Ordained a priest – to celebrate Mass, administer the Sacraments, preach and teach – one of the duties, I knew, would take me to the cemetery from time to time, there to conduct committal services for parishioners. As I said recently on the 55th Anniversary of my ordination, little did I realize I would spend 35 of those years in a cemetery – while still alive.
Yet, that was the appointment when, in 1965, my Archbishop of the day asked me to undertake – along with my other duties – the establishment of our first diocesan cemetery, the Gardens of Gethsemani.

Tough though the struggle has been to develop out of new bush land a worthy resting place for our dear departed, I have come to find great comfort and satisfaction in this important ministry not only to the deceased but also to the bereaved relatives and friends – Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

But I stray a little – how, when and where did my journey to the priesthood begin and develop?

With no baby sitter to leave me with, my earliest recollection is my widowed mother taking me to daily mass even in the snowy days of winter. I sat and knelt with her in her accustomed pew, with nary a whimper permitted me. With no toys to play with at Mass, and no other distractions, my attention was focused from those earliest years on the priest celebrating Mass.

Proving that the visual is one of the most effective forms of education, the various actions of the priest at Mass so interested and intrigued me that before I was five, I could – and did – mime and replicate at home every action of the priest at Mass. As I grew a little older, I couldn’t wait to receive my first Communion and to become an altar boy, enjoying serving Mass daily (often twice on Sundays) and the many other devotions common in our parish throughout the year. It surprised no one when I told my mother that when I grew up, I wanted to become a priest like the devoted pastors and missionaries I had come to know.

In my twelfth year, a near-death experience from a difficult surgery followed by a remarkable (miraculous?) recovery, strengthened my resolve to follow a course leading to the priesthood, if that was indeed God’s call for me.

Although my mother lived to the venerable age of 96, I never asked her what she prayed for at Mass and the devotions when I was growing up. Always supportive of my expressed wish, but never pressing, the only concern I ever recall her uttering was how could she bear the cost of my seminary education from the meager pension she was receiving for herself and me as a result of my father’s death. God answered that prayer, as the archdiocese had a plan – as it has today – to subsidize the costs of seminary training.

A family dedicated to Mass, prayer and devotions, and the example of priests in love with their vocations, are powerful sources of inspiration drawing young men to search out if they have a calling to the priesthood.


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