Fr. Seamus O'Kielty: May He Rest In Peace

Yesterday, the world lost a great man while heaven gained a great treasure. Yesterday, the world became much poorer in persons to lead the way while a man's status went from earthly denizen to saintly legend. Yesterday, Fr. Seamus O'Kielty passed away into the sleep of peace. He was eighty-eight years old, as Irish as they come. His life encompassed more adventures than could be written about in a book, but I will do him a slight service by summarizing: ordained a priest in 1954, he entered missionary service to Africa, Bolivia, Tanzania, later finding himself a Navy chaplain, filling various roles where sacrifice and threats to his life was the norm. He retired from the Navy in 1995, and entered the life of a parish priest in the Patterson, NJ Diocese. He joined the Christendom College Community in 2002 as an assistant chaplain, and, in his opening homily to the Christendom College Community, was recorded as saying, “I want to die here because people at Christendom College will pray for me when I am gone.”

People who know me will know that I am not one to jump on the bandwagon of assuming that everyone goes straight to heaven when they die. Most people will need time in Purgatory before an eternity spent in heaven before the Awesome and Incomprehensible Mystery of the Divine. I also believe that there is no insignificant number of people who will miss the mark entirely and will go instead to hell. Fr. Seamus O'Kielty is one of a very few number of people that I do believe stood an incredible chance of going to heaven directly, or else needing very little purgation before proceeding to his eternal reward in the Eternal Banquet Hall.

In light of the fact that he was human like all the rest of us, I am asking for your prayers for this good and holy priest. We don't know for certain that he is in heaven, and lacking certain knowledge, all we can do is storm heaven with prayers for his quick admittance into heaven. We should do this same favor for all of our loved ones.

I give you an example: Imagine, if you will, passing through the veil of death as we will all do. You are standing before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, the Lord of all Life, and He shows you His hands and side, gouged with the nails and spear, and He says, "This is what I have endured out of My Love for you. How have you shown Me your love?" As your life flashes entirely before your eyes and His, you know that your life is not what it should have been. In an instant, you see all of the missed opportunities to gain graces, and that heaven was within your grasp. All of the good and bad deeds of your life are placed in the scales and you are found wanting, but not damned. The judgment is rendered not by the Just Judge but by you yourself; you see that you are unworthy of passing through the gates of heaven, and you willingly subject yourself to the painful yet purifying fires of Purgatory, because that would be better than to attempt to enter heaven with any small smudge of sin on your soul.

When you enter the purgative realm, you look back at earth, and you see something: your family believes that you're in heaven, and they are throwing a party. No one is praying for you at all; you can see them just on the other side of a thin veil, and you shout, "Pray for me!" No one hears you; you're dead. Your time could be shortened by their prayers, and you know this; if only they knew this, surely, they would be praying for you! This process could be aided by their intercession. Instead, you are hearing eulogies of how nice of a guy you were, and how they are all certain that you're enjoying a drumstick with St. Peter right now, or playing in the Happy Hunting Grounds with your dog that also died.

In the same way that a prisoner in our system of justice could have their sentence shortened by the pleading of those outside of the prison system, your sentence to Purgatory could be lessened by those whom you have left behind. Imagine in our system of justice if people clamored for the quick release of the prisoner numbered in the tens. The judge might think to himself that the sentence could be lessened a little. Imagine again that same system with hundreds of people asking for mercy on the poor wretch; his time would be lessened even more. Now, imagine the effect of thousands; tens of thousands; hundreds of thousands; millions. The poor prisoner would be released very quickly from his sentence and pronounced a just man. His freedom is guaranteed; his happiness is beyond words! The imagery is quite analogous for Purgatory and the souls trapped therein.

This image is why I don't immediately canonize Fr. O'Kielty immediately, although it is my supreme hope that he is already in heaven! Instead, I beg for your prayers for this humble servant of God. While I do believe that he could have made it all the way home on his deathbed, I do not know with certainty that he did enter heaven straightaway, and I will probably never know unless granted a special grace by God, and so I would be doing a very dear friend a disservice to not beg for prayers. If he is already in heaven, then the prayers that I'm pleading for him would be applied by the Just Judge to others suffering.

In your kindness, please remember the soul of Fr. Seamus O’Kielty in your prayers, especially to the Mother of God, Mary Immaculate. If anyone will get him into eternity quickly, she will. Fr. O’Kielty, a Navy Chaplain, had a very great love for his Admiral, who was Jesus Christ, and he also loved his Admiral’s mother. That relationship can only help him get into the Eternal Feast sooner, so please make intercession to the Admiral’s mother to get her favorite Irish priest into heaven.

“I want to die here because people at Christendom College will pray for me when I am gone.” Let’s honor his wishes and get him into heaven!

Source: https://www.christendom.edu/2019/02/18/remembering-fr-seamus-okielty-a-priest-for-64-years-an-irishman-forever