14
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
September 9, 2016
Father Murphy’s priestly vocation blossomed in
the good soil of faithful people
BY TERRY DICKSON
GULFPORT -- Father George Murphy could think
of no better way to commemorate his Golden Jubilee
than by offering a Mass of Thanksgiving.
“I’m thankful for the ministry of being a priest for
all these years,” he said. “Mostly, I want to say thanks
to people who have been a part of that from the very
beginning, particularly those who helped me remain
faithful and who have helped me to minister to God’s
people as best I could.”
George Edward Murphy was born to Lawrence and
Catherine (Keane) Murphy on Feb. 13, 1943, in
Dundalk, Ireland. His father was a factory worker for a
tobacco company and his mother was a nurse.
“While I was born, really, in the northeast corner of
Ireland, it’s in the Republic of Ireland. It’s a little south
of the border,” he said. “It’s about halfway between
Dublin and Belfast, about ten miles or so, depending on
how the crow flies, from the border.”
Father Murphy was the third of six children.
“I had four sisters and a brother,” he said. “My
brother died as a baby and my little sister, Angela, had
Down Syndrome. She died when she was about 11
years of age. I’ve always had a devotion to my little
sister, Angela. I was always mindful of the old Irish
saying, ‘God takes care of fools and children.’ So I
knew that she was with God and I would always ask her
to pray for me and to watch over me.”
The rest of his sisters are still living and plan to join
their brother for his jubilee celebration.
Father Murphy’s dad, Lawrence, was one of nine
children.
“There was a fairly large Murphy family in Dundalk,
so I had lots of aunts and uncles and cousins,” he said.
“Some of his brothers died. That was part of the
Irish story, but, out of all the grandkids, I ended up
being the only one with the name Murphy. So I brought
that branch of the Murphy family to a closure. That’s
one of my claims to fame.”
The Hand of Divine Providence
Father Murphy received his secondary education
from the Christian Brothers School in Dundalk.
His decision to pursue the priesthood, he said, was
guided by “the divine hand of providence.”
“Pope Francis has got a lovely little saying in his
prayer for vocations,” Father Murphy said. “He talks
about how vocations blossom in the good soil of faith-
ful people. I love that little turn of phrase. So, if you
want to ask me when I began to think about becoming
a priest, I don’t know. I just know that the genesis of it
was in the good soil of faithful people. Those people
were, of course, my family. My father and mother were
daily Mass goers. That whole sense of community and
fidelity to church that I grew up in were of great influ-
ence.”
During his senior year of high school, Father
Murphy began to consider the possibility of priesthood.
“There was a principal in the school named Brother
Sonny Kavanagh, who came into my life when I was a
senior in high school and he was also a significant
teacher,” Father Murphy said.
“He was Father Morgan Kavanagh’s brother. At that
time, in the 50s, 60s and 70s, the dioceses in the south,
particularly in Mississippi and Alabama, kept a priest in
Ireland who would travel to schools and hustle, for
want of a better word, vocations. Morgan Kavanagh
had gotten that task. I’m sure he wanted it. He was in
Ireland and his brother knew I was thinking about the
priesthood and his brother also knew that I didn’t want
to stay in Ireland. I didn’t know where I was going to
go. I didn’t have any sort of big vision or anything.”
However, after meeting with Father Kavanagh,
young George Murphy committed to becoming a semi-
narian for the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson.
Looking back, Father Murphy believes his parents
were very supportive of his decision.
“I think they felt that this was good, this was of God
and, wherever he goes, this was God’s plan,” he said.
It’s worth noting that another Kavanagh brother,
Huey, was working for the South Central Bell tele-
phone company in Mississippi, while one of the
Kavanagh girls, Sister Michael, a Presentation Sister,
was the principal of St. John Elementary School in
Gulfport.
“My first assignment was St. John the Evangelist
Parish in Gulfport,” Father Murphy said. “So I had
Sonny Kavanagh in school. I had Morgan Kavanagh,
who was the priest who directed me to Mississippi. I
come to Mississippi and Sister Michael Kavanagh is
the elementary school principal. Johnny and Audie
Kavanagh were St. John parishioners. And the first lit-
tle baby I baptized in priestly ministry in Mississippi
was a Kavanagh. What can I say? The hand of divine
providence was moving through all of that.”
Ordained Under Unique Circumstances
Father Murphy spent the nine days prior to his ordi-
nation on a retreat with classmates, essentially shut off
from the outside world.
He was ordained to the priesthood, along with 22
other men, on June 5, 1966 -- Trinity Sunday -- at St.
Canice Cathedral in Kilkenny.
“Something very significant happened on the day of
my ordination,” he said.
“The old cathedral in Kilkenny was an old-style
cathedral. It was magnificent, a beautiful building. It
had a choir stall area for the priests of the diocese and
it was higher than the rest of the floor of the church.
There were only a few pews up front that would have a
direct vision of the ordination. Those pews were
reserved for the parents of the men being ordained. As
I walked up the aisle, I spotted my father, but not my
mother.
“I thought maybe she was in the back of the church.
She wasn’t always in the best of health. Well, it turned
out, my mother wasn’t there at all,” he said. “She had
taken a bad fall about a week before I was ordained and
was taken to the hospital. She died within a week after
my ordination. She never came out of the hospital.”
Father Murphy remembers the rector of the cathe-
dral calling him into the sacristy to deliver the news
that his mother was not there. “Because I was on retreat
for nine days, they couldn’t tell me,” he said.
Before she died, Father Murphy had the privilege of
celebrating Mass in his mother’s hospital room.
Father George Murphy
Father George Murphy will
celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving
commemorating the 50th
anniversary of his priestly
ordination Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 6
pm at St. Joseph Catholic Church,
12290 De Pew Road. A reception
will follow in the parish hall.
SEE FATHER MURPHY, PAGE 15
