Funeral Mass for Very Rev. John Canon Doherty

It is altogether fitting that we are gathered here in St. John’s, Port Glasgow, for Canon John Doherty’s Funeral Mass. Like so many other immigrants from Ireland, the Doherty’s and the Marlow’s, John’s parents’ families, had settled in Port Glasgow when they came over from Ireland around the time when St. John’s was founded in the mid-1840’s. They brought their faith with them, and John himself was baptised in St. John’s and made his First Holy Communion here. He was born into the life of Christ from this Church. It is fitting that from this Church we accompany him with our prayers into eternal life, as we hear once again these words of hope: “The Lord will wipe away the tears from every cheek. He will destroy death for ever. See this is our God, in whom we hoped for salvation.”

Like many of us priests, John decided young that he wanted to be a priest, and went off to St. Mary’s College, Blairs, for his seminary education. John pursued and completed his studies for the priesthood at St. Peter’s College, Cardross, just across the river from here. It was a proud moment for the Doherty family, when the newly-ordained Father John Doherty celebrated his First Mass here in St. John’s on 30th June 1962. Since then until now, for 48 years, John has served the Diocese of Paisley as a priest. In this Mass, we give thanks to God for his priestly service and today we ask the Lord of all mercies to give him the reward of his labours and welcome him into eternal life.

Between 1962 and 1989, Father John served as Assistant Priest in St. Charles’ Paisley, St James’ Renfrew, St. Conval’s Linwood, St. Patrick’s Greenock and St. Andrew’s Greenock. During that time, John fulfilled the full range of priestly duties, including chaplaincy to hospitals and schools. He was given a more singular responsibility when he was appointed Chaplain to X Division (Inverclyde) Strathclyde Police: I am told that he especially enjoyed his duties as chaplain to the police. In 1989 John was appointed Parish Priest of St. Joseph’s, Greenock, and, in 1997 he became Parish Priest of St. Fillan’s Houston.

I don’t mention these appointments simply for the record, but to show how Father John Doherty touched the life of so many people in so many communities throughout the Diocese of Paisley. As St. Paul tells us today: “The life and death of each of us has its influence on others; if we live we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that alive or dead, we belong to the Lord.” Especially in this Year for Priest, it is important to say that the life of a priest is to live for the Lord through Mass and the Sacraments, through the preaching of the Gospel, and through dedicated pastoral commitment in parishes and in other responsibilities. And having lived for the Lord, the glory of a priest’s life is to die for the Lord and in the Lord, and for it to be said of him, “he belonged to the Lord.”  This was the vision of the priesthood which inspired and sustained Canon John Doherty through his life and until his death. May he be filled now with the vision of God!

I chose the Gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for John’s Funeral. It is the priest’s calling to take up his cross and follow the Lord in his passion and death. In the last phase of his life, Father John Doherty was invited to do just that to a very great degree. John’s health began to fail. He was no longer able to sustain his duties as a parish priest, and, in 2004, he was admitted to the Holy Rosary Residence in Greenock where he was cared for lovingly by the Little Sisters of the Poor and by the Staff of the Residence. At first John was able to carry out some light chaplaincy duties in the Residence, but his health deteriorated to the point where even that was beyond his strength. I remember visiting him. He was having a bad morning and I thought he would not last the day. But it was not to be so soon. As the months wore on, he became progressively weaker and more dependent, and eventually he died, fortified by the Sacraments and by the prayers, love and affection of so many. Like the Lord, he bore his sufferings patiently and with faith, and was given the blessing of a prayerful death.

The Gospel tells us today that death will never have the last word. “Why look for among the dead for someone who is alive? He is not here; he has risen.” Jesus is risen from the dead. His resurrection gives us the confidence to look not among the dead for our loved ones who have gone before us in faith and in grace, but among the living, with the Risen Jesus. With that confidence we commend the spirit of John Doherty into the loving hands of the Lord for whom, as a priest, he lived and died, and to whom he belonged. May he rest in peace! Amen.

St. John’s, Port Glasgow

25th February 2010.