Page 33 - The Priest, Summer 2015

“spare” in the Old English meaning of the word, that is to say “rare;” and “strange,” as things of rari ed beauty always remain somewhat other-worldly in what appears to be a mundane existence — unless one is familiar with the God who transcends that existence and the Truth, Beauty and Goodness that ow through creation in His wake.
Supernatural battle
On the fourth day of the Ignatian Spir- itual Exercises, the Jesuit considers how Christ calls and wants all under His stand- ard. A great eld near Jerusalem is contemplated and there the supreme Commander-in-chief, Christ the Lord, commands an army of the just.
But in a eld near Babylon, Lucifer
sits beneath his own dark standard. Lucifer sits astride a great throne of smoke and re, terrible to behold
and horrifying, he is surrounded by
his legions. This army, like those of Sauron, in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings,
“is an army bred for a single purpose:
to destroy the world of men.” If, as Pope Francis, another Jesuit, often remarks, the Church is “a eld hos- pital after battle,” Gregory Jordan
was a man keenly aware of the battle
that rages beneath two standards. He
was also keenly aware of the Church’s place in the eld of that battle. Greg took the view that this eschatological warfare was inevitable and that life
was not a matter of avoiding evil, suffer- ing, pain and loss but rather of choosing a standard and then marching under it.
Greg knew that Catholic families stand
1985 and Chaplain to the Newman Asso- ciation, The Friends of the Prisoners As- sociation and Catholic Adult Education; from 1992 to ’98 he was Rector of St Leo’s College, University of Queensland, and at various times Assistant College & Univer- sity Chaplain.
As it happens, Hamilton East, New Zea- land, is about as close as one can physically come to Tolkien’s Hobbiton, being about an hour’s drive from where Peter Jackson lmed his Lord of the Rings trilogy. In this peaceful rural landscape, Gregory Fraser Jordan was born in 1930 before moving
over the years from 2002 up until his death made him a household name in countless home schools, university colleges, shared ats, student houses and doctors’ surger- ies across Australia. He could remember all manner of people, and their intricate familial connections, tracing seemingly anonymous persons through generations to connections with digni ed persons of worth. But therein lay the rub; for all who marched under the banner of Christ were of worth to Gregory Jordan and he de- lighted in the achievements of his former students, many of whom returned to him
to be married and to have their chil- dren baptised. He was not only the spiritual father to a score of Catholic marriages and families, but also to a signi cant battalion of priests.
I was a graduate of the Rev Fr Gregory Fraser Jordan Of cer Train- ing Academy, and I can point to a number of young priests of my own generation who also earned their pips under the in uence of Greg Jor- dan. I rst met Greg as an Arts/Law student at the University of Queens- land in 1998. There was a group of students who regularly attended Mass at the Catholic Colleges on campus who came under the in uence of “the good Jesuit,” as he was called by a great mutual friend who himself con- verted from the Anglican Church in the course of his university chaplain- cy, and became a Catholic Priest dur-
ing my time at the University of Queens- land. It was through Greg’s chaplaincy at the university that I was introduced to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite of Mass and to Gregorian Chant as a liturgi- cal and spiritual art form. If that were all that I might thank the man for, it would in itself be enough to cherish his memory for a lifetime.
On the occasion of Gregory’s eighty- third birthday, I rang him to wish him well. The last thing he said to me was “Be a good priest.” Three days later, on the nineteenth of July 2015, he died; sixty- seven years a Jesuit (having entered the Society of Jesus in 1948), fty-two years a priest (having been ordained in 1963) and forty-eight years in nal vows (having
lines of this warfare. Like charge of a eld hospital, encouragement, logistical support to families across only through his service to
to Australia to complete his Novitiate in Watsonia, Victoria, from 1948 to ’53; his Regency at St Aloysius, Milsons Point from 1957 to ’59 and his Theologate at Canisius College, Pymble between 1960 and ’63. Gregory also studied abroad in Brussels in the year 1965. He was not a particularly tall man but he was always the life of the party and this one hobbit came to know literally thousands of people in his adopt- ed homeland whilst always maintaining a great intimacy with his extensive family in the “Land of the Long White Cloud.” His work as diocesan exorcist and his chap- laincy work with the St Gregory’s Latin Mass Community, the Medical Guild of St Luke, The Apostles of Mary and the Australian Catholic Students’ Association
Journal of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy
33
on the front
a general in
he provided
and spiritual
Australia not
Jesuit Schools — from 1967 to ’73 he was Rector of St Ignatius College, Riverview; from 1974 to ’77 he was Headmaster of St Aloysius College, Milsons Point — but also in his friendship with and service of the young, especially university students — from 1978 to ’86 Greg was Rector of St John Fisher College, University of Tasma- nia, Chaplain to that same university in
Photo from Alice Harriott. Used with permission.