John Leo Madigan

CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED MARCH 22, 2001 • UPDATED APRIL 10, 2018

Redemptorist priest, uncle, brother, leader of family cheers. Born Sept. 6, 1920, in Toronto. Died Feb. 7 in Toronto of cancer, aged 80.

I n his religious life, he was known to thousands of Catholics across Atlantic and Central Canada by a very official name: Rev. John L. Madigan, of the Redemptorist order of priests and brothers.

I didn't really know him this way. I understand he was a great pastor, a shrewd businessman, and a marvellous adviser and friend to so many Catholic lay people, priests and religious men and women. But to me, and to his very large extended family, he was simply, "Uncle Jack." He was just about the jolliest man I've ever met.

He could be funny, but he wasn't a living room stand-up comedian like his sister, Mary (my mum) or his brother, my Uncle Basil. No, he was just jolly, and that was good enough. He exuded happiness, contentment and warmth.

From his jolly nature came three things about Uncle Jack that I just loved. First, in all the 43 years that I knew him, he never gave me spiritual advice (and God knows I could use it). An amazing thing for a man who was, really, a super-priest who believed deeply and without condition in his faith. My mum bears me out on this. "Uncle Jack kept his religion to himself," she said just after he died.

Secondly, he knew the words and tunes to pretty well every popular song of his generation. And he could match up any of these songs with any conversation. For example, if we were in the car and my mum said to me, "Paul, I thought I told you never to talk to strangers," Uncle Jack would sing, "Strangers in the night . . ." Or if my dad said, "Boy, the roses are beautiful this year," then we would hear, "Red roses. . . for a blue lady. . ." You couldn't beat him.

Thirdly, there was his "biff" routine. The best way to describe this is as a kind of Madigan family secret cheer. No one knows where it came from, why they recited it, or what it meant. But it was a part of every family gathering.

It went like this. Someone would shout at, say, Christmas dinner, "Biff!" Someone else would reply, "Issue!" Then someone else would say, "Sy-ringe!" And, finally, "Ban-GA!"

Your guess as to its meaning is as good as mine. But my sisters and I heard this wackyness between Uncle Jack and Mary, Basil, and his other siblings, Margaret, Helen and Bill, and we picked it up. I'm sure our mum was both proud of passing on this tradition and somewhat sorry. I remember a night, on our annual summer trek to Florida when we were kids. Our family -- seven of us -- were sleeping in one room to save money in a two-bit motel in Kentucky. When everyone finally seemed to be nodding off to sleep, my sister Mary Ellen shouted, "Biff!" to which I replied, "Issue!" Our mum just about went crazy.

When Uncle Jack was admitted to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto on Jan. 25, we were told he had pneumonia. A few hours later, cancer was also diagnosed. It was everywhere inside him, including his brain. As a result, he became less and less lucid over the two weeks he was in the hospital. Toward the end, when he talked, he made no sense -- except one special time.

Just before his body gave up, my sister Mary Ellen was alone with him. "For old time's sake, I leaned down close to him and said, 'Uncle Jack . . . BIFF!,' " she told me later. "And then he opened his eyes and whispered, 'Issue.' "

Fitting last words for this remarkable man. You'd think it would be a Hail Mary or another part of the rosary. But, remember, as my mum said, "Uncle Jack kept his religion to himself." For the rest of us, he made sure his final message would be something that would make us smile, as he had done for us all his life.

Ban-GA! Uncle Jack. Keep an eye on us up there.