. Gerrard
The Sermon on the Mount

J. and M. Gerrard
The Parable of the Loaves and Fishes

Speech for Charlie Gerrard
Given in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Terryglass
23rd March 2003 on the occasion of Charlie Gerrard's Funeral:

Peter Gerrard

Introduction.

1 As Charlie's Father I hope to speak of his too short life, the impact of his death, on us, his family, and on you his friends, and more generally to tell you some of my thoughts on life, on death and on our relations with each other.

2. Between finding Charlie on Wednesday the 19th of March, realising the manner of his death, and now at his funeral in Terryglass, we have had four days of tears, words, prayers, and insomnia. This is the most horrendous and fearsome tiding a family can receive. His death is a huge burden of sorrow for us all. And so we are united, but in sorrow, in this Church in Charlie's home parish of Terryglass and Kilbarron on the banks of the Shannon River on this beautiful spring day.

3. Charlie was a little over 23 years old, so young compared to the biblical span of three score and ten, his light shone in life for only one third the norm, and ended so sadly early on that terrible Tuesday morning. When we are faced with the darkness of such as this, it is good to go into the wisdom of the past to seek help and consolation.
I want to tell you about what happened in King Cnut's Hall more than a thousand years ago. He was the Viking King of Northumbria, the same king who told the incoming tide to go back and proved to his fawning courtiers that he was not omnipotent. On this occasion he was dining with his nobles in his long house, the building was lit by braziers and candles, in contrast to the external darkness. The nobles at table were arguing , jostling for position, and vying for his favour. He was sick at heart listening to them when he noticed a sparrow flying into the light at one end of the hall. He jumped to his feet and pointed, as it made its erratic flight through the brightness and warmth before disappearing into the night at the opposite end of the hall. He reminded to his courtiers that their life was as transient as the flight of the sparrow when measured against the great roll of eternity, like the frail bird they came from darkness and after a brief span of illumination and warmth, they, like it, would disappear into the outer darkness. He reproached them, he upbraided them, and asked rhetorically could they not fill their brief span of life with anything better then their bitter rivalries and their drunken quarrels.
Charlie has gone into that darkness, like the swallow; we can ask how he filled his days, his seconds, and as Christians we can dare to hope that an eternal light of Love and Mercy now lighten his darkness.

I do not think that we can begin to understand how Charlie's life ended so tragically, and it is best not to dwell on it. All I shall say is that in loneliness and sorrow it stands in heartbreaking opposition and contrast to all we knew of him in life.
For an insight into what we can not hope to understand, may I recount another story:
The great theologian and Church Father St. Augustine was walking one day by the seashore. He was thinking upon the mysteries of religion, particularly that of the Trinity. He came upon a little boy who had dug a hole in the sand and was slopping water with his hands into the hole. He asked the little boy what he was at. The child told him that he was putting the ocean into the hole. The great man smiled patronisingly and said "Little boy, you have no hope of doing that because the sea is so huge and that hole is so small." Upon this the child turned into an angel and said to the saint that such as he had appeared as - a small child - was better occupied in his impossible task than was the great man in trying to understand the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, the three persons in the one Godhead. The angel disappeared and Augustine went on his way humbled and wiser.

4. Who or what was Charlie? Charlie was nearly everything;
he was a son, student, brother, lover, cook, horseman, rower, runner, bungey jumper, parachutist, traveller and friend.

May I tell you a story from Charlie's childhood that tells much about his openness, his universality.
When he was about three or four I went to work for the first time in the Middle East, in Kuwait. I kept him supplied with photos of beaches and dunes, the sea, me swimming and Arabs. When I came home, his mother and I brought him to Wexford from whence her family came. We went to the beach at Curracloe where the small Charlie surveyed the scene with approval- sea sun sand and the good Burgers of Wexford. "They must be Arabs, Daddy" he said brightly, his little face shining with innocence, curiosity, acceptance and naivety. I like to think he never lost these qualities.

5 Charlie made friends, in pursuit of this universality, everywhere his life brought him - school, college, work, travel, in New York where he was last summer, in Africa, at home, in Europe, as this attendance in Terryglass now shows. He planned to make more friends in Thailand this summer, but this was not to be. He had a wonderful gift for friendship and made friends irrespective of what the world regards as divisions enmities and antagonisms.
We appreciate the efforts of his friends who have come so far, e from Taiwan, Seattle, New York, the Mediterranean.
We understand and feel for those who cannot be here.

