Displaying items by tag: Ed Travers MSC

Eulogy/ Homily, Requiem Mass for Reg Pritchard MSC

Brother Reg was a deeply private person, but above all a deep man. A man of deep faith who was most faithful to prayer.

I've heard it said that if you want to get to know someone go on holidays with them. On that score Reg and I, usually along with a few others like Terry Barry and Gus Buckley, spent many months over the years on some most memorable holidays during which I came to know Reg rather well both in our conversations and more particularly in many long silences. I recognise the man I got to know within our first reading today from the Book of Job (Jb. 19:1, 23-27) where Job is remonstrating with his friends and with God. Job has been shown certain things in faith - for faith is a way of knowing - a way that quite surpasses our natural ability to discover things by our own reasoning.

If Job's words could be preserved for a future generation he knows already that they will be proved true. Having known Reg at close quarters concerning our mutual faith I know too that Reg was very much gifted with that "knowing faith" of Job which both surpassed and was not in need of the arguments of human reasoning. Specifically that he knew God is my redeemer - my goel - my intimate relative and I shall look on him and he on me face to face.

Reg shared this mystique with our MSC brothers in general. Indeed as an alumnus of St Paul's Seminary which had been conducted in this place and within which the role of the brothers was significant I have observed that whenever attending a reunion of priests formed here and a speaker has mentioned the brothers that remark has immediately prompted a standing ovation, No further words are necessary nor would any be adequate. 

Our responsorial psalm today was a combination of Psalms 42 and 43; It is an intensely personal prayer, yet one offered in the name of the community, which echoes the Reg I knew.  Those whose prayer is deepest seem also to touch the greater number of us from within so to speak.

Turning to the Gospel of John (Jn.6:37-40) we were told that the Son's tender invitation to us turns on the almighty strength of the Father's will, or as St Francis de Sales put it "There is nothing so strong as tenderness and nothing so tender as real strength". Despite Reg's gruff exterior those of us who knew him well could recognise a most tender person within.

I am reminded of an observation of the former atheist and madly daring victoria cross winner of World War II, Sir leonard Cheshire, who after the bombing of Hiroshima (at which he was Britain's official observer) underwent a profound conversion so as to become in later life a recognised spiritual authority; he was once asked in what did he consider the genuinely masculine to consist; He calmly replied, "there is a certain relentless tenderness about the genuinely masculine". I detect Reg Pritchard being described in those words.

We have just heard proclaimed that it is the almighty Father's will that nothing he has given to the Son will be lost and the Son will never cast out anyone the Father gives him. Like Job, Reg Pritchard simply knew that by way of a calmly held faith.

Edmond Travers MSC

Reg Pritchard MSC, Mass and Funeral

Today, Mass for Reg was celebrated at the Henri Verius Chapel at Kensington Monastery.

Ed Travers MSC presided and preached.

In days to come, there will be a post with words from Ed Travers

The coffin left for St Mary’s Towers

Ed Travers at the graveside

Next Wednesday, Reg would have been 64 years professed as an MSC Brother. Thanks to the Brothers who sent the photos: Phil Reilly, Barry Smith, John Walker

Life’s Healing Journey – St Mary’s Towers and beyond

Ed Travers, msc, has been gifting the Life’s Healing Journey retreat to the men of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd for many years.   This year Ed was supported in facilitating the retreat by the seminary Spiritual Director, Fr John Armstrong, Fr Manuel Garcia from the Sydney Archdiocese, Dominic Gleeson, MSC, Peter Harvey-Jackson, MSC and Sr Jenny Scally, RSJ. 

There were eight men from the seminary undertaking the retreat this year representing a number of different dioceses throughout Australia.  Peter Hendriks, MSC, Krish Mathavan, MSC prayed this retreat and Long Tran and Nang Vu, our own men of the MSC Novitiate also undertook the retreat.  There are a number of men from various dioceses around Australia who preparing for Diaconate or for ordination to Priesthood who participated in the retreat here at the Towers as well.  

Life’s Healing Journey was established by our US confrere, Peter Campbell MSC who died some years ago.

The MSC Life’s Healing Journey retreat has become a recognised and vital complement to the seminary’s spirituality program. It is providing a valuable resource for the men who undertake the retreat to continually reflect on their lives as a consequence of the Life’s Healing Journey that they embark on early in their preparation for Priesthood.  

Over recent years Dominic has been leading retreats in Fiji and India for MSC confreres.

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!