The funeral, just one month ago, was as he wished a parish burying its parish priest. It had the "noble simplicity" which he often spoke about. It incorporated our traditional practices like carrying the coffin and filling in the grave and at the same time it used the revised funeral rites which he had helped to shape. It was a sad occasion, but we remembered that he often spoke of the sadness which was part of our Easter joy. Sean Swayne died on May 2nd after a shorts illness and was buried in the graveyard at Diffske Abbey in Graignamanagh, Co Kilkenny, where he had been parish priest since November 1986.
The sadness of the parish was shared with Sean's family and friends. He died at the family home in Ballon, Co Carlow, surrounded by and cared for by Peadar, Kitty, their children and his friends. We all mourn the death of Sean, the outstanding figure in the renewal of worships in the Catholic Church in this country over the past 30 years.
After ordination at Maynooth College in 1957, Sean served as a curate in Naas, Co Kildare for nine years and then studied at the Institut de Liturgie in Paris. He knew and loved the tradition of Catholic worship but he always desired a liturgy ever new. "Our liturgy," he wrote, "is a new liturgy of the Christian dispensation, which keeps the Church ever young and fresh and beautiful as a bride (Rev.
21:2)." He worked for the renewal of liturgy as revised by the Second Vatican Council, travelling to every part of the country, speaking with diocesan and parish groups, writing in the bulletin he aptly named New Liturgy, and in his own celebration of warship.
When Sean was appointed by the bishops to be their first national secretary for liturgy in 1973, he saw it as an opportunity for the renewal of worship, which the council has called the "summit and source" of all our Christian activity. For 14 years he worked tirelessly in this post. He established the secretariat, first at Mount St Anne's, near Portarlington, Co Laois and later in Carlow, playing a vital role in the providing of the new missal, lectionary and other books which we use in Catholic worship. He worked with ICEL, the international commission with responsibility for the English translation of our liturgical texts and served as consultor to the Roman Congregation for Divine Worship. The secretariat organised workshops and seminars and in September 1974 began a one year course in pastoral liturgy. This and other programmes at the Irish Institute of Pastoral Liturgy, as Sean called it, gained a national and international reputation. It was a place of study, reflection, hospitality and celebration. Over 600 people, from over 30 countries, have taken part in the one year programme. The chapel at Carlow was unique and was admired at home and abroad. It exercised its own special influence on the places we design four our worship.
Sean reached out to people throughout the country. He had a special concern for the people of the arts. Artists and architects were among his closest friends. He chaired the bishops' advisory body on sacred art and architecture. He was instrumental in organising the exhibition of religious art by leading artists in 1974. In recent years, in Duiske Abbey, Graignamanagh's restored 13th century parish church which he loved so much, he commissioned the icon of Our Lady of Duiske in the chapel of reconciliation and the beautiful processional cross. He set up a series of November concerts and founded the Abbey Arts Centre. The Pentecost Mass in 1994, relayed on Eurovision, is a good example of Sean drawing on local talent, using the music and words of our culture, and celebrating with the parish he loved so much. Last year he wrote The Old Grey House, Graignamanagh remembered, which he called "a modest addition to the already well documented history of a proud and talented people." Easter was his favourite time. When he spoke of Easter joy, as he often did, he knew it is intimately linked with suffering and death: Christ's and our own. Sean shared that suffering and died peacefully in Eastertime one week before his 63rd birthday.
Our best tribute is to continue in the renewal of our ways of liturgical understanding and practice. Sean left us a vision and a legacy which enables us to do this with confidence.
Idir dha laimh Chriost go raibh se.