Prayers asked for Columban Fr Aminiasi Ravuwai

 

Fr Aminiasi Ravuwai

Today we Columbans received this email from our Superior General Fr Andrei Paz:

With a heavy heart, I write to request your prayers for our dear brother, Fr Aminiasi Ravuwai. Recently, Amini has been hospitalized in Lima, and after undergoing a series of tests, it has been confirmed that he has an inoperable tumor in his pancreas. He is experiencing significant pain, which has left him unable to travel for medical treatment outside of Peru. This news has deeply affected him and all of us who care for him.

In this difficult time, prayers are needed for Amini’s strength and peace, as well as for the grace to face the challenges ahead. I also ask for prayers for the Columbans in the Region of South America and for his family, who are dealing with this difficult news. The Columbans in Lima are deeply moved by his suffering, and his family is grappling with the emotional weight of this situation. Amini’s loved ones, both near and far, are struggling with the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

Please remember Amini in your Masses and prayers, asking for God's comfort and healing presence. Through our prayers and the intercession of St Columban and our Blessed Mother, the Immaculate Conception, may Amini experience the strength and peace that only God can provide. May he feel the solace of Christ’s love and the courage to persevere through this difficult journey. 

Thank you for your support and prayers for Amini, his family, and the Columbans in South America. In times like these, it is through God’s love and grace that we find hope and peace.

Father Amini with his family on his ordination day in Suva, 22 December 2020

You can read more about Father Amini here. He was a teacher before he joined the Columbans. He went to Peru as a priest in 2021 but had spent two years there on First Mission Assignment as a seminarian. He also spent a year in Manila for his Spiritual Year, the equivalent of a novitiate.

In the video Fr Frank Hoare, an Irish Columban who went to Fiji about 50 years ago, interviews Father Amini shortly after his ordination.

Jesus said, 'You go, and do likewise.' Sunday Reflections, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

Fr Pat McCaffrey with friends in Pakistan

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 10:25-37 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)  

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Father Pat with friend in Ba, Fiji

Fr Pat McCaffrey was a classmate of mine who died suddenly in Pakistan on 18 May 2010. His first mission was Fiji, where he worked especially with Indian-Fijians and became fluent in Hindi. He was then part of the pioneering Columban group that went to Pakistan in 1979. Later he worked with people of Pakistani origin in northern England, living in Bradford. He celebrated Mass once a month with Pakistani Catholics in Nelson. Much of his work in Bradford was with refugees from the troubled Middle East. He was then reassigned to Fiji. But his final posting was back to Pakistan.

Father Pat's niece Siobhan McCaffrey describes his death in Following in Father Pat's Footsteps, an article she wrote after visiting Pakistan: On our last day, we travelled to the town of Murree, a seven-hour drive from Lahore, situated on the side of a steep hill, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Murree was where Father Pat died. He had been visiting lay missionaries there. He had left the convent [of the Presentation Sisters where he had celebrated Mass the evening before] around 6:00am to catch a bus to Rawalpindi. He was rushing to catch the bus when he died. The only person around was a street-sweeper [whose name was Latief], considered the lowest of the low in Pakistan’s caste system.

This man had seen Father Pat holding on to the rails outside the compound and then fall back onto the road. He went to his aid but was unable to help. He raised the alarm at the convent and the Sisters came.

We thanked the street-sweeper for trying to help our uncle. He apologized for not being able to save him and explained that it was his moral duty to try, but that God had decided to take him and there was nothing he could do.

Father Pat's whole life was that of a follower of Jesus who had never forgotten the experience of weeping, of suffering with the poor. And God surely blessed him in allowing him to celebrate Mass the evening before he died and in sending a man from the poorest of the poor to be the first to come to his aid, a Muslim who, like Father Pat himself, had never forgotten the experience of weeping, of suffering with others.

Fr Pat McCaffrey’s grave in Pakistan

Unlike the priest and the Levite in today's gospel, nobody passed by Father Pat when he fell. But the first to come to his aid and to raise the alarm was Latief, a street-sweeper, the very lowest on the social scale in Pakistan. Father Pat had spent most of his life as an outsider to one degree or another. He grew up in Northern Ireland where at that time there was discrimination against Catholics. He worked with Indian-Fijians in Fiji whose ancestors had been brought there to work in the sugar plantations. He ministered to immigrants from Pakistan and the Middle East in northern England, most of them Muslims. He celebrated Mass with Pakistani Catholics there, a small minority in their native land and still a small minority among those of Pakistani origin in England.