6 Speaking of friendship brings me to a not so friendly Rugby story. Charlie played rugby for St. Columba's College and on one never to be forgotten occasion was engaged in a titanic struggle against a better and much bigger Kilkenny team.
The video showed clearly Charlie as wing forward being several times fouled by a huge ugly Kilkenny player who persisted in pummelling his kidneys in the scrum. Charlie, finally driven beyond endurance, remonstrated strongly with the Kilkenny man who had the temerity to push him,
whereupon Charlie floored the brute, large and all as he was, with a right hook to the jaw. Kilkenny won that day, but the moral victory was to St. Columba's.

7 Perhaps we shall remember him best for his generosity and his kindness. In messages received and things spoken there is much which might be thought maudlin, sentimental or hyperbolic, but which I, though hardly dispassionate, think to be true. Here is a letter that made me weep - the impression he made on a stranger who sent it to Charlie's brother John:

Dear Johnny,
I am writing to express my profound sadness and sympathy to you and your family on hearing of Charlie's death. It is the most awful and heart-wrenching of news, rendered almost unbearable by his youth and his radiant beauty.

I met Charlie only once, along with several of your wonderful sisters. It was that night in Donnybrook. It was a happy, creative evening that had a unique buzz and excitement. Many people, old friends and new, ringing with conservation, fun and fine food.
Charlie made a strong impact on me. He was full of youth and at awe with the world that night. He was amid many people older than himself, and yet that did not faze him. His conservation was fun warm and engaging.

And there was beauty in Charlie's eyes. Not just the most immediate beauty ( and he certainly had that) but also one that portrayed to me a gentle and kind person. I recall as I was leaving, late that night, he stood up and vigorously shook hands to say goodbye. Charlie to my eyes was simply a wonderful person of youth, warmth and life.

His death is stunning in its sadness. I am so, so sorry for you and your whole family at this time. I am sorry for Ireland that Charlie will no longer count amongst those who bring this country sensitivity, gentleness and honour.

It is a dark time indeed.

And yet, during those hours that I met Charlie, his was the brightest of lights, the warmest of lives. You had a beautiful brother, Johnny. And even though we " walk through the valley of death " this truth can never change.

I pray that his soul will rest, and that it will find perfect peace.
In sympathy and Love.
XXX
B

8 Charlie has died, this is his funeral; he has gone like the swallow into the darkness and we are without him. As Christians. we dare to have hope and faith. Hope of the Mercy and Compassion of God even in the darkness of death. I spoke of the Arabs earlier - Charlie met and liked many Muslims in East Africa. Omar from school was one of his good friends. And here I want to mention in Arabic the Koranic attributes of Allah/God, which are - Karim , Ratim. These mean - generosity, mercy and compassion. Such are some of the wide-ranging links between men, ideas and beliefs.
Had Charlie lived to mature man's estate, I wonder, at risk of soundind facetious, whether Charlie might have thought the four permissible wives in Islam a good idea. Which brings me to another difference between Islam and Christianity: that is the total prohibation on mind-altering substances, which includes alcohol.

10. We Christians see wine as a gift of God; as the preacher in Ecclesiastes tells us " wine maketh glad the heart of man".
It is part of Judeo/Christian ceremonial.
Fr.O'Melia, Fr. Carroll, and Fr. Athanasius who is Charlie's granduncle will use it in the concelebrated Requiem Mass for Charlie.
We used wine to extend hospitality for the last four days to our friends, as we will use it again today after we have buried Charlie. Let us use wine to enhance and strengthen our friendship with each other, to break bread and drink wine, potent symbols of sacrifice and love, at the while being careful of ourselves, being careful of those we love. Use it with care. In a little while we shall exercise our last care for Charlie -- that is the last care for poor dear Charlie in this our mortality which is to bury him, our youngest son. If Charlie had a fault it was this -- he neglected his care for himself and leaves us all more poor. So poorer without him.

11. I have little else to say except my thanks to all of you near and far, present and absent who have given so much support to me and the family and we only hope that we can also comfort and console you, his friends. I would particularly like to thank the concelebrating priests, the servers, Fionnula Murphy who sang so beautifully, the excellent organist Paul Collins, and Pat Keller, and all those friends here and in Dublin who helped with flowers ,catering and so many other ways.

12. We shall all mourn and miss Charlie as long as we are alive and endowed with emotions and memory. And our sorrow is proportionate to the joy and gladness that he brought with his life. So when in a little while we go out from this place away from Charlie's grave with these mingled feelings, let us go with care in our hearts, for ourselves and for each other and hold this care in our hands.
Having left all that is mortal of Charlie resting in this peaceful place I pray with my family and you our friends that Charlie's spirit may find "peace at the last".

Peter Gerrard
23rd March 2003

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