Mags Mooney: A life well-lived
Mags Mooney, dear friend of the Jesuits, died in Blackrock Hospice on Saturday 21 September 2024. She had been sick for several years.
Mags had a long and fruitful engagement with the Jesuits, going back to Tabor Retreat House days in the late 1970s, and more recently with The Peter Kenney Project, the Loyola Pilgrimage, and the Jesuit Province Induction course.
She was a huge part of the Anamcharadas programme that she set up along with Myles O’Reilly SJ. A lifelong friend, he was the principal celebrant at her funeral Mass. His moving homily about Mags’ life, work, family, and faith (all entwined) began with these words, “In all my fifty years as a priest, l don’t think l have ever witnessed a happier death.” He then went on to describe her last hours in the hospice, surrounded by her family and a close friend. “Mags said to one and then to the other in her whispering voice, ‘I am so ready to go, l am so happy, and I am so at peace.” Myles continued, “And then from the depths of her heart she said to each, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ A few hours later she slipped into life beyond death.'”
Fr Myles also recounted how a few days earlier, Mags told him that she now understood the meaning of the phrase. ‘Peace beyond understanding.’ “It is,” she said, “The sheer gift of knowing that you are inseparable from God, others and yourself.” Fr Myles said that “Mags, who had suffered so much, knew experientially at this privileged time what Jesus meant when he said to his apostles, ‘My peace I leave you, my peace I give you.'”
And he concluded with a final blessing: “And so Mags be at peace. You have fulfilled your mission. You have loved much, laughed often, travelled widely. You enjoyed the trust of intelligent men and women, gladdened the hearts of children, left the world a better place than you found it. You always appreciated the beauty of the earth and never failed to express that appreciation. You looked for the best in others and gave the best you had. Thank you for being such a blessing in our lives. Your work is done. We believe you will spend your time in heaven doing good on earth. With your Lord and Master
you can say ‘It is accomplished’”
Mags’ cremation ceremony took place in Mount St Jerome Garden Room. Her son Ciarán told the many friends and family members who had gathered there that his mum “always lifted people up, even if they weren’t down.”
Greg Heylin, a longtime friend of Mags from the Anamcharadas programme, also spoke at the cremation. He explained why he wasn’t wearing the customary black suit for the funeral. “When talking to us about her funeral Mags repeatedly said this was not to be a mournful occasion but a celebration of a life well lived.” He said those words of hers, spoken with conviction, were a testament to the remarkable woman that she was.
He explained how Mags had also asked him to “say some nice things about me”. So he spoke about his first meeting with her 38 years ago as she was leading a weekend on Christian meditation and action for social justice: “At the end of that course I knew I had been in the presence of the most vital person I had ever met.”
Greg went on to pay tribute to Mags as “a seeker, travelling out to India, the US and other places,” a teacher of Business Organisation, and a pastoral care worker in the school. “She loved her work in school, and spoke fondly when she retired about the marvellous energy of the girls and young women she taught. Mags was also an accomplished and much-loved teacher on the Anamcharadas programme.”
Mags was a wife and mother too, he said, noting that the “huge grief now felt by Arthur (her husband) and sons Eoin and Ciaran is a tribute to the bond of love between them.”
He spoke too of the gift that Mags had been to him for almost all of his adult life adding, “It has been a particular, if sometimes painful gift to have accompanied Mags over these last three years and eight months.”
He concluded by sharing what an old friend of Mags had said to him recently about how Mags was living the end of her life with grace and courage, in the same way as she had lived the rest of her life. “My partner, who met Mags only twice, added ‘she also lived her life with love’”.
Joe Greenan, Director of Manresa who also worked with Mags down the years says, “Her beautiful smile and warm embrace opened us all to a gifted soul. We give thanks for her love and her life. She was a gift to us all. We offer our sympathy to Arthur, Eoin, Ciarán and Geraldine and to all her extended family and friends.”
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam dílis.