Brother Michael Peter McGinlay
Born 29th June 1906
Entered 3rd October 1954
Professed 19th June 1960
Died 20th January 1996
Peter McGinlay was born in Dumbarton on June 1906. His father was a journeyman riveter and after secondary school at St Patrick's, Peter followed
him into the Clydeside shipyards and became a master joiner. During the war he served as a leading fireman. He was active in the parish as a pass-
keeper and in the work of the Knights of St. Columba. He was later very proud to receive his Golden Jubilee medal from the Knights.
In 1954 he felt the call to the religious life and came to Nunraw at the advanced aged of forty-eight. It was a happy calling for one who wished to offer
his considerable manual skills and he found fulfilment in collaborating in the building of the new Abbey. He was professed as a monk on 19 May 1957.
To his vocation of prayer and religious life he brought all the methodical and persevering application which. distinguished him to the end. Even in the
last weeks he declined to go to hospital, stating very clearly that he wished to die in his monastery, where he died peacefully on Saturday 20 January,
aged 89
from "The Scottish Catholic Observer"
Letter from Ian Fraser:
“May he and the other Carpenter be with each other for eternity.”
SIR, - A long time ago I remember reading of a deaf and dumb acrobat Who became a monk, and of how the others were astonished to see him, after
the community had retired for the night, tumbling and somersaulting in front of Our Lady's statue. When he died they found a little diary in which he
had promised Our Lady to do always for her the only thing in life he was good at - acrobatics. He had nothing else to offer.
I thought of this tale when I heard of the death of Brother Michael at Nunraw Abbey. Michael would never have discoursed with theologians nor
claimed any academic fame above that given by Clydeside shipyards.
What he could claim was the skill of driving home a straight nail and of making sturdy lasting wooden joints, and anyone, admiring Nunraw Abbey
should realise that there is hardly a square foot of the building that doesn't bear Michael's mark.
Just like the acrobat he gave to Christ and Our Lady his one special skill as his life-long prayer.
May he and the other Carpenter be with each other for eternity.
Ian Fraser
Glasgow
Report - Scottish Catholic Observer 26 January 1996
Sadness at Death of Abbey’s oldest Brother
Sadness greeted the news of the passing of Brother Michael, one of the oldest monks at Nunraw Abbey. Brother Michael died peacefully at the
.weekend, at the great age of 89, in the grounds of the Abbey in East Lothian itself. A life-long friend of Archbishop Keith O'Brien, His Grace was one of
the last people to see him alive after a visit while on retreat at Nunraw last week. The Archbishop gave him his blessing before he died early the next
morning.
Late vocation
Formerly Peter McGinlay, he had a late vocation to the religious life, being received into the Abbey as Brother Michael in October 1954. Born in
Dumbarton, Brother Michael served his apprenticeship in the shipyards where his father was a riveter. He worked on both the Queen Mary and the
Queen Elizabeth and became a very fine joiner.,
"These qualities he brought to Nunraw, which was especially good because at that time we were building the Abbey and he contributed enormously to
the work," said Abbot Donald McGlynn.
"You couldn't have found a better or more skilled man than Brother Michael.
Guided Archbishop
"He also took apprentices under his wing and Archbishop O'Brien was one of the boys whose work was guided by him. "He'd be quick enough to tell
the young seminarian, now Archbishop, if he wasn't doing the job of fixing up the Abbey properly!
Brother Michael was also a life-long member of the Knights of St Columba. The funeral Mass took place in the Abbey on Tuesday.
It was attended by Abbot McGlynn and the Brothers from the Abbey and also Archbishop O'Brien. The remains of Brother Michael were buried in the
New Abbey Cemetery next to the Abbey.
By Michael Tierny
Community Chronicle
29 June 1988 - A still, quiet and cool morning. Br. Michael is 82 today. Some gifts included his favoured banana, -, a relative sent some beautiful white
carnations and yellow lilies, he positively beamed. He was patting his chest and saying, “I’m no bad for 82!”. He’ll outlive us all. In recent months he has
been talking about a coming celebration to be held in his honour for 60 years with the Knights of St. Columba. This sage is amazing, Br. Ninian, an old
sparing partner of Br. Michael’s, quipped, “I’ve been breathing for over 70 years, shouldn’t I get a medal for that?”
18 September 1988 - Br. Michael’s 60th Anniversary Commemorative Medal plus a presentation plate from the Knights of St. Columba were on show
in the Reading Room.
10 February 1989 - Br. Michael is busy renewing the crosses in the cemetery, making them thicker (Clyde built) and giving coat after coat of paint,
varnish etc.
