Father Boniface Treanor Funeral Homily

Homily for the Funeral Liturgy of Father Boniface Treanor, OSB

June 8, 2016

Divine faith in Jesus Christ Risen in Family and for Family

Abbot Melvin J. Valvano, O.S.B.

Family for Father Boniface begins in Harrison, NJ with beloved mother Sarah, a devout, devoted, and attentive Mom; and William, his model Dad, the Fireman, a strong and a gentle man; brother physician, Doctor Bill; Sister Anne Margery, a Sister of Charity; and his beloved and special sister Mary.

Family continues with nieces and nephews. But family also meant his brother monks in Newark and in Morristown. Key to beginning to understand James Treanor, Father Boniface, Bon, is his tenacious and absolute commitment to his families: the Treanors, St. Benedict’s and the monastery. Family means one special interacting unit with each individual single member protected, and given exemplary respect and personal attention. No cost too high, and no effort ever too much. The monks, students, faculty and staff benefited from this rock-solid way that Father Bon lived --in his time and in our world--here in Newark on M. L. King Blvd. Once you entered Boniface’s family you were special---even when he was Dean of Discipline! If you were in his world he could and would help you! There was never an alternative in his mind. I should explain immediately that he excluded no one from “his” family and world; each person he met received his interest and respect.

So when his much-loved St. Benedict’s Prep family suffered, he responded to these challenging and possibly destructive events with all his mind and heart and soul. Family was being attacked. The fairness and justice warrior appeared in full force. Please take notice that all through the struggles and grave uncertainties for his monastery and beloved school in the sixties and early seventies, in private and public conversations, fear never showed its face on Boniface. As a consequence racial tensions, and worse, simply offered him a further chance to remain with and to help the weak, the disenfranchised/misunderstood, the underdog; however he could and whenever he could. Period! He lived in this way each day of his long life and in his recent aging years still every single day cautiously and resolutely walking back and forth to his business office cubicle to make sure his family, his monastery and his school with the school’s much-loved teenagers were being served well. The day before he passed to the Lord he worked in the office until after eight in the evening, then walked back to his monastery room to pray for sure, maybe do a little reading and by then, I believe, the daily crossword puzzle was completed! He also checked how the Yankees were doing!

I think at this moment--as a prime example of his family focus--of the middle Sixties when he would vacation with his Dad down the shore and Father Francis O’Connell, his closest friend, and I would visit them. During these summer vacation times you saw in his own Father how and why this priest, monk, friend, dean of discipline, teacher, prior and treasurer always could lead everyone and anyone to trust him. His name was Trust. Boniface was absolutely trustworthy in every sense. Look to his Dad and Mother. Look also to his young 17-year-old faith-filled heart that answered the St. Mary’s Abbey application form question ten: “Why do you wish to become a religious?” James Treanor typed “To serve God, His people, and to save my soul”. He did this for the next 69 years. This is Boniface at his clearest.

This meant for Boniface, the monastery’s prior for many years and a teacher, never saying no to serve God and people, young and old. Yes, the monks of Newark Abbey have this phenomenal spirit still. They simply never say no when asked to step into or out of a particular assignment. In fact the Newark monastic community often refers to the special four monks who led the twenty of us when St. Benedict’s re-opened some 43 years ago: the four pillars are all now rejoicing together in heaven with the Lord Jesus: Casimir, Benedict, Theodore and now again with them, Boniface. It is astounding but true that never once over these 43 years did any one of these foundation pillars of Newark Abbey say no to a particular service or task. No wonder all of us this morning at Boniface’s Holy Eucharist celebration, faculty, students, alumni and friends feel, sense and know one Community and Family that is remarkably--even mysteriously--Real and Sacred in fact!

Boniface was obedient to his spiritual and character roots and would chafe whenever he sensed any tendency, especially in a monk, to act otherwise. Lots of stories could be told right here especially from the years he was prior of the Abbey. I think as I reflected on Father Boniface’s deep and reverent regard for the monastic treasure of real, complete and sincere obedience it brings us back to his personal realization and conviction that a School, a Parish, a Monastery, a Family, is exactly that, a Family bound together, in living, working and in harmony. No other way to make it. No one is an island, standing alone, we are all profoundly dependent on each other and anyone who will not or cannot sincerely appreciate this, day after day, young or older, needs the other family members to help them. So Boniface never gave up on anyone, student, friend, fellow monk, associate--family means that you and I and Boniface could never ever ignore the other person. Tough love, maybe, but family love sometimes is like that.

He made a perfect prior all through the 1970’s and 80’s but at the 1973 abbatial election I figured that for sure Theodore or Boniface had the best shot. Boniface’s spiritual maturity, I mean real obedience and humility in Christ, allowed him to accept the unexpected outcome of this election gracefully and wholeheartedly, just as he gracefully accepted not being named headmaster twice in the 1960’s and early 70’s.

All of us who know him so intimately, all of us who have lived with him every day for the past fifty years or more, recognize this monk and man, who always said yes, as a unique paragon of a monk, a truly great example of living who you are with a natural and transparent humility. He remembered and obeyed his novice master Father Florian saying over and over to the novices: Be yourself! Yes, there were rare times when he expressed disfavor with the Abbot’s actions and decisions or a confrere’s ways. He was usually, alas, on target, correct, and still as humble, forgiving and welcoming a friend and brother as one could want—outside of Heaven, I mean.

We all love Boniface and so can never accept simplifying summations or conclusions. Each of us, Boniface would be the first to agree, is indeed unique precisely because, as he would remind you and me, each is made in God’s image. The unique person embraced by the Holy Spirit’s freedom grows and grows and grows, like Boniface from the clear-sighted 17-year-old monastic candidate to the old man caught up praying in Church or his room or driving a car entirely in the presence of his one and only Boss--Jesus Christ the Lord, Risen from the dead. Amen.