Archie was gifted with "great courage, hope and inner strength"
Despite the very many health challenges he faced in life, 16-year-old Archie Naughton was blessed with “great courage, hope and inner strength” and had left a lasting impression on all those whose lives he touched, his funeral Mass heard earlier today (Monday).
The Roscommon teenager, who was diagnosed with the rare muscle-wasting disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), in 2012, for which there is currently no cure or no treatment, passed away in the Mater hospital on Thursday last, July 7. His two younger siblings, 12-year old twins, George and Isaac, have also been diagnosed with the devastating disease.
Chief celebrant at the funeral Mass in the Sacred Heart in Roscommon town on Monday, Fr Sean Neylon, PP Taughmaconnell, told the overflowing congregation that Archie had passed away “quietly, gently and peacefully” on Thursday last having overcome “many, many health challenges” in his young life.
He spoke of how his parents, Padraic and Paula, had given “the gift of life” to their first-born son and, like all parents they had harboured “great dreams, great hopes and great ambitions” as they “cradled and admired” their newborn baby. “They wished and hoped that Archie would be blessed with a long, happy and healthy life” and that he would be there for the “autumn, twilight and winter” of his parents’ lives, said Fr Neylon. The reality of those dreams was “never, ever realised” he added, because from the day that he and his two younger brothers “set foot on this planet” they had been faced with “many health challenges which they accepted and fought with “great courage, hope and inner strength,” he said.
Alongside these qualities that Archie Naughton possessed in abundance, Fr Neylon said he had been gifted with “an amazing compassion and a beautiful personality” that had helped him to cope with “the struggles of life and living.”
While they were celebrating “the final chapter” of his life, which had been “written too soon and too young,” Fr Sean referred to Archie as “the salt of the earth and the light of the world” and urged the congregation and, in particular, the young people in the Church, to always keep in mind “the great footprint and the great impression” that he had left on each and every one of their lives.
During the prayers of the faithful, special prayers were offered for the “massive contribution” made by the people of Roscommon to raising funds to find a cure for DMD, and also for Archie’s deceased grandparents, John Kerr and Johnny and Kathleen Naughton and his beloved dog, Sadie Mathilda. Prayers were offered too for the staff of Portiuncula hospital, UHG and the “exceptional team” in the Mater hospital, and prayers of gratitude were also offered for the “profound life lessons” that the young teenager had imparted to everyone he met.
Both Padraic and Paula Naughton spoke at the funeral Mass of their eldest son with Paula drawing a sustained round of applause for her deeply moving and personal tribute during which she told the congregation that her family would “never fully recover” from the loss of their “simply magnificent and utterly irreplaceable” son. “The void he has left is deep, dark and catastrophic for us,” she said, “but we must continue to pray for him and to honour his dying wish.”
Read full report in this week's edition of the Westmeath Independent