Dom Alexander George RIP

Homily for the Requiem Mass for Dom Alexander George 9th February 2022

 “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim 4: 7)

Later this afternoon, when we come to bury Fr Alexander, there will be a prayer of the mourners, for all of us who are here today and many more besides who cannot be here. It says, “Grant, O God, that while we lament the departure of this your servant, we may always remember that that we are most certainly to follow him. Give us grace to prepare for that last hour by a good life, that we may not be surprised by a sudden and unprovided death, but ever be watching that, when you come, we may enter into eternal glory.” We were all shocked by the sudden and unexpected death of Fr Alexander. He appeared to be recovering well, if slowly, from last year’s major surgery, although it was obvious that at times he was struggling. We are most grateful to the nurses, doctors and hospital staff who took such good care of him, as also our own infirmarian, Br Dunstan. It was certainly a long haul and a painful one at times. Yet, throughout this lengthy period of physical and spiritual suffering, Fr Alexander did not lose his faith, or his fidelity to prayer or even his wicked sense of humour. Far from it, this last period of his life sharpened his awareness of the presence of God and prepared him for that final hour, when the Lord, like a thief in the night, came to call him to himself. He was certainly not surprised by death, but ready to embrace it.

 A few days before he died, we were chatting about the spiritual journey that brought him to Belmont and, ultimately, to transfer his stability to the community in which he died. He was saying that he had at last found that peace for which he had longed throughout his life, especially during the forty-eight years he had searched for God in the monastic life. As we all know, he was a man of many talents, highly intelligent and accomplished in so many ways. As a monk and a priest, he had served the community at Downside, as teacher and housemaster, parish priest, oblate master and professor of theology, the Diocese of Clifton as Vicar for Religious, and the wider Church in so many ways. Late in time, three and a half years’ ago, he came to Belmont, into exile you could say, not sure of how long he would be staying here and not knowing the community. For our part, we didn’t know him, for our paths had rarely crossed. Immediately, effortlessly, we accepted each other lovingly and, through God’s grace, integrated without difficulty. It was as though he had always been a monk of Belmont and he rapidly became part of our community. More than willing, he was always keen and enthusiastic to take part in our daily life, both prayer and work, and was always ready to stand in if you needed help, in the parish, kitchen or taking classes in the novitiate. A man of vast experience and in-depth knowledge of so many disciplines, a man of shrewd judgement and prayerful discernment, if you were looking for a word of wisdom, he invariably had one to hand. Widely read and travelled, he had many friends and was greatly loved and respected, yet he was genuinely humble and masked his scholarship behind a lovely smile and a jovial spirit. His eyes always sparkled with impish delight. 

In our first reading, (Isaiah 25: 6-9), the Prophet Isaiah sees heaven as a banquet of rich food and fine wines, a place where sorrow, pain and death are ended, tears and shame no more, where the God of our salvation will be with us for ever and we will exult and rejoice in his presence. That is the heaven of which Fr Alexander dreamed and for which he prayed. If he sought the good things of life on earth, it was, in part, because they were a foretaste of far better things to come in heaven. St Paul, writing to Timothy, (2 Timothy 4: 5-8; 17-18), is conscious that his life is coming to an end. It’s time to go. “I have fought the good fight; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith.” These very words were quoted to me by Fr Alexander as he spoke of death and heaven, not with pride, but with immense gratitude to a loving God, who had rewarded him at Belmont in these last months with an inner peace and tranquillity, that he sensed to be a touch of heaven, and a powerful awareness of the presence of God in prayer. St Paul goes on to say, “all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that Day, and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his Appearing.” Fr Alexander’s prayer life, his assiduous fidelity to mental prayer, heart of the English Benedictine tradition, and his coming to terms with chronic illness and death as God’s will for him on the road to eternal salvation are an example and a great comfort for us all. None of us are lost, because God loves us and desires only our salvation, our peace and our eternal joy. God wants us to be with him for ever, and for God nothing is impossible. In our Gospel passage from St Luke, (Luke 12: 35-40), Jesus warns his disciples to be ready for his return. They must be awake and ready for action. They must be prepared to serve their Lord and Master when he returns from the wedding feast, when he comes again from heaven, only it will no longer be they who serve him, but rather he who serves them. Blessed indeed are those servants whom the Master finds ready, and among whom undoubtedly stands Fr Alexander. We, too, can be numbered among them, even though we do not know the day or the hour at which the Son of Man will come.

Fr Alexander was a man immersed in the mystery of God, in love with God, a man who enjoyed the company of God, and he has shown us that for none of us is this impossible. God uses our imperfections and idiosyncrasies, our sins too, to draw us closer to him, for indeed, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Mark 2:17; Luke 5: 32). Today, then, as we pray for the repose of his soul and the forgiveness of his sins, we also thank God for giving us in Fr Alexander a living parable to encourage us in our own Christian and monastic life. He was living proof that being a Christian and a Catholic should and can be fun and immensely rewarding in this life, while at a deeper level, leading us to touch the very mystery of God and enter into the fire of love of his Divine Heart. May he rest in peace and may his holy death encourage us all not to be afraid but to be ever ready to rest in the arms of Jesus and, with him, in the loving embrace of Mary our Mother. Amen.