Dom David Bird RIP

One of Fr David’s favourite stories was that of the Bolshevik army, with its commander-in-chief, arriving at a Siberian village in 1917. After haranguing the poor villagers for a couple of hours in the freezing cold on the glories of the Russian Revolution, he turned to the old parish priest, “And what answer do you and your God give to that?” The old man faced the crowd and cried out, “Christ is risen!” to which the villagers shouted back, “He is risen indeed!” That true story tells us much about Fr David’s life and faith. His whole being was centred on the Risen Christ, his Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. He lived and breathed Christ, For Fr David there was no other reality greater or more important. The Resurrection was the answer to all life’s questions, the answer to man’s search for God and his quest for meaning and truth. “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”

 John Patrick Bird was born to Cecil and Margaret Bird (née Hughes) at Stourport Hospital on 31st March 1937. His father was manager of Lloyd’s Bank, Bridgenorth. Before his second birthday, his parents moved to Hereford and it was here that John spent his formative years. His mother was a close friend of Sr Philippa of the Poor Clares at Bullingham. The nuns loved baby John and his mother would pass him into the enclosure by way of the turn, so that the nuns could cuddle and play with him. Could that have been the beginning of his vocation? It was at Hereford too that his sister Monica was born 9 years after John. When she was still a baby, John was sent off to school with the Salesian Fathers at Cowley, but he didn’t like it there, so, at the age of 13 he came to Belmont as a dayboy. When his parents moved to Stow in the Wold, he became a boarder. His father served in the army throughout the war and always said he much preferred the war to working in a bank! John was very much like his father.

 As he grew up, John developed a certain absentmindedness. Once when his trunk was sent home at the end of term, his mother was surprised, on opening it, to find nothing but a sock. On another occasion, his parents were waiting for him at the station. As one train after another came and went, they finally walked to the police station. Enquiries eventually led to the discovery that John was still sitting on the platform at Hereford station. He was so engrossed in his book he had forgotten why he was there. John loved reading and, when stuck into a book, became oblivious to what was going on around him. He was beginning to live in a world of his own. On finishing school, John remained at Belmont as a candidate for the monastic life. He never lived a normal life, never had to find work or hold down a job and never had the responsibility of providing for a wife and family. 

 John was clothed as a novice on 28th September 1955 by Abbot Maurice Martin and given the name David. He made his Temporary Profession a year later and was solemnly professed on 29th September 1959. He studied for the priesthood at Belmont and was ordained on 1st June 1961, together with Fr Illtud. By now he was seriously interested in Theology and so he was sent study for a License with the Dominicans at Fribourg in Switzerland. In those days the teaching of Theology was done in Latin, but for everything else French was used, so David began to learn French. We don’t know how proficient he became, but he loved telling the story of his first sermon in French. It was given at a woman’s penitentiary in Paris to a large group of prostitutes. The only subject he could talk about in French was ecumenism, so that is what the poor ladies were subjected to. Bishop Mark, who was studying French Literature at Fribourg, remembers David rushing late into class carrying a large bottle of Chianti and leaving it on his desk. David was very open and straightforward. Nothing was hidden. He was innocent in so many ways. He loved wine, beer and whisky and was never without his favourite pipe.

 Fr David returned to Belmont and was appointed to teach Theology to monks in formation and Scripture and Divinity in the school. He also became curate to Fr Luke on the Belmont Parish. He loved his subject and enjoyed teaching, although he could never be relied upon to remember the day or the hour of a class. He was a popular School Chaplain; his caring, fatherly nature and his ability to listen in a non-judgemental way meant that he was sought after by many of the boys and girls as a confidante, advisor and confessor. David was always fun to be with and his room in the school, smelling of toast and coffee, was always full of young people talking loudly and discovering their faith in a positive, happy way. Some thought he was rather avant garde, yet his Theology was soundly orthodox and traditional. The wonderful tributes from old girls and boys are a moving testimony to the lasting effect Fr David had on their lives. It was Bishop Daniel Mullins, who said that what made Belmont such a good school was the fact that so many of its former pupils had kept the Catholic faith. Fr David was a keen ecumenist, forging relationships with Anglicans and Orthodox.

 He was lovable and eccentric. Long before health and safety and low cost airlines, he organised pilgrimages to Chartres and Lourdes, usually combined with a week on the Costa Brava. They travelled by train, often having to go from one station to another by traipsing across Paris and invariably getting lost. On one occasion a group of 30 boys woke up at crack of dawn to find themselves camped on a traffic island surrounded by rush hour traffic. On another, in a hurry not to miss the train, one of the boys picked up what he thought to be the big communal tent. No one took notice until, half way to Toulouse, Fr David asked where it was. A boy pointed not to a tent but to a mailbag. Out of fear, a window was opened and the mailbag thrown out. Boys constantly got lost, but on one occasion, when a boy lost his passport, David simply wrote the boy’s Christian names in his own passport, declaring at the Spanish border that the boy was his son. As ever, he got away with it. You have probably heard the apocryphal story of his burning down a monastery in Austria. The truth is, it was only a wing of the monastery!