The man left half-dead in the parable of the Good Samaritan was, presumably, Jewish. He allowed himself to be taken care of by a person he would have seen as 'other' and in doing so was healed. 

Knowing Father Pat as I did, I am certain that nothing would have made him happier than to be attended to in his final moments by a Muslim, Latief, who was a 'nobody' in his own country. We see the nobility of this man's character and his faith in God in what he said to Father Pat's niece Siobhan when he met her: He apologized for not being able to save him and explained that it was his moral duty to try, but that God had decided to take him and there was nothing he could do.

+++

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion (Luke 10:33).

Parable of the Good Samaritan

Domenico Fetti [Web Gallery ofArt]

Jesus said, 'You go, and do likewise.'

Antiphona ad communionem

Communion Antiphon Cf Psalm 83[84]:4-5 

Passer invenit sibi domum, et turtum nidum, ubi reponet pullos suos. Altaria tua, Domine virtutem, Rex meus, et Deus meus! Beati qui habitant in domo tua, in saeculum saeculi laudabunt te.

The sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for her young: by your altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. Blessed are they who dwell in your house, for ever singing your praise.

Traditional Latin Mass

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 7-10-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 3:8-15. Gospel: Matthew 5:20-24.

The Calling of St Matthew (detail)

Caravaggio [Web Gallery of Art]

 

Columban Fr Charles Duster RIP

Fr Charles Duster

(15 September 1934 - 7 March 2017)

Father Charlie was born on 15 September  1934 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA, where his parents Charles Henry Duster ['DOOster'] and Cleo Catherine Handley Duster owned and operated a supermarket. He has an older brother William C. Duster (Audrey) of Littleton, Colorado, a sister Mrs Robert Enns (Katie) of Fort Pierce, Florida, and eleven nieces and nephews and their families. His older sister, Margaret Jeanne Duster, died in 1972.

Cedar Rapids, on the Cedar River [Wikipedia]

Fr. Charlie attended Immaculate Conception Grade and High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, (1952). After high school he attended Regis University, Denver, Colorado (1952-53) and Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1953-1954).

After briefly considering medical school he instead decided to enter the seminary to become a Columban missionary priest in 1955. He studied at St Columban’s Seminary, Milton, Massachusetts. As an exchange student, he studied theology at St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland (1958 – ’61). He did his fourth year of theology at St Columban's, Milton, where he was ordained a priest of the Missionary Society of St Columban on 21 December 1961. He celebrated his first Solemn High Mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Cedar Rapids on 31 December.

Immaculate Conception Church, Cedar Rapids [Parish website]

In 1962 Father Charlie was assigned to Japan where he spent the next six years. The first two of these were spent studying Japanese language in Tokyo, the third one as Acting Regional Bursar, and the last three years as Associate Pastor at Shingu Catholic Church, Wakayama Prefecture, in the Diocese of Osaka.

In Japan

In July 1967 Father Charlie visited the Philippines, accompanied by a Columban confrere. After spending some days with Columban colleagues on the island of Negros, they narrowly missed their flight from Bacolod City to Cebu on 6 July because the plane departed a few minutes ahead of schedule, due to severe weather conditions. The next morning they learned that the plane, a Fokker F27 Friendship, had crashed into a mountain and all 17 passengers and four crew members perished. Father Charlie wrote about this in A Close Shave in the May-June 2016 issue of MISYONonline.com.

From 1969 – 1972, Father Charlie was the Columban Vocation Director for the Midwest Region of the USA based in Omaha. Afterwards, he continued a similar ministry while residing at the Columban house in Chicago. He then served a year in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis as chaplain at Hennepin County General Hospital in Minneapolis accompanied by studies in Clinical Pastoral Education.

With the late Archbishop Petero Mataca of Suva

In November 1974, Father Charlie was assigned to Fiji, Archdiocese of Suva. After initial language studies, he was appointed as Associate Pastor in Holy Family Parish, Nabala, Macuata, and a year later as Pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Solevu, Bua, where he served for six years. 

Following home leave in 1980 he did renewal studies at Notre Dame University. On his return to Fiji he became the Regional Vice-Director. He returned to the USA to undergo by-pass surgery in Houston, Texas, in 1982. Upon returning to Fiji later that year, Father Charlie was appointed Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Suva, and served in this position for four years.

Offices of the Archdiocese of Suva [Wikipedia]

In September 1986, he was appointed Rector of Collegio San Colombano in Rome where he was Superior of the sixteen-member community. During his eight years in Rome, he also earned a licentiate and doctorate in Canon Law at the Angelicum University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Before being reassigned to the Fijian Region, he worked for six months in the Marriage Tribunal in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, in order to gain experience in matrimonial law. 

