Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
Flynn, James

Philosopher, writer; born Hinton, NSW, 10 August 1908; died Sydney, 17 February 1993, aged 84.

James Flynn received his secondary education from the Marist Brothers High School, West Maitland, and the Sacred Heart Apostolic School, Douglas Park. His long and full life was to take him to many and exotic places, some of which appealed strongly to his imagination and sympathy. But all his days he stayed a loyal patriot to the Hunter region of his birth. He also had deep and abiding love for his family.

From 1928-38 he attended courses at the University of Sydney, graduating BA with first class honours. His MA thesis, 1938, dealt with the vivid, colourful and sophisticated world of Caroline Restoration Drama. Although his major subject was English literature, he studied philosophy, education, Latin, economics and British and oriental history.

He taught with the NSW Education Department for three years at Sandy Creek, near Barellan, before he entered the Society. One story he told about Sandy Creek concerned his obtaining a licence to drive a car he had bought, he had to gain a license to drive it. He approached the police sergeant who told him that he had no trust in cars, but if Flynn could drive the vehicle between two great gum trees at the end of the paddock he would be given a license. Flynn set off and completed the task satisfactorily.

Flynn entered the Society, 18 February 1939, at the age of 30. He completed his ecclesiastical studies in Australia, and was ordained in Sydney, 31 January 1948. Tertianship was at Watsonia, under John Meagher. He was professed of the four vows, 15 August 1956.

His thorough and conscientious scholarship led to his appointment, 1950-64, as lecturer to the scholastics in literary and philosophical studies, especially critica. He was also minister of scholastics. In some ways these were both the high point and the doldrums of his long life. Incessant teaching, rigorous preparation, the somewhat rigid formulae of the times, and the pre-Vatican II style of seminary life determined his daily routine and created his 'image' as a pillar of the province's training establishment.

Over these years he became increasingly intrigued by the Arabic influence on historical Thomism, a central and key topic as it turned out, especially as the Ecumenical Council opened up classical Catholicism to the comparative scrutiny of other great world religions. In his mid-fifties, Flynn began to conquer the languages of the Near and Middle East, to hone the tools of what would become the speciality and passion of his later years - the study of Islam.

In 1964 he travelled to Egypt, lived in the Jesuit house in Cairo, and enrolled as a Ph D student in Semitic Studies at the University of Melbourne. On his return to Australia he lived at Campion College, Kew, with some irksome responsibilities regarding the Jesuit scholastics studying at various Victorian universities. It was an unsettled time of unstable structures, anxiety, and yet high achievement scarcely acknowledged.

Having his own doctorate, he taught at the university, and continued to help in the administration of Campion. In 1969 and 1970 he moved to the founding community of Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, and in 1971 he was at Newman College. By this time he was fully accredited as an Islamic expert, and had begun to publish with his colleagues. It was a mid-life change professionally and intelligently accomplished.

In 1972 he was elected as Islamic scholar in residence at the St Mark's National Ecumenical Centre in Canberra. This recognition was to be a watershed in his intellectual journey, and the last twenty years of his life were to be spent based broadly on the national capital and the Jesuit House of Writers and Research in Yarralumla.

His studies had led him to undertake a thorough comparison between the key theological and moral ideas of the Bible and the Koran, and this theme was to dominate his thought, work and writing for the rest of his days. Naturally he gravitated to that Mecca of all disciplines, the British Museum and Library, and there began a long love affair with England. He lived in the parish house of St John's Wood just outside London, 1976-77, and at Southwell House, 1978-79.

He returned to Australia to live at Pymble, 1980-81, and again in Canberra, 1982-83. Back he went to London, 1983-84, and eventually completed his writing at Xavier House - a well-received book with Routledge about the Sufi and Suni Sects of Islam, and a large manuscript contrasting Christian and Moslem beliefs.

His scholarly work did not interfere with his priestly ministry. He was always available for supplies to convents, and was especially generous to the Carmelite sisters in Kew and Canberra. In 1986 he accepted the chaplaincy of the Mercy Care Centre, at Young, NSW. He was very happy there, enjoying golden opinions from all whom he served, and surrounded by his beloved books.

In 1988 he spent an autumnal year at Campion Hall, Oxford, and only retired from Young in May 1992 when his health somewhat unexpectedly deteriorated. He moved to Mercy Care in Waitara, and eventually to Hornsby Hospital and Mana House Nursing home, where he died.

Some of Flynn's personal characteristics emerge as notable and outstanding - his prayerfulness, his consciousness of God, his determination, his human courtesy, his wit, his shy modesty, his serenity. He was a man of the deepest faith, crystalline in his confidence and trust in the Trinity, and an intelligent and sympathetic pastor to anyone who sought his interest and care. He had 'the common touch', a loving and sincere heart, along with a distinguished, fastidious and questing mind.

He was a man of the Church, a deeply spiritual priest, a lover of the scriptures and of the magisterium, and a keen observer of the times. His many intellectual gifts did not separate him from his people. He was a lover of community. Lively, energetic, apostolic in a number of unexpected ways, shrewd and keen in his judgments of people and issues, tolerant and humane to those in trouble, a wise and understanding friend - he was indeed a remarkable Jesuit.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)