Father Joseph Dagher (6/97)

"May Christ give rest to you in the city of the living! May He open to you the gates of Paradise and make you a citizen of His Kingdom; and may He remit your sins, O lover of Christ."

Your Excellencies Archbishop Michel Hakim of Montreal & Bishop Nicholas Dear Father Jerry, Regional Superior of the Basilian Salvatorian Order in the United States, with the Salvatorian Community of the United States and Canada, Dear family of Father Joe, My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, friends of Father Joe,

I can't help feeling a deep emotion as I stand in this Center in which we had praised the Lord in Unison in retreats and Cursillo closings, and most of the time Fr. Joe was our inspiration. We assemble to bid him farewell. We thank God for the gift of life, the gift of faith and the gift of priesthood which God gave to our dear brother Fr. Joe. We thank Him especially for the abundant gifts He gave through Father Joe to all of us and to thousands of people who benefited from his preaching and teaching and loving.

The first impression we get of a person or a situation lingers sometimes in our memory and creates a snowball which keeps growing as life rolls on. More impressions and more details join the original image and modify it sometimes. However, more often than not, the first impression keeps on growing and coloring whatever details are added on. Thank God for all the good and fond memories which Father Joe has built in our mind, yours and mine through theyears. I once or twice heard Lou Bouscaglia, known as the Professor of Love,say -- if my memory is correct: "Thank God for good memories. Thanks to goodmemories, we can smell the roses in December." Father Joe leaves us with many good memories which will aromatize our lives for many years to come.

Some time, in the mid Forties, when, as a teenager, I was at the seminary preparing for the service of the Lord in the priesthood, Father Joe was at the same Seminary of the Holy Savior (St. Sauveur), but in a higher division. He was six year older than I. We were not allowed to cross the red line and to have any communication with students in the other divisions. His name in religious life was at that time Brother Thomas. At his priestly ordination, he went back to Joseph which was his original name. However, he stayed close to his patron, St. Thomas, all his life in questioning his brothers, yet staying faithful lovingly to his Lord and God. The first time I took note of Brother Thomas was when he presented an essay written by him entitled "theShepherd." It described the shepherd in a village in Lebanon, his importance, his simple outlook to life, his dedication to his sheep, his contribution to society and the lessons of life which we can take from him. The shepherd was so important that Our Lord called Himself "the Good Shepherd." As I remember, Brother Thomas made out of an ordinary topic an extraordinary dissertation. His talk was entertaining and informative at the same time. He impressed our young minds and made a difference in our thinking. To make a difference seemed to be an eager quest of our dear Fr.Joe. He was a cherished speaker and a gifted writer. He preached scores of retreats and gave thousands of talks in the United States and in the Middle East. Every time he spoke, he had to bring about something new. He was inspiring, yet controversial at times. He intended to be stimulating and tomake people think. He had always some arousing remark or some non-conventional discovery to make his audience think. He seemed to enjoy destroying flat convictions before building a new vision. He was carrying the truth in his own way. After listening to him, people had no choice; they had either to love him or to resent his iconoclastic approach. But in his mind and his intention, love prevailed. He preached the God of love. As spiritual director of the Cursillo Movement in Methuen, he was the man of many colors and many moods sometimes. However, love colored him inside out.

Father Joe consecrated himself to God body, soul and spirit in religious life. He lived frugally, in poverty, chastity and obedience. He obeyed faithfully, although he was candid and sharp in his remarks to his superiors. Our Lord said: "Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my name's sake, will receive a hundred fold, and inherit eternal life." (Matthew 19:29) In order to live out this ideal, he maintained a deep relationship with Our Lord through daily prayer. Fr. Joe was truly a man of deep prayer. He started and ended each day with twenty minutes of silence and centering prayer in the chapel sitting on his cushion. He was always faithful to his community prayer of daily Liturgy and Divine Office while living at St. Basil's. Each evening, he read the Epistle and the Gospel of the following day in Greek, mind you! This served a double purpose, first he pondered the Word of God and second he kept up with his facility of reading Greek and with his scholarship in Sacred Scriptures.

His desire to stand out of the ordinary was coupled by a deep humility. As his bishop, I wanted to recognize his outstanding work as preacher and spiritual director by giving him the honorary title of Archimandrite which corresponds to the title of Mitred Abbot or Right Rev. Monsignor. I had intended to surprise him by bestowing upon him that titular dignity during my first visit to his parish of Our Lady of the Cedars on March 6, 1994. I was shocked when he absolutely refused to accept the title and he threatened to absent himself from the whole celebration on that day if I insisted on it. He even wrote a circular letter to all his brother priests of the Eparchy expressing his convictions in that regard.

His deep convictions and deep humility were joined by his love and compassion for the needy in America and in his own country Lebanon. He solicited money from his friends to help the victims of war during the long drawn civil strife in Lebanon. He preached in local churches about the plight of his people and collected money to help the needy in Lebanon and to rebuild the church in his hometown. Jemailieh, his hometown had been destroyed. All the houses, including the church, were bulldozed to the ground; yet he had no bitterness toward the destroyers, but eagerness to build again. In his loving heart, like St. Paul whom he often quoted, he "became all things to all, to save at least some." (I Corinthians 9:22. I was very happy, last tsummer to participate in the ground- breaking of the new church. As Our Lord Himself, he carried a great and genuine love to his own country, without prejudice toward any other country.

His conviction and his charity expressed themselves by a loving concern and simplicity which impelled him to correct his brother priests as well as lay people. His bishop was not exempt from this "loving concern." Several times, I received a personal "scolding" from him orally or by writing. He always started his letter by a well oiled yet sincere compliment followed by the sharp remarks colored with a tint of pessimist. That could have been an echo of his deep and sincere and sometimes frustrated search for the truth. By the way, he suggested to me more than once that I should prepare my homily very well as befits a bishop and I should not improvise. Wouldn't he be pleased to know that despite the time constraints I have experienced these past few weeks I have prepared these reflections so well and I am trying to read them faithfully! My dear Fr. Joe. I will always cherish the memory of your sincere love and deep loyalty.

Now, finally, his quest for the truth has reached its end. His prayers are now fulfilled. He is finally united with Our Lord Jesus Who is "the way and the truth and the life." He is now living in the world of truth. As the popular Arabic saying goes, "He is now in the world of truth and we are still in the world of vanity." (Huui bi Yaalam el xaq wnexna bi Yaalam elbaatel) This sounds like an echo to the Book of the Ecclesiastes, one of his favorites: "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

In my name and in the name of my brothers Archbishop Michel and Bishop Nicholas and of all our Melkite Diocese of Newton, I offer my deep sympathy to the Salvatorian Community in the United States and abroad, represented by the Regional Superior, Archimandrite Gerry Murphy, Judicial Vicar of the Diocese and member of the College of Consultors, to his sister-in-law Jamily, his nieces and nephews Saideh, Salam, Abraham, Joseph, Nuha & Suad, and his grand niece and nephew Joseph & Christine and all the Shaady cousins from Fall River, and the Dagher Cousins from Ridgewood, NJ. and all other nephews and nieces and other relatives in Lebanon as well as to all the Dagher family. We deeply feel with the local Salvatorian Community of St. Basil in Methuen which has suffered the loss of three religious in the past twelve months, Fr. Dominic Ledbetter, Fr. Peter Hajjar and now Father Joseph. May they repose in peace. May our Savior compensate this great loss with more vocations of devoted religious and priests who continue His work of Salvation. And may Father Joseph's memory be eternal.

Most Rev. John A. Elya

Eparch of Newton

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