File 289 - Br Anthony McShera SJ

Born: 15 January 1915, Portroe, County Tipperary
Entered: 24 March 1935, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Final Vows: 15 August 1945, Belvedere College SJ, Dublin
Died: 13 January 1977, Manresa, Dollymount, Dublin

Brother of Michael McShera - Ent 05/04/1931; LEFT 04/02/1943

◆ Irish Province News 52nd Year No 2 1977 & ◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1977

Manresa
Brother Tony McShera’s heart attack and death during the weekly prayer-meeting on Thursday 13th January was a great shock to our community. He had been at the retreat house door to welcome the participants in his usual hearty manner, and he had just spoken during the meeting itself when the Lord called him. He could not have died in a more appropriate setting, at prayer and in the midst of his friends.

Obituary :

Br Anthony McShera (1915-1977)

Born January 15th at Portroe, Co. Tipperary, he was educated at the Christian Brothers School, Sexton St, Limerick, to the end of his first year Inter. Certificate. He entered the Noviceship on March 24th 1935 and pronounced his First Vows on March 28th 1937.
1937-1954: Cook: Belvedere, where he pronounced his Final Vows on August 15th 1945.
1954-1969: Cook, Milltown Park.
1969-1977: Cook: Manresa House, Dollymount. Died: January 13th 1977.

The long “innings” which he had as cook in each house speaks its own praise, both as regards his work, and as regards the satisfaction he gave to his communities.

Father James Healy, now in Milltown Park, remembers him well. “Living with Brother ‘Mac’ in Milltown was a joy and a pleasure: the pleasure of eating well and the joy of knowing that his professional skill always provided plenty, wasted nothing and cost the minimum. As a scholastic I loved to watch him in the Servery, carrying and dis hing out vegetables for a Community of 80 or more; he had been up since 5.30; had given us porridge and dished out lovely hot bacon and eggs when the mob arrived in a rush for breakfast; he'd spent the whole morning preparing for this moment and for our dinner. He was proud to feed us, so quickly, so pleasantly. His joy was in our pleasure.
‘Mac’ had a wonderful way with the boys on the domestic staff. There was competition among them to get into the kitchen. Once there you served a strict apprenticeship, and you made a lifelong friend. Here was a master craftsman, respecting his tools and materials, rejoicing in his creations, expecting you to do likewise. Be clean. Be punctual. Be methodical. Learn your trade thoroughly. Join a union. I still meet Mac's protegés and they are all proud to be imitators of him, all extremely grateful to him for the formation he gave them.
Mac was still going strong when I returned to teach in Milltown. One year I noticed his room had been changed to a worse one. How come? The Minister had to change someone and knew that Mac would take it more charitably than the alternative victim.
He was never Tony to me not I Jim to him. Titles did not matter. We played golf together. Eugene Ward and Joe Conran invited Mac and myself to make a four for a golfing holiday in Newcastle, Co Down. It must have been one of the first mixed priest-brother villas. Somehow, Mac and I formed a new bond on that villa; the golf brig comes in a variety of species and ours seemed to be - opposed? - well, 'different from that of our companions. Of course the four of us were mad, fanatical. Only we laughed at different moments. Any Christian can share your sorrows. It takes a friend to smile together-– as we did, reminiscently, in later years when I occasionally met him in Manresa. The pleasures pass, the joy remains”.

Father J. C Kelly, S.J., of Milltown Park writes: “He told me, in his inimitable Limerick accent, that one day as a young fella’ he realised with blinding clarity that his vocation in life was to be a cook, He never wanted to do anything else. At the height of his powers in the late fifties in Belvedere, he was a superb cook: and his day began at five o'clock in the morning in the Dublin market buying fresh vegetables. He went to the market on his bike”.

His recreation was golf. Father Matt Meade recalls his dedication to his pastime of golf. Characteristically Brother McShera was wholehearted in his interest in his pastime, and keen to achieve and recall his successes on the Course - which were, indeed, very creditable, although far from rivalling his prowess at his real “vocation” inside the Society of Jesus: his excellence as a cook.