Remembering a wonderful man and priest

Notebook

Monsignor Jim Cassin died on Friday, June 5, 2020. He was a priest of the Diocese of Ossory.

Dear Jim,

I write this letter to you just ten days after you have gone to The Father’s House where no doubt you have received a warm welcome from the Father himself but also a wonderful reunion with your parents Denis and Mary and so many of your family and friends who are already there. Mind you, I expect that they were not planning to be seeing you up there so soon just as we, your family and many friends were not expecting to let you go. None of us were really prepared for this and there wasn’t even a chance to say goodbye.

Jim, I first came to know you in my last year in Secondary School at St. Kieran’s. My room was directly across from yours on Chapel Lane and you would regularly call in for a chat. I had known a number of very good priests in my parish and through my years in St Kieran’s but you were probably the first one that I related to as a friend. During that final year in school I was seriously considering the possibility of becoming a priest and while I never mentioned that to you directly, your kindness and your enthusiasm helped me to decide what I wanted to do with my life.

I went into the seminary and you were my teacher for the next five years. Your subject was moral theology and you were an engaging, insightful and demanding lecturer. However your influence in my life stretched far beyond moral theology.

At my ordination dinner in 1986 you quoted a line from the Rite itself: “May the example of your life attract the People of God.”

You were asking me to remember that as I began my journey of priesthood, but Jim, in my life nobody has lived out that sentence more than you.

You had a wonderful capacity for friendship and hospitality and that was nowhere more obvious than when you became President of St Kieran’s College in 1995. I worked with you on so many pastoral projects over the years and your patience and ability to bring people of different opinions together in consensus was most impressive. That, I suppose is what leadership is about and it led so many people to believe you would become a bishop. It’s hard to be a leader without stepping on a few toes and I guess only the Holy Spirit knows what damaged toes are capable of!

Passion

Beyond St Kieran’s and our diocese you went on to serve the Church at national level in the area of education which was always your passion.

Your achievements and success in that role were eloquently articulated by Bishop Dermot at your funeral and by your friend Bishop Kelly at the conclusion of the Bishops’ meeting in Maynooth. I hope you knew those words of appreciation while you were still able to hear them.

Jim, whatever about the titles of Father, Monsignor, Professor, Director of Formation, President, Executive Secretary even being referred to as the “former future bishop”, my only interest here is to thank you for being a great priest and a wonderful friend.

My late mother loved you to bits. When you once tried to pay her a compliment, something she did not receive easily…she famously called you a ‘plasterboots’.

Jim, goodbye for the present but can I leave you with these words from Raymond Carver’s little poem ‘Late Fragment’.

‘And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.’

Jim, you now know how much you were beloved on Earth. And yet, that loves pales in comparison to what awaits you in The Father’s House. May you rest in the joy of that love forever.

– Martin