Father Charlie returned to Fiji in November 1994 and served for six years as the Coordinator of the Columban Lay Mission Program, while teaching Canon Law at the Pacific Regional Seminary. In December 1998 he returned to the USA to undergo by-pass surgery for the second time, but returned to Fiji seven months later to continue his ministry to Columban Lay Missionaries. In December, 2003 he was appointed Associate Pastor at Holy Family Parish, Labasa, where he served until returning to the USA in September 2005. This was prompted by the recommendation of his doctors that he should reside in a place where he could receive monitored medical attention, which was unavailable in Fiji. 

With old friends in Fiji

He was assigned to the Columban Magnolia house in Chicago where he worked on Mission Promotion and Vocations (2005 – 2011) and served as house Superior (2008 -2011). In 2011 he began work at the Omaha office in Planned Giving and Development, and later combined this ministry with Superior of the Omaha community (2012 – 2016).

Father Charlie’s warm and outgoing personality, many talents, and deep commitment to his vocation as a Columban missionary priest, drew many people to God in the various places where he ministered. Wherever he was sent, his ability to recognize and celebrate all that was good in the world around him made him a truly joyful messenger of the Good News.

There is one thing I ask of the Lord,

for this I long,

to live in the house of the Lord,

    all the days of my life,

to savour the sweetness of the Lord,

    to behold his temple (Psalm 27:4).

Some Personal Memories

With Fijian Columban Lay Missionary Serafina Vuda in Peru

Serafina died unexpectedly on 31 May 2014

I met Father Charlie at long intervals over the years. My abiding memory of him is that he was a joyful person, as the photos of him above indicate. I visited Rome for the first time in April 1988. My first full day there happened to be my birthday and he insisted on taking those of us in the house at the time to a restaurant to celebrate the occasion.

In 2007, if my memory serves me right, he gave a retreat to Columban priests in the Philippines at St Scholastica's Center of Spirituality in Tagaytay City, south of Manila and much cooler than the latter because of its elevation. The retreat was truly a fraternal one, exemplifying what the psalmist wrote:

How good and how pleasant it is, 

when brothers live in unity (Psalm 133[132]:1).

My first time to meet him was in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Ireland, during Easter Week 1961 when I went there to be interviewed and to have a medical examination before entering the seminary the following September. I went back to Dublin, where I lived, with a group of the seminarians going to the city for the afternoon. I remember him singing a parody on a popular song from 1911, I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad). I never heard Father Charlie's version again until today when I found it on YouTube.

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3). 

May Fr Charles Duster enter the place prepared for him by Jesus and may he add to the joy of the saints in heaven.

Columban Fr Edward Quinn RIP

Fr Edward Quinn

(25 June 1928 - 12 July 2016)

After a brief illness, Fr Edward Quinn ('55) died peacefully at the Bellevue Medical Center in Nebraska on the evening of 12 July.

Fr Ed Quinn was born on 25 June 25 in Minneapolis, MN, USA.  His parents were Edward I. Quinn and Mary Frances Graham.

In his early elementary school years he attended public schools in Iowa. From the sixth through eighth grades he studied at Our Lady of Lourdes School, Omaha, NE, 1939-42. His high school years were spent at Creighton Prep 1942-46, Omaha, NE. For college he studied at Creighton University, Omaha, NE, 1946-50 where he received a Bachelor of Science in Biology. He was a gifted athlete who played on the basketball and track teams at Creighton Prep and Creighton University.

St John's Church, Creighton University [Wikipedia]

He studied for the priesthood at the Columban seminaries at St Columbans, NE, Bristol, RI, and at Milton, MA. Father Ed was ordained to the priesthood on 17 December 1955 in the Milton seminary chapel.

Fr Quinn in Korea, c. 1960

'This article, circa 1960, is about my uncle caring for those in leper colonies in South Korea. He lived in Korea until 1972. He then worked in Fiji until he returned to Omaha about a decade ago. He did much good for humanity in his 88 years.' [From Facebook of Fr Quinn's nephew, also Edward Quinn.]

He served in Korea from 1956 to 1968 doing parish work.

Later in 1968 Father Ed was assigned to the USA for vocation work in Chicago. While there he started the Korean Catholic Center.

