HOMILY for SR MAURA DILLON
FUNERAL MASS at COLUMBAN SISTERS’ CHAPEL, MAGHERAMORE
June 24th, 2025
Maura didn’t give us any advance notice that she was going to die in the early morning of last Saturday, 21st June. She may have been unconsciously hoping to avoid a trip to the new nursing home in Loughshinny. However, it is most likely that the angels, knowing her love and appreciation of music and the many musical evenings she and Phyllis spent in the Concert Hall when they could afford it, sent their heavenly harpists to lead her into the presence of the divine. For sure, she heard that “still small voice of silence” gratefully reminding her that her long life of commitment and enthusiastic participation in Columban mission was coming to an end. Joannes Tauler, the 14th century Dominican mystic says that in death the soul sinks into a tranquil silence and inconceivable union. That’s what was happening to Maura at 2.30 a.m. last Saturday morning as the nurses were waiting for the doctor to come and declare her dead. The angels had taken her by the hand and led her into the presence of God. That is where she is right now as we gather here to gratefully celebrate her long life of missionary commitment.
The commitment to mission began for Maura in 1949 when she and Maureen Byrne travelled together on the train to begin their missionary religious life. In Limerick they bought a box of chocolates and finished them before they arrived at the Columban gate because they believed they wouldn’t see another chocolate for a very long time.
Having completed her initial formation and profession in 1950 she was assigned to Los Angeles. The pastor there in a very poor Hispanic parish had a large school with many Hispanic migrants and inner city children but he had no teachers. He made a novena to St. Columban for help and soon after he finished the novena Sr. Vianney Shackelton happened to be in Los Angeles on visitation. He approached her for help and when she heard that many of the students were Hispanic migrants, living in ghettos and in the inner city, she realized they were in fact the poorest of the poor, and agreed to send sisters for two schools in Los Angeles, Guadalupe and Westminster. From 1950–1962 Maura was assigned as
principal of the school in Westminster. Because of her leadership and teaching skills she had been appreciated during these years for her creativity and commitment to the faculty and students.
When she was concluding her mission in Los Angeles in 1962 she happened to read the writings of the theologian Raimundo Pannikar. Because Pannikar’s mother was Spanish and his father was an Indian Hindu, his interests included the study of mystery, and uniting the spiritually of Eastern and Western Christians. He felt that Western Christianity had lost its mystical tradition and there was little space to contemplate the ecstasy of our spiritual existence or the presence of the sacred in our lives. Maura was very enthused about this new approach which sowed the seeds that gradually led to the revitalization of Western Christianity. She enrolled and studied theology in Marquette University from 1962-1967.
Having completed her studies a whole new chapter was about to open up for her. Her next assignment was to the Philippines and specifically to Columban College, Olongapo City, where she served from 1968 – 1980. Like John the Baptist, whose birth we celebrate today, she had come to prepare a place for the Lord in a city, known only for its lurid entertainment, night clubs and debauchery. In Columban college she founded a catechetical centre which offered a 5-year program to students who upon graduation would teach in the high schools of the diocese. She had already gone to Germany and got generous founding for her program. In this program she wanted her students to be steeped in the scriptures and in the letters of St. Paul, and also to be appreciative of the Church’s long history. Gratefully, today, the work of her centre continues, perhaps not at the intense level it did in Maura’s time.
In 1980, our Columban commitment to Columban College Olongapo was about to end and Maura returned home to Ireland. She accepted an assignment in the Irish Missionary Union in Dublin where she was involved in a program for missionaries from third world countries and those in Ireland working in the inner city. The sessions were very informative and engaging and we got to appreciate each other’s ministries.
In 1996 she was assigned to our Dublin communities in Eglinton Road and Crumlin and became the Columban Justice and Peace coordinator, a commitment she continued until her return to Magheramore in 2017. In her different ministries Maura never forgot her family and friends. In the humid heat of the tropical summers before email or text messages, Maura would go to Manila on one Saturday a month, sit in the air conditioned foyer of the Hilton hotel and take care of her correspondence to family and friends.
In 2017 it was time for her now to retire. For the past 8 years she must have often reflected on her long life of missionary experiences which has now become a source of inspiration for others. As we bid farewell to Maura today we offer our prayers and sympathies to her nephews Barry, John and Eoin, and her nieces Kathy, Yvonne, Louise, Geraldine and Alison, their families, her sister-in-law Mary and to her many relatives and friends.
To conclude, we cite Mary Oliver, the American poet who says that in death we “look into the white fire of a great mystery.” No preparation is needed for a life well lived. And the OSB poet Laurentia Johns adds:
“God speaks again
and not in repetition –
the first, a sending,
now a calling back.
God says: ‘Let there be light’
and the Light rises glorious,
as seven moons in one.
This day will have no night.
We enter and we rest
in inconceivable union
with family and friends
In the presence of the divine.
Agus go mbeidh suimhneas siorrai agat go deo i rialtas De.
By Sr Kathleen Coyle