Meditation on the Priesthood - Funeral of Fr. Charles Davignon

 

[This is a rough transcript of Monsignor Lavalley's remarks at the funeral of Fr. Charles Davignon on September 13, 2022.]

  ...

He was always too big for life. He loved it. He loved life, and I'm not going there. I want to bring you to the moment in my life that I will never forget, and I never told him about it until after we were both priests. Because when the moment happened, neither one of us were priests.

It goes back. A long way.

One of the young priests once asked me who ordained me? And I said Bishop Degoesbriand -- and he didn't even smile. 

There was a place. It was a special place. It was called Camp Holy Cross. A lot of vocations came out of that place and the seminarians were sent there every year. There were a lot of us - about 50 - and we were there and we worked for eight weeks and one week of counselor training and the highest amount of money you could get at the time was $100 and we thought that was good. 

I worked there before I was in the seminary. I worked there as a junior counselor. And I was in the unit with Charles Davenuel and several other wonderful, wonderful guys that were older than I was and we used to in the evening some we would go down to the dining hall.

We belonged to a club that was called the midnight club and the motto was simplified [?]. We were always tired and we used to eat peanut butter and cheese that was government-supplied. It was horrible, but friendships that were built there were wonderful and every once in a while, somebody would come in with corn on the cob or somebody would bring in cookies or something as good as ice cream.

And [when that happened] we'd always go round and we'd spread the word and one day, it was one of those nights and the word got out that there was ice cream down there and we could all go and we all started down and we were there and all of a sudden I looked around when I got there and there was no Charlie Davignon. 

And so I went looking for him and I went to the cabin and I went all around the place I couldn't find him. And finally, I walked by the chapel, it was night and I looked in. And there was one light on over at the side.

And Charlie was praying there.

I was about 15 years old.

And I started to open the door and I don't know why. But I stopped and I looked in and he didn't see me.

He didn't see anybody. He was looking at the tabernacle,

He looked like a man in love. 

And at 15, I knew enough not to bother. He didn't get ice cream and neither did I. I took a walk on the beach. I didn't know what he had. I only knew I wanted it and I can still see that face.

It was a moment of grace and something stirred in me.

I was just 15 but it was a moment that stayed with me and I never told until after we were both priests.

And he and I were visiting one day and he said, "I hope I'm a good priest." And I said, "Charlie I want to tell you a story," and I just told him this. He took my hand and he said, you never mentioned it. And I said I'll mention it again.

And he said, jokingly, "That would be a wonderful thing to tell them [at my funeral]." Promise kept.

But I tell that in a­­­­ special way because and the reason that I wanted to share that in a very special way today it is because, you know, you, I can tell you things about his life and what he did, and where he went and who he knew and, and all of the rest of it, that's not important.

You see his life. Our life. It's a mystery. A mystery all of us are. But let's talk about the priesthood today. Can we for once, praise the priesthood?[Applause.]

We live in mystery. It's a mystery. It's behind the vestments, the candles and the smoke, the incense. It's the reason for the water and the wine and the bread, and the oil, and the prayers, and the sanctuary lamp you see. Because in reality a man that's [?]of the consciousness of his own nothingness and he rises up a priest forever.

And so it's not really our life at all. It's like Paul saying I live [?], but it's no longer I that live, it's Christ that lives in me. And most of the things that we do, we don't do it and it began in a moment, when Charlie Davignon, from [?] Orleans, Vermont, knelt down, child of Leo, and Deli, and knelt.

A bishop put his hands on his head and his life changed forever.

And he said Mass. I served at his very first one, his [...].

And that's what our life is about. [ ...] It's Christ who gives absolution in confession. It's Christ who anoints. It is Christ who binds together.

[ ... ] It's a mystery and so that the things that we really do in life, the things that really count we're instruments. They just tell us you have to be, and they used to be a channel of grace and I don't believe in the channel of grace anymore, because a channel doesn't hold anything.

I believe in our day and age priests, we need to be a reservoir of grace, that's filled up and spilled over from the side, and holds it in and gives it out.

[...] We have wonderful priests from other countries who have come to serve us. We're missionary territory. ... [I'm]not perfect and you are not. We know we're not. But, you know, it always amazes me at Mass ... Before communion, we hold up a host but it's not a whole host, it's a broken host.  [...]It's a broken host held by a broken priest to a broken church.

And we bring Jesus in the middle of it all.

A professor inthe seminary used to say, "Jesus Christ does not have the answer to all of the world's problems; he is the answer to all the world's problems."

And that's why I go back into the moment, The moment that I saw Charlie, my brothers. That's what we need to be in a very special way, because we're very busy. ... and some priests have four or five assignments. We're always on the go and I challenge myself and all of my brothers. We need to do what Charlie did.

That one moment: we need to pray.

We need to find our first love.

None of us are as busy as Jesus. But how many times do we read, 

he went to the desert [to pray]. He went to the quiet place.

He went off the top of the mountain, but only one thing kept him going.

It was his union with his father. [ ... ] We must not as Catholics ever be concerned that the world hates us. Jesus promises [...] Why are we being persecuted? Because we're the church. That's why. Take up the cross daily and come and follow me.

[ ... ]

It's called good example.

And so, with all the laughter and all the things that went on [at Camp Holy Cross], I can't forget a young seminarian, who forgot about ice cream.

And knelt before the Blessed Sacrament.

And he looked like someone who had fallen in love.

My brothers, we must remember our first love.  We mustn't go so fast that we think it's all [about] us.

We need to become the reservoir of grace.

No longer I that live, it is Christ that lives within me.

There Charlie, I did it. Don't ask me to do it again.