 In 1978, Fr David was asked by Abbot Jerome to join Fr Luke at St Begh’s, Whitehaven, as assistant priest. In those days monks were not consulted on their appointments. Fr David returned from holiday to find a letter from the abbot on his bed and that was that. Next day he packed his bags and went north. He enjoyed his three years in Cumbria, an experience that prepared him for the next stage of his life. In 1981, Fr David was chosen, together with Fr Luke and myself, to become a founding member of Peru’s mission in Peru. He was thrilled. He studied Spanish in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with the Maryknoll Fathers and finally arrived at Tambogrande on 20th August. Here he was to live and work for 9 ½ years. The Jesuit Archbishop Fernando Vargas, who had invited us, suggested we live in this small country town in order to get to know the Peruvian reality before actually founding the monastery. In fact, it was a vast parish of over 100,000 souls with 123 villages spread over 5,000 sq. km. Fortunately, the Sisters of Notre Dame and the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition were already there and together we trained an excellent team of catechists and volunteers. Through the hard work of Fr David and everyone else, it became a model parish. 

 The people and their way of life fascinated David. For many years he produced a newspaper called The Tambogrande Times for our parishioners, friends and benefactors back in the UK. It included a regular column offering constructive criticism of Liberation Theology. Putting together this newssheet, he discovered his flair for journalism and his love of writing, skills he would develop later writing two books, The Royal Road to Joy, published in 2003, and Heaven Revealed, in 2008. With the advent of the Internet, he would produce a highly respected blog, “Monks and Mermaids.” At Tambogrande and the villages, which he visited on his motorbike, he dedicated himself to pastoral work, not only celebrating fiestas and the sacraments but praying with the sick and dying. Everybody loved Fr David, especially children, who would follow him around like he was the Pied Piper. He played games with them, made them laugh, spoke to them of the love of God, spent precious time with them and enthralled them with his imitations of farmyard animals. He visited schools, chatting with teachers and pupils, and was instrumental in the setting up several village schools, including a secondary school at Progreso Bajo. He was full of energy and enthusiasm, yet as absentminded and forgetful as ever. Although he returned to Cochabamba for a refresher course, he was never fluent in the language, often slipping from Spanish to English without realising it. 

 When the time came to move to the Monastery of the Incarnation, built by Fr Mark in San Lorenzo, David asked to remain at Tambogrande, but on Fr Luke’s return to England, he was made parish priest of Cruz del Norte, Piura. Here, to the horror of Archbishop Oscar Cantuarias, he kept an open house for young men from Tambogrande who were studying or working in the city. You can imagine the noise and the chaos. Eventually, the Archbishop’s patience ran out and David had to go. He returned to England for a while and was sent to look after the parish at Harrington, but he was heartbroken and wanted to return to Peru. I pleaded with the Archbishop to let David back and he eventually relented, offering David the parish of Negritos, a coastal town 100 miles north of Piura. Here he worked for a number of years, enjoying the charismatic spirituality of the parishioners and the diet based on fish found locally in the Pacific. He was particularly happy in Negritos: he was his own boss and the Archbishop seemed a long way away. However, these bishops eventually catch up with you and, if they don’t like the way you are doing things, they ask you to leave. Archbishop Oscar and Fr David did not enjoy a happy relationship.

 God is good: when one door closes, another opens. Fr David was invited to the Diocese of Cajamarca to serve in the parish of San Miguel de Pallaques, high up in the Andes. This was a completely new experience, accustomed as he was to the deeply religious, affectionate and hospitable people of northern Peru. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his time at San Miguel. However, he was no longer a young man. He was now in his mid 60s and beginning to decline. His mind turned to the possibility of joining the monastic community that was relocating to Pachacamac, an hour south of Lima. However, before returning to the monastery, he worked for two years as a charismatic spiritual director in the formation house of a new Peruvian religious order at Chosica on the central highway. He finally came to the monastery in 2007 and was appointed superior in 2008, a position he held with the faithful support of the Peruvian brethren until 2016. One of his many extraordinary feats was the erection of the largest and tallest Cross of St Benedict in the world on the mountaintop behind the monastery, a task accomplished with the help of Peruvian Air Force helicopters. On a visit to England, he was diagnosed with Non-Hodkin’s Lymphoma, which necessitated protracted treatment with chemotherapy. He was distraught, but eventually, he returned to Pachacamac, dedicating himself almost exclusively to his blog and corresponding with theologians all over the world.

 By the end of 2017, it was clear that Fr David’s health made it impossible for him to remain in Peru. So it was that in February 2018 I met a downcast Fr David at Birmingham airport. He settled remarkably well to life at Belmont, but dreamt only of returning to his beloved Peru. He knew and we knew that this was not to be. To begin with he continued working on his blog and kept contact with brethren and friends in Peru, but gradually his health deteriorated and he was unable to do very much, other than pray, read and watch old films on his laptop. His lifeline was Monica’s regular visit on a Saturday night to deliver his supply of whisky and take him out to the Three Horse Shoes. His dying wish was to go to the pub with Monica. After three years of grace, the cancer had returned and this time there was no turning back from the road that leads to God through the gateway of death. Early on New Year’s Eve, he passed peacefully into the life that lies before us all. As St Paul reminds us, writing to the Romans, “All of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free.” May his gentle soul rest in peace. Amen.