Fr David celebrating mass at Kyuatan Orphanage, Burma, in January 2009
Father David took a turn for the worse in Ampleforth Infirmary overnight and died peacefully in the morning of Monday 17 October, 2011. As most parishioners will know, he had been ill for a number of years and stepped down as parish priest at the end of last year.
There was a Memorial Mass at St. Austin's on Monday 24th at 7:30 PM, followed by a Requiem Mass and funeral at the Ampleforth Abbey Church on Tuesday 25th October.
The Abbey Church is built sideways on a hill and so you enter from the North and leading South from the Nave is an impressive stairway that looks down over the Ampleforth Grounds and the tranquil, tree-dotted, broad valley. In the crook of the steps and the Abbey is a lawn, that has in that corner nearest the mass of stairs, nave, and tower that flows up to meet the sky, a memorial stone. Fr David was lowered into the Abbey Crypt by this stone, and the congregation gathered around the lawn to hear the Abbot's words and to sing a final farewell. The opposite corner of the lawn has a single maple that was clothed in vivid autumnal burgundy and yellow, picked out by a low October sun and complementing the purple of the vestments.
Fr David Morland, Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey was Senior Classics Master in Ampleforth College before beginning parish work. He died peacefully at Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire in the early hours of Monday 17 October. In accordance with the tradition at Ampleforth Abbey, his death was marked with the ringing of the death knell, ringing one toll for every year of his life - 68 years.
William Morland went to school at Ampleforth College and joined the monastic Community in 1961 and was given the monastic name David. He studied at St Benet's Hall, Oxford, and then went on to study theology in Munich and Sant'Anselmo, Rome. He returned to Ampleforth in 1972 and took up a teaching role. In 1984 he became Senior Classics Master, a post he held until 1997. At the end of his teaching career he began parish work, serving in Gilling East and Osmotherley before being appointed assistant priest at St Austin, Grassendale, Liverpool in November 1998. Fr David was appointed parish priest there in September 2005. The following year he was diagnosed with cancer, but remained working in the parish until early 2011, when he returned to the monastery infirmary at Ampleforth Abbey.
Fr David Morland wrote a number of religious books, including God and Demanding The Impossible?, and also translated from German one volume of Karl Rahner's 23-volume Theological Investigations (Vol. 16 'Experience of the Spirit, Source of Theology').
How will we in St Austin's remember him? Well the Children of the parish had their view:
Others will remember his care and concern for the old and disadvantaged in the parish, his tireless support for Burma and the catholic orphanages there - while others will remember his sermons, always without notes, and always with a clear simple message.
Our prayers are with Father David and his family and friends at this sad time.
Suscipe me Domine secundum eloquium tuum et vivam et non confundas me ab exspectatione mea |
Uphold me O Lord according to your word and I shall live; and let me not be confounded in my hope |
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| (Psalm 118) |