BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

CONYERS--The funeral Mass for Father Mary Joachim Tierney, OCSO, was celebrated at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit May 27.

The monks of the Trappist community, several hundred lay people and many priests of the archdiocese joined Dom Bernard Johnson, OCSO, and Archbishop John F. Donoghue in remembrance of the 86-year-old monk who was one of the founders of the monastery in 1944.

White-haired and increasingly stooped and frail in recent years, Father Joachim continued to bring Christ to others in remarkable ways, the abbot said in his homily.

“That holy monk and holy priest ... has helped us all. He loved in such a way that he wanted to touch everybody. He did touch everybody with a word, with a smile, with a prayer. He did touch us all ... and helped us on our way. He had a mission, almost an apostolate, to show as many as possible how they could touch Jesus in their lives.”

While he was called Father Joachim, he made it a point to remind others that his monastic name included the name of Mary and he had a great devotion to the Mother of God.

He was Dom Johnson’s confessor since 1946, the year the future abbot entered the Conyers monastery. The abbot mentioned one of his spiritual principles.

“Nothing happens to us in this world that God does not will or permit for our good, for others’ good and for God’s glory.”

Despite the twists and turns in life that seem impossibly against our good, holding fast to this principle “brings a serenity and peace of soul like nothing else,” Dom Johnson said.

The funeral Mass for “a very holy priest” is “a very joyful occasion, there’s nothing sad about it,” he told the assembly.

Archbishop Donoghue presided at the funeral. The monastic community and visiting priests were gathered around the altar. Several hundred lay people, many of whom came to Father Joachim for confession or spiritual help, filled rows of chairs at the front of the church, the monastic choir stalls and other seating areas downstairs and upstairs in the abbey church.

In addition to his role as confessor within the monastery and to people outside the community, Father Joachim served as prior for over 20 years, during which time much of the construction of the Conyers monastery was accomplished. The Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit was founded in 1944 on former plantation land in Rockdale County. Father Joachim was one of a small group of monks sent from Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky to make the foundation. The cloister buildings and the church were constructed by the monks, who lived in a barn until they completed the first monastery.

“He was the master at the old concrete mixer,” said the abbot alluding to the vaulted arches of the church which took 25 years to complete. “We are very pleased and happy to be able to put father to rest here.”

A native of St. Louis, Mo., born in 1912, Father Joachim entered Gethsemani in 1932. He professed solemn vows as a monk Nov. 1, 1937 and was ordained to the priesthood March 9, 1940. An older sister, Helen, a Carmelite nun, died earlier, while he is survived by a brother, James, and a sister, Maxine Adler, of St. Louis.

For a monk’s funeral, the body is placed in a wooden coffin in the church the evening before and attended by two monks in prayer at all times until the Mass. Following the funeral, the coffin is carried outside the church door to the monks cemetery, but in the spirit of simplicity only the body is buried. Everyone may place a handful of dirt in the grave following the prayers of burial at the grave site.

For the wake service, Father Joachim’s handwritten monastic vows were placed in his hands.

“He was faithful to that his whole life,” Dom Johnson said of his vows. “We ask him to be sure and send people like himself to us--those that will be faithful to the end to their commitments.”

BROTHERS -- Father Joachim, left, and Father Francis Michael represent different generations of the monastic community at the 50th jubilee Mass celebrated at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in 1994.
Photo by Linda Schaefer/Archdiocese of Atlanta