RIP. TED MERRITT MSC

Steve Dives writes: We just received the sad news that Ted Merritt passed away at 3pm NT time today, Holy Thursday, April 9th.

Ted’s suffering is over and he has gone to his God whom he served so well.

We pray for Ted and also his family who were unable to visit him in his final days.  Here we reprint the tribute from Malcolm Fyfe MSC on the occasion of Ted's 90th birthday celebration in Darwin.

Edward Patrick Merritt was born on January 17th 1928 at Corinda, a suburb of Brisbane. His parents were Edward, an accountant, and Mary. He had a brother James, who tragically died in a motor cycle accident as a young man and two sisters, Maureen and Margaret, whom he will visit in a few days' time down in Brisbane. Young Ted Merritt was educated at St Joseph's Christian Brothers College at Gregory Terrace in Brisbane, after having spent his primary years at Corinda's Catholic School, run by our sister-congregation, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Even as a Secondary School student, young Ted felt a call to a religious vocation but it was only when he was 25 years of age that he took 'a leap in the dark', as he put it, and travelled down to Douglas Park, south of Sydney, to join the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart as a Brother. Up till that point he had been working in the motor industry, a job that would stand him in good stead in his subsequent missionary labours. Of course, had young Ted started his formation to become a Religious at the early age most youngsters in those days did, we might well be celebrating the 65th anniversary of his profession round about this time!

With Bishop Eugene Hurley

Whatever about that, young Ted decided to become a Brother in what was, in that day and age, a two-tiered Congregation of priests and lay-brothers, as they were then called. To illustrate this feature, I can mention that Father Linckens, Superior General of the Congregation early last Century, actively discouraged conversations between novices for the priesthood and novices for the brotherhood because he felt that (and I quote) "the brothers would be exposed to the temptation to become priests" A temptation indeed! And on the other hand, a few years later, his successor as MSC General, Father Meyer, noted that students for the priesthood were not to engage in manual work, especially farm work, because "it would distract them from studies of great importance". It was the Second Vatican Council that initiated a change in this mentality to the point that all members of a religious congregation were to see themselves as brothers in the Lord, whatever their role or function.

In pronouncing his first commitment as a religious on August 5th, 1954, Brother Ted used a formula which included the following words: "Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in the boundless mercy of your Sacred Heart and called, through the gift of your Spirit to follow and serve you, so that the world may come to know your love for the Father and for all mankind and so that your Kingdom may come, I vow for three years obedience, chastity and poverty in the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart according to its Constitutions." Pronouncing these beautiful and motivating words is one thing but living them out faithfully over a subsequent 60 year period, as Brother Ted has done, is an achievement indeed.

Six years later, Brother Ted again repeated that formula of religious commitment, but this time for life.
In those intervening six years Brother Ted had worked as a gardener at Douglas Park for two years, in the office of the MSC publication "The Annals" for two years and in our boarding Colleges for a similar period. Again, this range of tasks, together with the skills he had earlier acquired in the workforce, prepared him for his subsequent life at mission stations in the Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea. He was eventually to spend forty eight years here in the Territory and three years at Sideia in Eastern Papua.

Missionary life in the 60's and 70's was tough and at times, harsh in the extreme. Our Northern Territory and Papuan missionaries, especially in earlier times, were expected to be self-reliant men of grit and perseverance, capable of enduring isolation and an exacting lifestyle, with expertise in sharing the faith along with the practical skills needed to cope with almost any contingency. The era of such missionary heroes is fast fading from living memory: still readily admired, less likely to be emulated.

From 1960 onwards, Brother Ted lived and worked for significant periods on all of our NT Mission stations: at Bathurst Island, at Wadeye, at Woodycupaldiya where he lived for a time in a demountable, at Daly River and at Santa Teresa, 80 km south east of Alice Springs - at times the resident mechanic, at times the accountant or the town clerk, and then at the age of 60 he learnt how to fly a plane and acquired his pilot's licence. It is impossible in this short homily to recall in any detail the day-to-day challenges faced-up to, the dramas that occurred, the simple joys of life experienced, the many relationships forged. The passing of the years has not dimmed the memories retained by the indigenous people that he came to know tens of years earlier and he is still greeted with an affection, mixed with nostalgia for bygone happier days, by those he laboured on behalf of during the Mission era, sharing with them his extensive knowledge of vehicles and equipment, so that they were happy to work alongside him.

In 2001 Brother Ted withdrew to Darwin, living at the MSC Centre, aka "The Ranch". It was not to be a retirement but a new lease of life, dedicated to the St Vincent de Paul Society, at the beck and call of innumerable people on the margins of society, with their many and various needs and their importunate requests for immediate help. Brother Ted matches these activities with repairs and maintenance tasks at The Ranch, with an energy level that people twenty years younger than him could well be envious of.

With Bishop Hurley and Peter Hendriks MSC who visited Ted in hospital during his illness

I should also state from personal observation that it is not just what Brother Ted does by way of good works but the manner in which he does them, and by that I mean his availability and his compassionate manner. Add to that his spirit of prayer and the hours spent in Chapel and you get some idea of the Source that sustains his vitality.

I have no doubt that, on Judgement Day, when the great division takes place, with the sheep on the right and the goats on the left, that Brother Ted will hear those comforting words:
"For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; sick, and you visited Me; in prison, and you came to Me."

All in all, as I have already said, Brother Ted has spent 48 years of dedicated ministry here in the Diocese of Darwin and so it is fitting that we are able to celebrate his 60 years of Religious Life with him at this time and in this place.

Thanks, Brother Ted, for your enormous contribution to the life of our MSC Congregation, to the work of the Church in a variety of places and activities, with special reference to your varied ministry in the Northern Territory. Your 60-year track record with its ongoing religious commitment is something of which anybody could be justly proud.