Christmas on Kadavu
Patrick Colgan
The people feel the lack of a priest with them. Let us pray that someone may soon be sent permanently.
The harvest is rich indeed, but the labourers are few!
Christmas two years ago was unlike any other. For a start, it was spent on one of the most sought after tourist destinations of Fiji - the island of Kadavu. Catholic communities live scattered among other denominations. They have no resident priest. At Christmas and Easter, a priest will come from Suva. The people look forward to their visits. There are usually plenty of confessions, marriages, Eucharistic and sacramental instructions squeezed into these short visits.
Even I, who have been in Fiji for 14 years, was astounded by the beauty of the place, by its remoteness and the isolated and difficult lifestyle the people face. Sometimes food supplies come late; the air service is unreliable and telephone communication often difficult.
My programme was that I would be free during the day until Mass time in the evening. I decided to go farming with the young men each morning, to "sweat" a little and bring some yaqona plants back to Suva.
In the afternoons, the children and I went swimming and played volleyball. On the ringing of the Angelus bell by the catechist at 6:00pm everything stopped and everyone retired to the river to get cleaned up before Mass. Such was the rhythm of the day, and with no radio or newspaper, I forgot what day, or week, it was!
Highlights of my stay were the simple but touching children's drama at the Midnight Mass, my trying to anoint in Confirmation a young Methodist man almost twice my height, the all-night dancing to welcome in the New Year and the tears shed at my departure. The people feel the lack of a priest with them. Let us pray that someone may soon be sent permanently.
The harvest is rich indeed, but the labourers are few!
