Peter Costello
Robert Nash, SJ (1902-89) was a popular and well-known spiritual writer, here in Ireland, a man with an international reputation in the decades before Vatican II.
Apart from publishing numerous books, he spent his life conducting retreats for religious and leading parish missions.
This, his last book, is an excellent summary of his Ignatian Spirituality with its emphasis on total commitment. It is a combination of autobiographical reflections and advice on prayer. It is a book which many will like to read in this Ignatian Year.
Impressed
In this final book Fr Nash also describes a number of persons who impressed him greatly. Among them was Eamon Murphy, whom he recalled as follows; “A very pleasing picture moved before my imagination. I saw again the day of our first meeting when you were a clerical student soon to be raised to the priesthood as a member of the Society of African Missions (SMA).
The model of St Francis Xavier would have been held up to the youth of Ireland by Fr Nash in his writings”
“You believed your vocation would be to go out to that difficult mission field and spend your whole life there working for the salvation of souls. A noble ideal but we both know now at this stage that things did not turn out just like that.”
The model of St Francis Xavier would have been held up to the youth of Ireland by Fr Nash in his writings.
Fr Edward (Eamon) Murphy, so admired by Fr Nash, was born in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan on April 17, 1910. He was educated at the local St Patrick’s Academy and the Marists’ St Mary’s College in Dundalk.
After spending some time as a member of the Marist Congregation he decided to be an African Missionary and joined the Society of African Missions. He was ordained in 1936 and set out for his mission in the Vicariate of Benin in South-West Nigeria in the following year.
Outbreak
He arrived in the midst of an outbreak of yellow fever. On becoming ill, he was inoculated for his condition, but died soon afterwards. He was just six weeks into the mission. A similar fate befell two of his young colleagues – Anthony Dwyer and John Marren – in the mission station at Jos.
The dedication and heroism of Fr Murphy and his colleagues was typical of those who were part of the remarkable European Missionary Movement of the 19th and first half of the 20th Century.
Thousands of young men and women travelled as brothers, sisters, priests and lay-missionaries to the countries of Africa, Asia and beyond, where in difficult physical conditions and dangerous environments they spent their lives sharing the Gospel with and improving the lot of the peoples of those lands.
The flourishing Churches in many of the countries of Africa and Asia to-day are the result of their extraordinarily generous commitment. In stark contrast is the state of the Catholic Churches today across the deeply secularised countries of western Europe, including Ireland.
Struggling
In these countries the Church is struggling with a decline in vocations to the priesthood and religious life which is little short of catastrophic.
These Churches now owe a debt of honour to come to the assistance of the struggling Churches in Europe”
The abundance of vocations to the priesthood and religious life has been a feature of the flourishing Churches in Africa and Asia for some generations. These Churches now owe a debt of honour to come to the assistance of the struggling Churches in Europe.
As everyone is aware, to leave parishes without priests and Mass is not an option. Thus, as a matter of urgency, priests who are surplus to requirement in dioceses and religious orders in Africa and Asia should be transferred to where the need of their ministry is greatest. Steps have already been taken successfully to this end but the process could and should be considerably improved to achieve better results.
There will be challenges and difficulties associated with these arrangements but this did not deflect Irish priests helping to staff dioceses across the English-speaking world for more than 100 years.
It should also be remembered that the most recurring theme in the Church has been priests and missionaries from one part of the world evangelising in other parts of it just like Fr Eamon Murphy and his colleagues.