Panegyric by Abbot Donald
Brother Michael (PETER) McGinlay
At Unity In Himself-CLYDE BUILT
Jerusalem restored! The city one UNITED WHOLE -(Psalm 121/122 : 3). Jerusalem is built as a city (JB) strongly compact. (Grail).
“Behold we go up to Jerusalem” - it may have seemed to the disciples of Jesus as they followed him around the country on his mission that they were
wandering at random. But in those words "behold we go up to Jerusalem" Jesus expressed a definite destination and a definite destiny. He knew
exactly what lay ahead in the fate that awaited Him in His Passion, Death and Resurrection, and he fully understood all the implications which this
association with Jerusalem meant in terms of Salvation History - the story of the Saviour is inseparable from the history of His chosen people.
Jerusalem already had that focal importance in the tradition of the people of Israel. In Psalm 121/122 David expresses it -
“And now our feet are standing within your gates Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built as a city strongly compact” (or united in itself, or as one united whole).
A teacher of religious education was preparing his material for a presentation to his pupils of the Christian approach to death. He thought of three
images - the harvest, fallen leaves at autumn, ripe apples. He was not sure which would be best for the purpose so he asked his own kids. His
youngest daughter said the ‘ripe apples’ would be the one. Why did she think that? Because, she said, “You can draw faces on apples”.
“Out of the mouths of babes” - that child had not yet forgotten, so to speak, the powerful sense of the effect of the human face - from first infancy on
the child grows in response to the face of its mother, it learns to read all the emotions expressed by the human face and its own response and
character is shaped and molded in relating the faces of those who care for and nurture it. No wonder one of the most moving blessings refers to the
face of God. “May God bless you - may He let His face shine upon you”.
As we come together to give thanks for the life of Brother Michael and to commend his soul to God it is clear that the life he has given back to God can
very well he regarded like the ripe apple ready to be taken home. And in Brother Michael’s case the task of drawing that face is comparatively easy.
The features of that face, for those who were familiar with him, were strong, clear cut, uncluttered and singularly undisturbed and decided.
We could say that those features were already chiseled and engraved when he came to Nunraw. Normally what is expected is a young person, pliable
and ready to learn in the noviciate of the religious order. But in 1954 when Peter McGinlay, later Brother Michael, came to Nunraw he was well into his
forties, what we call a late vocation, a stage of life when difficulties in adaptation are to be expected. For example, one of his first assignments was to
help on the farm picking acres and acres of potatoes. Needless to say that did not go down well with the new recruit.
But he had a discerning Prior who accidentally also happened to be the clerk of works at the building of the new abbey. Brother Michael was a master
joiner of considerable experience so, whether because of the risk of loosing such valuable skills or for his spiritual good, he found himself established
in the master joiner’s shop and eventually in charge of woodwork in the construction of this abbey.
And whatever he made was sound and solid from the roofing over our heads to the large cross at the cemetery. The term Clyde Built was once
proverbial for reliability and craftsmanship. Well, it was the Peter McGinlays of Clydeside who made that term a worldwide term of excellence.
But whatever we say regarding his activities, his skills, his ability to see the accomplished job from the initial outline, they are but external witness to
those spiritual qualities which made him unique in his own direct, uncomplicated life of faith and prayer.
In fact, I could be saving myself the trouble of drawing the face to the ripe apple by simply quoting from his own diaries.
Few of us would have guessed that Brother Michael kept clear, concise notes and filled diaries with the thoughts that he cherished. Each year a cousin
of his in Canada, Tom Davin, sent him a large Liturgical Diary and they now stand in a row on a shelf from the year 1974 until the death of Tom.
It is only since Br Michael’s death that anyone has seen the contents of those diaries, and there has only been time to glance at the first of them.
It is all there - biography, memoirs, deaths among family and friends, the birthday dates of every niece and nephew, every grand niece and grand
nephew, all those he prayed for faithfully. Summaries of Annual Retreats given by well known preachers, Dom Eugene Boylan, Dom Paul Hennessy,
Father Felix McGowan, SJ, as each year he renewed his basic conviction in the love of God and his religious commitment.
Any one page of this diary gives insight into the man. Taking at random the year 1973, just about the mid point in his years in the monastery, we are
given a picture of his wonderfully simple and uncomplicated faith and appreciation of God’s gifts.
He says "I must record that the year 1973 was one of great joy". This was for two very special events - the answer to his prayer that his younger sister,
Joan, would return to the faith, and the opportunity given to him by the Knights of Columba to make his first pilgrimage to Lourdes.
