Rev. Fr. Iru is my paternal uncle with whom I had an opportunity to spend quite a long period in Norway. I must honestly confess that I now understand the life of a priest far better today than then. Can the priest have any other identity than that of Jesus the High Priest, in whose priesthood he shares?.If I may put it in simpler non-technical term, Jesus is the mould according to which the priest is formed and shaped. I recall now the life of Fr Iru. Like Jesus,  Fr Iru was a man for others. He cannot remain closed in on himself, occupied and preoccupied with his own petty concerns.  He was ordained for others, called by God and chosen by the community, commissioned to the community. Everybody calls him "Father" for he is truly everybody's, though he belongs to nobody. His celibate heart remains undivided in love because it embraces everybody and excludes nobody. Being like Jesus for others means being a servant and a willing victim.  Like Jesus Fr Iru was constantly challenged to serve and to lay down his life for others. But like Jesus he is also a man with others, the man of the multitudes as those of Norway and Sri lanka. He feels for with and in people specially the poor, the sick and the suffering. He identifies himself with people their joys and hopes, struggles and sorrows, cares and concerns but without losing his own identity. Fr Iru sought no privileges or prerogatives except that of pastoring and being pastoral. Today Fr Iru no more living among us. Finally like Jesus he is a man witnessing by his very being to the mystery of God. Like Jesus he is the man now in glorious communion with God. May the good Lord Bless him and keep his soul in His Loving Care.