Mgr Kieran Heskin

Sacred Heart Church, Ilkley

This afternoon (October 18) I attended the funeral service at Leeds Cathedral of Bishop David Konstant, a former Bishop of Leeds. It was with deep sadness and many memories that I gazed at his coffin lying before the Cathedral altar at which he so often presided.

I remembered the July day in 1985 when his appointment as Bishop of Leeds was announced. Those of us who were then on the Cathedral staff accompanied our fit fifty five year old new bishop after lunch on his first visit into what was to be his Cathedral. I remember this six foot three figure kneeling on the stone floor outside the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, about twenty meters from where his coffin lay today, his head bowed in prayer, undoubtedly praying that he would be up to whatever lay ahead for him in the years ahead.

The future was a closed book to him as it is for all of us. As it unfolded, there were to be moments of triumph locally with successful pastoral initiatives, nationally in education and internationally in the production of a Catechism for the universal church. There were also to be difficult moments. A serious stroke in May 2001 impaired his mobility. It forced him to give up driving. He could no longer play the piano in his customary accomplished way and it would ultimately lead to his retiring earlier than would have been the case otherwise.

The past fifteen years brought him some very frustrating days and nights but again and again he rose above the frustration and he showed that time spent in poor health and with limited mobility is far from time wasted. He grew as a human being through his suffering just as he had grown through his academic, pastoral and administrative successes. In this he resembled his Lord and Master, who showed humankind how life should be lived not only through his preaching and pastoral sensitivity but also through his sufferings at the end.

There are few lives where there are not Calvaries to climb. When they come our way, may we face them with faith. May we have good friends to accompany us on the way and from the summit may we see things more clearly while loving God and our fellow pilgrims more dearly.