He records that during a few days he had at Helensburgh his young sister Joan was with him at Mass and “to know at the altar rails that she was
beside me and both getting the Sacred Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ - is it any wonder that I say that God was very good to me in 1973?”
This was part of his Lourdes journey. He also says that at St. Peter’s, Dumbarton, “I had the great honour to read the first and second lessons but the
special honour was being allowed to assist Father Nugent, the Curate, to distribute Holy Communion - that God should allow me to handle His Sacred
Body!”
Brother Michael was not an academic or a literary man. He does not go in for philosophical and mystical reflections. He is one of those people for
whom tile factual is more than sacramental, as full as he could desire of the presence of God. His account is therefore fresh and direct. This is how he
described the momentous occasion of the Pilgrimage to which the Knights treated him,
“We went by motor coach up and through the Clyde Tunnel to Glasgow Airport. What a sight for me. It was my first plane trip and the first time I was in
an airport but what a surprise, on each side of the plane were seats for three persons. I was in a centre one. It was so smooth running on the runway
and on the flight path we were nine feet or so off the ground before it came to me that we were off the when the Captain came on the speaker and
said we would travel at 19,000 feet and at cruising speed of 300 miles per hour you hardly knew you were traveling at such speed over Scotland and
England it was cloudy with breaks in them, but more breaks over the Channel and got a good view of Channel Islands and we got clear sky and
sunshine at Tarbes and the motor coach to Lourdes and at the Hotel Royal I had a bedroom to myself on the sixth floor and could look out the window
and look on the main entrance to the Grotto as the main body of the Knights from England did not come until Sunday the Scots Knights joined the
Glasgow pilgrimage for two days in the Grotto. It was a wonderful sight. The large statue the Crowned Virgin, Rosary Square, Rosary Basilica and
Immaculate Conception Basilica and Crypt and the International Concelebrated Mass on Sunday in Saint Pius X Basilica, with chief concelebrant a
Cardinal and 200 priests - and the Grotto where Our Lady appeared - and the Baths, the water so cold that you do shiver and I could put on my things
when I was still wet without them getting wet. Ah, it is all a miracle. And at all times you hear the Rosary being said in different tongues and private
rosaries - and the procession of the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessing of the Sick. ?”
The diary is full of this direct uncomplicated centering on God. On the other hand there is not a word about the ordinary happenings and events of
decades on Clydeside about which he spoke endlessly, about which he seems to have had total and accurate recall. If a tape recording had been made
of the living voice we would have an invaluable source for historians writing the story of the shipyards on the Clyde, the life of the Catholic Church in
Dumbarton, working conditions in Clydebank.
It was all integrated into a life which had purpose and fulfillment -single-mindedness might express it.
He was in fact a most apt candidate for the monastic life because, as these notes of his amply record, the strong character already matured who
entered the monastery was long attuned and open to the essentials of the monastic calling. Monos - monk - means single, single purpose, the one
single purpose of seeking God.
Jesus one came to a place called Gadara where he met the man possessed of demons. When he asked him his name - "Legion" came the reply, “for we
are many”. (Mark 5 : 9). Such is the mark of the chaos of personal confusion, of the fragmented broken in society. In the shattered Humpty Dumpty
kind of world we often find around us, the picture of wholeness of someone like Br. Michael gives us reassurance. Gives us confidence in the Lord who
heals brokeness and disintegration in life, in the Lord Jesus who rewards those who seek him, in humility and purity of heart, with that unity of
character and wholeness of spirit in which is found reconciliation, sanctification and peace.
“And now our feet are standing within your gates Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem is built as a city strongly compact - united in itself- as one united whole.
Brother Michael Peter McGinlay (90) Nunraw Abbey 29 June 1906 - 20 JANUARY 1996, was born in Dumbarton on June 1906. His father was a
journeyman riveter and after secondary school at St Patrick's, Peter followed him into the Clydeside shipyards and became a master joiner. During the
war he served as a leading fireman. He was active in the parish as a pass-keeper and in the work of the Knights of St. Columba. He was later very
proud to receive his Golden Jubilee medal from the Knights.
In 1954 he felt the call to the religious life and came to Nunraw at the advanced aged of forty-eight. It was a happy calling for one who wished to offer
his considerable manual skills and he found fulfilment in collaborating in the building of the new Abbey. He was professed as a monk on 19 May 1957.
To his vocation of prayer and religious life he brought all the methodical and persevering application which. distinguished him to the end. Even in the
last weeks he declined to go to hospital, stating very clearly that he wished to die in his monastery, where he died peacefully on Saturday 20 JANUARY ,
aged 89