Funeral Homily for William J. Hill, O.P.

Abstract

The Thomist 66 (2002): 1-7 FUNERAL HOMILY FOR WILLIAM J. HILL, 0.P. BRIAN J. SHANLEY, 0.P. Dominican House ofStudies Chapel Washington, D.C. October 17, 2001 HE EASTER GOSPEL that we proclaim today Gn 21:15-19) was the one that we used when we celebrated Bill's 50th anniversary of ordination on June 10, 2000. It struck me then as providentially provided to explore the mystery of Bill's priesthood, and it still strikes me now as the best way to articulate the witness of his life. As the gospel reminds us, at the heart of Christian discipleship is a response to the invitation from Jesus Christ to follow him. It is an open-ended invitation to embark upon a life-long journey where we do not always know where we are going. The gospel tells us that there might be a marked discrepancy between the way we follow Christ when we are young and the way we might be compelled to follow him when we are older. Bill knew this, for in a remarkable 1985 homily at the Catholic Theological Society of America convention he began: "It is an awesome thing to fall into the hands of the living God." ... It may help to note, in the face of the awesomeness of this task [the ministry of the Word], that Christian existence is a pilgrimage, a matter of being "on the way," that Christianity and even Christ himself were once in ancient times referred to simply as "the Way." We set out, however, not alone but in the company of Christ who is the Great Voyager. If we are indeed pilgrims of the Absolute, Christ is the great Voyager, before us and ahead of us, showing the way. Turned towards him, our life and our work finds its focus there, on He who is God's own Son. In him does there meet our faith and God's faithfulness. In life we can be aimlessly carried along, driven by forces beyond us--or we can deliberately set out on a personal pilgrimage that is acknowledged and embraced. But this 2 BRIAN J. SHANLEY, O.P. means undertaking an inner spiritual voyage with no set itinerary. And if we are to tell God's people of it-at least if we are to tell of that pilgrimage which Christ himself undertook-we must travel it ourselves ... and so this Christian voyage takes us eventually (there is no escaping it) into uncharted waters, or to change the image, into the wasteland, into the dark wood.1 Presciently, the journey did end there for Bill, as it had, he noted, for Aquinas before him. But before it did, Bill had years like Peter and like Aquinas, where he went about and did as he willed. WHEN You WERE YOUNG .•. Bill's pastoral ministry, the way he fed Christ's sheep when he was young, was the ministry of the Word as a Dominican theologian. He was a scholar, a teacher, and a preacher. A) Scholar At a Dominican conference on Thomism in the Third Millennium held in Chicago in April of 1999, there was a session devoted to Bill's intellectual accomplishments at which Cathy Hilkert, Greg Rocca, and I spoke about Bill's achievements. This is not the place to rehearse Bill's academic accomplishments; rather, I would like to highlight the qualities of his mind that I admire most. Bill believed that Thomism must be capable of absorbing, within the perspective of its own wisdom, insights into truth originating elsewhere, but without violating its own inner coherence and character. Thomism has to be open to truth, wherever it is found, just as St. Thomas was; it needs to be selfcorrecting in the face of truth claims made outside of Thomism. If it is going to be viable as a contemporary mode of thought, a living tradition, then Thomism must also consider and answer contemporary questions. It would not be enough simply to repeat Aquinas's insights, but rather they must be re-thought, extended, and stretched. Bill believed that the thought of St. Thomas had 1 "The Theologian: On Pilgrimage with Christ," Appendix B, Catholic Theological...