Brother Jerome Corrigan passed to his eternal reward on November 27, 2007 after an apparent heart attack in his community in Oakdale, Long Island, New York. He was 75 years old.
He entered the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Barrytown, NY in 1949 after attending Ascension and St Stanislaus Grammar Schools and Bishop Loughlin HS in Brooklyn, NY. He obtained a BA in Physics from Catholic University in 1954 and pronounced his final religious vows in 1958. In 1961, he obtained a MA degree in Mathematics from Manhattan College and took further Administrative courses at UMass and Boston College.
TOUR OF DUTY
1954-56 St Bernard's, NY Teacher
1956-58 Lincolndale, NY Teacher/Prefect
1958-63 St Augustine HS, NY Teacher/Assistant Principal
1963-78 St Raphael Academy, RI Teacher/Principal/Director
1979-98 La Salle Academy, RI Financial Adm/Principal/President
1999-02 La Salle Center, NY President/CEO
2003-07 Oakdale, NY Retired
Brother William Mann gave the eulogy at the Mass of Christian Burial celebrated at Christian Brothers Center in Narragansett, RI. The reflection is printed below:
Eulogy for Brother A. Jerome Corrigan,FSC
On numerous occasions over these past few months of living with Jerome, I have found myself thinking of him with reference to the mid-nineteenth-century painting “The Fighting Temeraire” by William Turner [cf. www.j-m-w-turner.co.uk/artist/turner-temeraire.htm ]. That majestic painting captures a moment “in calm water” and golden sunset when a battle-weary, but still glorious, great “wooden-walled” sailing ship known as “Temeraire” was “being tugged” into harbor … “to its last berth” … on its way to be broken up and scrapped.
This great ship … the stuff of legends … an icon of “naval heroism” … so like our beloved brother, Jerome, who was himself … against odds that caused the less courageous to give up … tested, again and again, in battle… and proved slow but steady, competent and skillful, resilient and, perhaps, even a bit crafty.
The vessel “Temeraire” … that some forty years previously …had broken the seemingly impenetrable line blockade of the combined French and Spanish fleets … coming quite miraculously to the rescue of the British flagship of Lord Nelson … an inspiration and a protagonist at the victory of the Battle of Trafalgar.
The man … the Brother … Jerome … the son of immigrants …raised, with his dear sister, by a widowed and truly beloved mother … slow in life to find his voice and begin to speak … a graduate of Bishop Loughlin, and one of her truly “loyal sons” … a guardian of the delinquent “young jays” of Lincoln Hall … and beloved and quite charismatic coach and master teacher at St. Augustine’s and at St. Raphael’s … who rose to the occasion and came to the rescue in times of great need and against seemingly insurmountable odds …re-inventing, transforming, and solidifying St. Raphael Academy in the 1970s …re-setting the course and ushering in a new era of vitality and excellence at La Salle Academy in the 1980s and 1990s … responding to the call to sacrificial leadership at a floundering La Salle Center at a time in life when his contemporaries were moving gently into retirement.
An icon of naval heroism … the fighting “Temeraire” … an icon of Lasallian heroism … the fighting Irishman Brother A. Jerome … Were his battles any less memorable or heroic? Were his maneuvers any less crafty and masterful? This great man … the stuff of legends … who willingly “laid down his life” (cf. Jn 10:18) … for us … and for the mission … again and again and again.
William Turner in his painting captured with “gold-soaked beauty” and “solemnity” the final journey of a glorious and majestic icon and committed to canvas, for all time, the reverential awe with which we hold the heroes of youth and giants of our own small portion of history. He captured the sublime majesty of the final journey … of one whose job was well done … whose time among us drew to a close.
Doubtlessly, I am influenced in my thinking in drawing on this image of sailing and sea by our Rhode Island and Long Island coastlines …by the almost monthly ferry rides I made this year to Rhode Island with Jerome to visit this Center, St. Raphael Academy, and La Salle Academy… by his own love of and delight in the ocean … and by the “outward bound” stories with which we were regaled by Jerome in Pawtucket in the 1970s.
Having lived and worked with him … then … in the time of his full vigor … and more recently … again … in our Homestead Road community …accompanying him with Tony, Jim, and Joe … and witnessing in awe and gratitude, and with some sadness, as the journey drew toward its inevitable conclusion …as Jerome wrestled daily with “the present burden of trial” (1 Cor 4:17) …sensing that he just couldn’t hold it together much longer … that it had begun to slip away … suffering with the awareness that his mind and memory were about to be destroyed (cf. 1 Cor 4:16) and broken apart by Alzheimer’s.
This man who lived life to the full … who held onto life and family and friendship and commitments … with two fists and a full heart … who sensed the approaching darkness (cf. Ps 23:14) … who feared that the light would soon go out … leaving him in a dark tunnel … that already beckoned … where he would no longer know us … and where he would no longer know himself …
This good, quiet, simple man … with his self-effacing smile and ready laugh … so positive and, yet, so humble … always putting the interests of others before his own … delighting in the good fortune and success of his friends … never seeking the spotlight … surprised and often moved to tears when acknowledged, remembered, cherished …
This man … with a passion for the excellence, the integrity, and the sustainability of Catholic education … for the plight of youngsters and families in economic hardship … for the inclusion and promotion of women in Lasallian mission …
None of us were prepared for the timing or the manner of his death. So focused were we … with him … on the onset of that long “journey in to night” … that we never imagined that he would be snatched up so quickly (cf. Mt24:36-42) … and mercifully … by the God he so faithfully served all his life.
Returning to the image of the battle-weary, but glorious, sailing-ship “Temeraire,” I share and adapt a story told recently at the funeral of another Lasallian, whose wake I attended with Jerome (cf. “Gone from My Sight” by Henry Van Dyke).
It too is the story of a magnificent sailing ship in a harbor … whose presence and spectacular beauty has been thoroughly enjoyed …but whose time has come to pull back … away from this shore … to return to the open waters again … where, with masts unfurled, … it gloriously heads toward a new horizon.
And while we may no longer be able to see Jerome … we should not fear … we need not be afraid … rather, let us rejoice that … on the brink of being dismantled in darkness … a merciful God “heard the cry of his appeal”(cf. Ps 57:2) … and filled his sails with a new breath of life … and he now moves toward yet another shore where others await … his mother and his father, his sister, his cousin Philomena, [his nephew Daniel] … where others eagerly await and rejoice … in the expectation of basking in his simple, good, humble, and untarnished radiance for all eternity (cf. Dn 12:3).
Godspeed and good voyage, Jerome!
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