Eulogy for Philip J. Murnion

For the Murnions, August is the cruelest month. In 1941, when Philip was only 3, my father died. He was only 37. Forty-eight years later, in 1989, in August, my mother died. And now, on August 19th, we lost Philip. Not a good month.

Many of you here know him in many ways, as a priest, a colleague, maybe an advisor, or researcher, or writer, or speaker, or conference leader, or as Father Howie Calkins referred to him a moment ago, an "encourager." All you, of course, know him as a friend. Three of us, Bill, Rose Mary and I, knew him from the first moments of his life as our brother. And, through marriage, he became a brother to three others, Vic, Deborah, and Kathy. That made us particularly lucky. And we were with him right to the end, gathered around him to the very last breath. We were blessed.

I could talk about how, because we were so close in age, Philip and I grew up together, played baseball in the lots together, had our Bronx Home News paper routes together, worked after school in an insurance company together. But, if I did, I could just see Philip listening and nodding, urging me to get to the point. And, of course, the point is, we were friends as well as brothers.

When Arthur Jones was writing an NCR profile of Philip a few years ago, he called me for family anecdotes. Now, we all know that Philip had anecdotes. We’ve all heard them. Maybe he told you of Henry, the homeless man he got to know in the Bowery, one who was a familiar face to Monsignor John Ahern at the Holy Name Centre for Homeless Men. A few years ago he passed Henry in the street. This was when gentrification was moving into the Bowery—yes, the Bowery! The lofts were being converted to coops, the yuppies taking over the streets. Seeing Henry, Philip asked him, “How’s it going, Henry?” And Henry shook his head. “I don’t like it, Father. You see what’s happening? The neighborhood, it’s going to pot.”

But we couldn’t think of any family anecdotes. What we had instead in our family, like every family, were those significant annual events that enrich our lives, like, for us, the Easter feasts for the whole Murnion clan that Philip prepared himself, doing all the cooking, at the Our Lady of Loreto rectory on Elizabeth and Bleecker. And the Thanksgiving dinners at our close cousins, the Coughlins, a tradition that has lasted now for, what is it? 47 years? And, for Kathy and me, there was his annual August, yes, August vacation with us, usually around my mother’s anniversary, or my father’s. Very Irish. Do you know, by the way, what a Philip vacation is? What he does is take a long, invigorating walk. Then he sets up his computer, checks in for his calls, and returns maybe a half dozen of them, and then works at the computer for maybe six hours. Then it was time for a swim. And that was a good day for him. He really enjoyed it, enjoyed it enough to be ready a drink at happy hour, usually a glass of seltzer.

I would like to spend a couple of minutes on the last period of his life because, while he lived a life of love and faith and equanimity, nothing prepared us for the final weeks, when he met each disappointment with an acceptance that left us breathless. And there were so many disappointments. You have to understand, he was expected to live. When he was discovered to have colon cancer in December of 2001, they thought they had caught the tumor in time. The chemo was as much precautionary as anything else. But it failed, and so did the second round of chemo, and the third. And also there were the cracked ribs and the kidney stone. And then there was the operation of a month ago, which he knew would only extend his life, and that failed, too. Finally, the worst moment of all, when the doctor in the hospital told him he could never go home again, that it was time for him to move on to a hospice, Calvary Hospital. “That’s pretty final,” he said when the doctor left. But a few minutes later, he looked at us and said, “Let’s do it.”

To the very end, there was no wavering in his love or in his faith. Rather, they filled the room and poured out over the telephone to the many, many people who called him. Oh, the faith he had! Father Bob Imbelli, who devoted so much of his time to Philip in these days, guided us with Philip in prayer. It was beautiful.

Just as remarkably, Philip in these days spent the time to make sure that everything was in place, in his personal life and in the National Pastoral Life Center, holding meetings, even engaging in a board meeting. And then he was ready and wanted to move on, saying, “Take me, Lord.” One morning, in his final days, he was overheard by a nurse praying, “Take care of the priests...take care of the family.”

But don’t misunderstand: these were not at all gloomy days, not with the gentle serenity in the room. And he never, for a moment, lost his sense of humor. In fact, two nights before he died, we were saying good-night to him. Kathy leaned over and said, “I won’t kiss you tonight, Philip, because I’m getting a cold and I don’t want to pass it on.” He stared at her and said, “I should worry about that?”

We will never forget those final weeks. It was hard to walk out of the room and go home. So many times, as evenings gave way to night, Philip would look over at us, at Kathy and me, and at wonderful Agnes Nixon, who considered Philip the younger brother she never had, and he would say, “What time is it?” We would tell him, “Seven-thirty,” “Eight.” Whatever. And he would say, “What are you doing still here? Go home, will you!” And then, after a pause, he would add, “I don’t want you to leave. But go home, go home.”

And now, Philip, I must say it. Philip, I don’t want you to leave. But go home. Go home.