Fr Quinn in Fiji

In 1973 he was assigned to Fiji where he did parish work for ten years. While he mainly served in Fijian-speaking parishes, Father Ed also spoke Hindi which he used in Indian-Fijian parishes. While Regional Director in Fiji 1983-87 he periodically visited and spent several months in Vanuatu, where the Columban Region of Fiji had a mission at that time. From 1987 onwards he  served variously in formation, vocations, hospital chaplaincy and parish work before starting the Lay Missionary program in Fiji. 

Father Ed with Korean Columban Lay Missionaries Yean Sin, Bok Ja and Yean Han in Fiji, 1994

Yean Sin died of hepatitis in Fiji on 4 November 1994.

In addition, he was Regional Bursar from 1987 to 1991 and House Bursar/Manager from 1990 to 2007. He was periodically elected as a Regional Councilor throughout his years in Fiji.

From 2007 to the present, he was assigned to St Columbans, Omaha, NE. While he was still able to drive, he chose to be a chauffeur for many Columbans on trips to and from the local airport. He had a low key, unassuming way about him with a wry sense of humor. He is sorely missed.

Crucifix, St Columbans, Nebraska

Obituary by Fr Tim Mulroy, Columban Regional Director, USA.

Christ JyotiAshram - Christ the Light Ashram

Near Nadi, in western Viti Levu

The only time I met Fr Ed Quinn was two or three weeks after Easter 1990 when I paid my only visit to Fiji. The late Fr Martin Dobey met me at Nadi International Airport and took me to the Ashram above where the Columbans were on retreat. They greeted me with the traditional yaqona (kava) ceremony. I spent two nights there, as far as I can recall, and then travelled with Father Ed in his vehicle to Suva, a journey of about two hours. Fr Mulroy's description of him above: He had a low key, unassuming way about him with a wry sense of humor, is how I remember him. As a fellow Columban missionary priest I was inspired by his quiet, joyful presence. 

Coral reef below the Ashram

An abiding memory I have of my stay in the Ashram is the sound of the waves breaking on the coral reef in the photo above, a sound that brought a sense of peace.

May Father Ed rest in the eternal life-filled peace that Jesus has promised to those who follow him and do the will of the Father.

Columban Fr Vincent Batchelor RIP

Fr Vincent Batchelor died in Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne on 28 May at around 5:30pm in his 96^th year. He had been living in Nazareth Care Camberwell, under the care of the Sisters of Nazareth. Camberwell is a suburb of Melbourne.  Father Vincent had a fall after which the staff decided to send him to hospital for observation. The doctor suspected that the fall was brought on by a heart attack. He had been visited by his sister Mary and  niece and  Fr Ray Scanlon who kept in constant contact with him and with Fr Gary Walker, the Regional Director of the Columbans in Australia and New Zealand, that afternoon. He died shortly after they left.

Gunbower Creek, Cohuna, Victoria [Wikipedia]

Vincent Batchelor was  the fifth child in his family of five brothers and four sisters who grew up in Cohuna, in country Victoria on the Victorian side of the Murray River. 

He joined the Columbans in 1938 and did his Spiritual Year and philosophy at St Columban’s, Essendon (above), a suburb of Melbourne, but had to travel to St Columban's, Omaha, Nebraska, USA (below), for theology in 1941 where he was ordained on 21 December 1944.

On returning to Australia Fr Vincent held a variety of roles: Asian students' chaplain, parish work, Director of Spiritual Year for Columban seminarians. In 1967 he was appointed to Fiji where he stayed for 40 years serving in parishes, as a teacher and chaplain to Xavier College in Ba and chaplain to the De Montfort Brothers who took over Xavier College from the Columbans. His work as a hospital chaplain was legendary. He returned to Australia and retired to St Columban’s, Essendon, until he needed nursing care.

Xavier College, Ba [Facebook]

He had little interest in money or possessions and once sold his car after a cyclone in Fiji to buy food and essentials for people who had lost everything. He was clear in his desire to be a missionary, always willing to accept whatever appointment was asked of him. He was childlike in the best sense and God’s word was revealed in him as the many emails we have received testify. 

Funeral Mass

His funeral was on Thursday morning 2 June at the chapel in St Columban’s, Essendon; he was buried in the Columban plot at Melbourne General Cemetery. His coffin was wrapped in ‘tapa’ a traditional barkcloth used in the Pacific on important occasions such as burial.  Fijian people sang hymns at the chapel and the graveside. It was very appropriate. May he rest in peace.

Burial

Singing during Mass, Fiji

Obituary by Fr Gary Walker, Columban Regional Director, Australia and New Zealand.