I was in his room one afternoon and he asked me to try on a suit jacket he’d recently come by. He was clearly excited for me to do this. So, I pulled it on and tried to puzzle out his enthusiasm. Beige and a little threadbare, it wasn’t a bad-looking coat really. Maybe even vintage enough to look cool—if one had the right accessories. I prepared to act grateful for the gift he was obviously about to impart.
“Look inside” he urged. I took it off and found a small tag stitched inside the collar. With a slight squint the tiny script revealed the identity of its previous owner, Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist on whose work Tom was recognized as a leading authority.
A grin spread across my face till it grew nearly wide as his. I well understood that to Tom, this should be like a baseball player suddenly discovering he was standing in Babe Ruth’s spikes or a Thomist realizing he was holding Aquinas’s pen. “Does it fit you? Do you wear it around?” I dumbly asked. “I’m giving it to the library for their collection” he replied as he returned it carefully to its hanger. I think he would really have preferred to wear it.
It’s amazing that he is no longer with us in the way we’ve known and loved him. What’s almost as amazing is that this isn’t the lead headline of every newspaper. I wish everyone had the chance to know him. I want to shout to the world—this is how we’re meant to live!
He was eighty years old but what a lie that feels. Tom was a rare bird in every way, including his genuine timelessness. In his eyes one could see a soul of perpetual youth—alive and ignited by unquenchable whimsy, intelligence and enchantment. I think if I had to name the single characteristic I found most appealing in him, it was his enchantment with existence and the divinity he saw shimmering within it.
I met him when I was a Jesuit novice and he was sent from Washington to teach us. From the start he encouraged me to learn how to think critically in that spirit of enchantment and how to cultivate my mind. Arguably, it’s been one of his less successful projects. He also encouraged me to read and to write. And though my poems never seemed to impress him much, he recently recited from memory one I’d given him in 1978.
Most of all, he encouraged me to be a priest. He treasured the priesthood and loved his vocation. He viewed it a gift entrusted to him, and for the thirty-one years I was privileged to know him, he was an unfailing example of its humility, integrity, and charity. He was looking forward to my ordination, and it grieves me that he won’t be there. But, of course, he will—his priesthood now fully conformed to Christ’s.
Students were known to describe him as being, “All mind with just enough body to hold it together.” But I’d adjust that because what that delightfully eccentric physicality really held together was faith, hope and love. For, if I may be so bold, Tom’s exquisite kindness opened to holiness.
The last thing he gave me to read was an article he wrote this year, reflecting on the forty plus years he served his beloved Georgetown. In it, he traces the historical events, seismic cultural shifts – all the changes of those decades. But throughout those years, like the unified rosary he prayed bead-by-bead, Tom gave palpable, daily, witness to the Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Doing so, he reminded us that we too are invited to accept the stole of priesthood—the “yoke that is easy”.
On Saturday we will gather for the Mass of Resurrection. So many lives have not just been touched but changed by this man I doubt Dahlgren Chapel will be able to hold all who will converge to say, “Thank you.”
Whatever good has become of me, were you to go to the heart of it, you’d glimpse Thomas Mulvihill King. Teacher, brother, precious friend, be with us in prayer and pray for us in God’s Kingdom, that we may all be united with you there.
June 25th, 2009 | 1:27 pm
So wonderful to have found your article about “Our Father Tom” (quoted this from my godmother Father Tom’s sister). He was definitely Our Fr.Tom. I will miss my visits with him he travelled here to the west coast. I am so grateful to see how he influenced so many to practice his kind ways. His family will all be at the service and I know they would be very grateful for your thoughts and memories while they visit.
June 26th, 2009 | 4:59 pm
Thank you for this wonderful account of an amazing man. I was a student of his 22 years ago, yet to this day I’ll never forget some of the moments I experienced in his classes. Unfortunately, I cannot make it to Washington to pay my last respects, but I will be praying for his immortal soul continuously through the weekend. Bless you and your forthcoming ordination.
June 27th, 2009 | 9:56 pm
Thanks for your thoughts and memories. Here are some of mine.Dear King Family and Georgetown Community: I grieve with you over the wonderful life of that faithful servant of God’s Tommy King I first remember him pounding the piano keys at Aunt Catherine’s playing the Flight of the Bumble Bee and then my Dad Kenneth Sr. playing the two hands on the bottom and Tommy on the top to ‘Jimmie crack corn or the Blue fly song.” I don’t think they ever got together without playing that song.
I remeber his article in Reader Digest of sliding down the hill on his double bass viola. Oh, those were the days when Ralph Kiner had a standing place in the living room or hall and ice cream was cheap and just around the corner and Aunt Catherine would teach me to play all types of Solitaire but mostly Canasta. I remember coming through the backyard fence from Muzzy’s Apartment building in Pittsburg. Memories!
Of course I was at both ordinations of Bill and Tom. And served at the first mass for one. You will never know how I looked up to these two young men who chose to serve God.
I was there at Georgetown (Class of 63) when Tom first arrived at Georgetown in 1960. We went to several jazz houses together and he was at my parting party from Georgetown. (something about my grades required other schooling).
I returned in other years to enjoy the 11:15 PM Mass at Dahlgren Chapel. I knew it well since we used to have to attend daily morning mass. I convinced him to serve me communion as we had General Confession in every service in the Anglican Communion.
Then Mary and I attended the Chardin Conference in New York City just a few short years ago and had a great visit with Fr. Tom. Of course I had followed them to the priesthood when I was 50.
Our last discussion was in emails sent when the Archbishop of Cantebury was visiting the Georgetown Community of Jesuits last year.
Time flies. I am sorry to miss his funeral but have two churches awaiting my presence on sunday and could find no way to meet my sarcedotal responsibilities at All Saints Anglican Church in Wichita Falls, Texas.
I will sorely missing knowing he was there to answer all my off the wall theological questions. I am still trying to read his treatise on Satre. I did better with Teilhard.
Please know my mass dedications will be for you in your grief. But know that Tom has gone home as we all will into the arms of the loving Christ whose Daddy holds us all in being.
Maranatha, Fr. Ken MacKenzie
PS If you receive this and can forward it to the King family better please do so.
June 29th, 2009 | 2:10 pm
Hey KennyBoy, your cousins got your message. It was a nice ceremony at Georgetown and I met one of your neices from Maryland there.
July 14th, 2009 | 11:19 pm
I met Father Thomas King in 2005 for the commemoration of the passing away of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1955-2005) in N.Y. and Washington. Father King and I exchanged e-mails from 2003-2005. I shall remember his jovial and saintly personality as well as his kindness while I could finally be in his presence! I thank the Lord for the treasure that Father King has left to the world and for his writings about the great Spiritual Paleontologist,
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, s.j., whom he understood from within. R.I.P.
July 26th, 2009 | 11:26 pm
Thank you for this wonderful tribute to Father King. He was a magnificent gentleman and he exemplified the very best of Georgetown.
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