And now for something different, Campbell Town, Tasmania, celebration.
Appreciation to Ed Travers MSC for organising this event and for the story. Thanks to Bartha for the photos.
One hundred and twenty one years ago the Australian Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart established its first mission in its own right in the Archdiocese of Hobart. Campbell Town was chosen as the place. Accordingly, we, who are now very few, gathered there to celebrate Fr Chevalier's 200th birthday which happened also to be the 120th anniversary of the death of Fr Henri Chetail MSC, one of our first of our confreres in this place who died with a reputation for sanctity which endures amongst local people to this day. Moreover, two of the churches of this region, in the villages of Ross and Mangana, were dedicated to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart thus standing in testimony to the influence of our pioneer members in this region.
Archbishop Julian Porteous considered the event sufficiently important for him to attend and preside at the concelebrated Mass at which Frs Bartha Paniyadimai and Ed Travers MSCs were joined by five of the diocesan clergy and a couple of local parishioners. At the end of the liturgy we processed into the churchyard and prayed prayers of gratitude and petition at the grave of Fr Chetail whose remains rest there between two other priests of note, namely, Fr O'Çonnell OSB, a local man of this village who was the first Australian born priest and Fr Leo Kirkham a former parish priest who died in the 1980s and who also had a reputation for sanctity.
We then retired to a local cafe for a modest lunch amongst that day's crowd of tourists.
Bartha at Fr Chetail's grave
Over the meal Fr Chris Hope, a senior retired priest of this archdiocese and former professor of scripture in the Melbourne seminary, remarked that the thing most appreciated about all of the MSC who have served over these 121 years has been their having contributed as though they were themselves members of the local presbyterate. I had heard these same appreciative words used in formal speeches of thanks by now deceased senior priests forty and more years ago. It seemed to us that Fr Founder would have been gratified to hear of such a long line of his spiritual sons being appraised in those terms. Disponibilite!
