Page 32 - The Priest, Summer 2015

A tribute to Fr Gregory Jordan SJ (1930-2015)
The war against Two Towers
by Rev Nicholas Rynne
Glory be to God for dappled things —
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh- recoal chestnut-falls; nches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is ckle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, Pied Beauty (1877).
Fr Nicholas Rynne is assistant priest at Our Lady Star of the Sea, Miranda, in the Archdiocese of Sydney, and the ACCC’s State Councillor for NSW.
In 2001-2002, Fr Rynne was National Presi- dent of the International Movement of Catho- lic Students Australia (now known as the Aus- tralian Catholic Student Association), reforming Australia’s peak student body of Catholic ter- tiary students in close collaboaration with Fr Gregory Jordan SJ.
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“counter, original, spare, strange” and in so doing he would allude to the beauty of a priest’s life and death that had an in uence on the rich, the poor, the strong and the sick, the young and the old.
Fr Jordan would probably look askance if I described him as a “dappled thing” but no doubt he would have some witticism ready in response or perhaps go one bet-
erard Manley Hopkins could best describe his brother Jesuit,
Gregory Fraser Jordan SJ as
ter and begin to recite Lepanto. Gregory Jordan was not one to be upstaged and rarely without something worth saying. In any event, he would appreciate the liter- ary reference and the opportunity to un- veil yet another jewel of Catholic culture that it might be beheld, enjoyed and un- derstood by the faithful, especially the en- quiring minds of the young. And in doing so, Fr. Jordan was “counter,” to the culture of the day; “original” in that he was one of the few priests with the ability to do this;
© Gordon Tarpley, 2010, CC BY 2.0.