Vigil Mass for Archbishop Frank Little
at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Monday, 14 April 2008,
Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart.

 

Dear Friends,

May I join with Archbishop Denis Hart in extending a warm welcome to you all – to Archbishop Frank’s family, his friends, brother Bishops and Priests, religious, and to all of you who come here to pray for and honour a wonderful, Catholic, humble, and devout gentleman.

Tomorrow, I am sure, our Archbishop will draw a larger and more considered portrait of Archbishop Little to what I intend to do tonight.

Suffice it for me to recall moments, or if you will, glimpses in the life of Archbishop Frank. Each moment, I suggest, is full of meaning – and together the moments tell us of a man of great capacity, faith, virtue and dedication.

I first met young Frank Little during my very first parish appointment 50 years ago in Moonee Ponds. At the time it was a very vital vigorous parish and essentially an amalgam of intense Irish descended people and of a more recent group of Italian migrants. They were all soldered together by pride of nationality, of faith, and, I suspect, a lively support for the local Essendon football team.

Frank Little had all of these elements in his mental and psychological system. He had another quality that I noticed. It was an intense attachment to family – and if I may pick out one, an especially strong attachment to his father. All of these characteristics stayed with him to the end.

Next I met him when I was appointed to the Cathedral staff, just several years on. He had spent time at the Apostolic Delegation in Sydney where he caught a glimpse of church life that the rest of us only hear about from time to time. While there, he made one of a number of notable contributions to the life of the Delegation’s staff and it is one that I will recall. The Delegate had a budgerigar to which he was fondly attached. He taught it a few Italian words. Fr Frank decided to teach it a word or two in English. In the privacy of the Delegate’s occasional absence, he taught the budgie a true blue Aussie greeting heard mainly in farmyards and maybe football matches. On the first occasion the Delegate returned to his pet – he was greeted with the new phrase. I never discovered whether there was any fall-out from this achievement. But I do believe that it indicated the quiet mischievous sense of humour that was part of Frank Little.

I remember several features of his work and presence at that time. He worked tirelessly, even breathlessly, compared to the rest of us. He gave his all to the tasks entrusted to him. But it was noticeable that at all times his focus and attention was on people and this was another lifelong characteristic. Yet another feature was his expressive use of a quality that the rest of us called Romanità. It was a particular feature picked up by many who studied in Rome. His attachment to it became noticeable in conversation, in ready attention to Italian people and their needs, to Italian food, and to Italian company. This feature was never an exclusive preoccupation on his part, but it certainly was an assertive one.

It was often said in those days that if one wanted to be a Bishop - and I never once heard him say that he wanted to – one needed to be a Catholic, a male, and have studied in Rome. It was also asserted that one could get a dispensation from the first two conditions, but never from the third.

His keen enthusiasm for matters Italian opened up his mind and heart, I do believe, to migrant people generally. He was always interested in policies and activities of various migrant groups in the Archdiocese. He often spoke of the enormous contribution that Catholic schools made to the national life of this country by the educative influence and rehabilitative formation of migrant children. This was also, he observed, a powerful tool of evangelisation. This feature of his work and life was just a sign of the contribution that he made to Melbourne and Victoria as a citizen as well as a priest and Archbishop.

One last feature in those days of contact with him that I recall clearly was to learn that he was an avid reader. Theology was his preference, but he read widely, deeply and often. I could hardly recall a day when he did not have something to say about a book he was reading or enquire about one that I was into. This passion was another characteristic that stayed with him to the end.

Some years later, I saw him at close range when I lived at his house and was his Vicar General. I noticed quickly the workload of enormous proportions that he bore. I noticed the awesome pressure that pushed him almost to breaking point.

He brought to his pastoral role as leader of our Archdiocese the many gifts I have mentioned and also many others.

He had a detailed, intimate familiarity with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. He saw those teachings as inspired by the Holy Spirit, and an expression of the collective will of Pope and Bishops about the future of the Church. He also brought with him an unflinching loyalty to the Pope and the Catholic tradition generally.

Another feature was his own personal faith in the Lord, expressed especially for him in the daily celebration of the Eucharist. It was, for the many times I was with him at these solemn occasions a devout and reverent prayerful act. He was also deeply faithful to the prayer of his breviary as the prayer of the Church. He spent much time in his Chapel. If I could not find him about the house when he was needed, say, on the phone, the last place I would seek him out was in the Chapel. It became my experience to believe that he had an intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

During his time as Archbishop, there were turbulent processes of change taking place. The times were full of rumblings, questionings, jettisoning of form and structure at all levels in the secular and ecclesial world. Those times were one of the most severe of cultural and spiritual collapses in history. But Archbishop Frank was guided by the words of the Lord that were expressed in tonight’s Gospel John 12:26 “Whoever serves Me must follow Me, and where I am there will My servant be also.”

The story of St Peter in the first scripture reading Acts 10: 34-48 tells us something about this matter of changing times. Peter, a devout Jew, surrounded by the certainties of religion as to belief and practice, was challenged by the Lord in a vision to listen to the rumblings, and experience the shaking foundations that the preaching of the new Gospel was causing, and the Lord urged him to move away from his certainties and boundaries, to reach out instead to the unknown and to put his hand into the hand of his Lord.

This was rather like the Archbishop’s own scenario. As he often expressed, he understood that faith in Jesus Christ was central to everything. Accompanying his deep faith was a humility in approach to his work, and a persistent joy, no matter what. Through his leadership, we all caught sight of the Second Vatican Council’s vision of the Church as a pilgrim people on a journey, weaving its way through what he sometimes called ‘the fog descending’. He was referring to the encroaching of modern secularisation.

But as the time of his leadership lengthened, the demands and pressures were taking a toll of him. Serious health problems developed. Several times he came close to death, but good medical and nursing care and the prayers of those who loved him carried him through. Eventually he retired. He recovered a little, and became somewhat restless to do the Lord’s work again. He worked away as far as his retirement and health would allow.

Then last week the Lord came for him in the middle of the night. It was all over. But life had changed, not ended. And so, if I may, let my final words be to Thomas Francis Little who was my Archbishop and yours, my mentor and my friend:

‘Frank, dear Frank,
We all thank God for the gift of you
We also thank him for the gift of your work among us
We thank you for your faith-filled witness, for your constant devotion to the Eucharist and prayer and to spirit of the Gospel.
May you find peace and happiness with the Lord
May your soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace’.

Bishop Hilton Deakin