Long time missionary in Peru, Columban Fr John Hegerty wrote the following reflection on the vocation of the missionary priesthood based on the final days of his fellow missionary, Columban Fr Leo Donnelly. Fr Leo Donnelly SSC died in Lima, Peru on February 4, 2014 in a crowded ward of a Peruvian public hospital surrounded by 30 other patients.
Just like that of a prophet, Fr Leo's message becomes clearer over time. Maybe it's just too much for us lesser mortals to take it all in at once. He saw and understood what we only see but don't always understand. Sometimes we are like Peter and John looking into the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning and trying to make sense of it. Maybe the difference and key to understanding is love. Leo always confessed to having sinned much but to having loved more.
For him missionary priesthood was always linked with the people. All missionaries who lived apart and disconnected from the ordinary people to whom they had been assigned, no matter how faithful to their duties they may be, were not truly exercising their priestly ministry.
It was on Sunday the second of February when the doctor attending Leo during his cancer treatment decided Leo had to receive blood. The only place in Lima that provides blood on a Sunday is the emergency section of the Archbishop Loyaza Public Hospital in the centre of the old city.
The ambulance brought him on what was his last journey. Following the transfusions, he was moved to Public Ward Number Eight. Here he would share the drama, trauma and confusion, together with the loving care and constant attention of a public ward along with some 30 other patients from all walks of life and states of health.
Monday was for him uncomfortable, restless and agitated. With Tuesday morning came some peace and calm and apparent comfort. It was here, propped up in bed, with the window behind him wide open to allow in the sweet breeze from a congested Alfonzo Ugarte Avenue to waft over him, that he, now unable to speak, gave me that 'sign' of the two fingers vertical, followed by a thumbs up, and a hint of a smile.
With hindsight he seemed to be saying: 'This is enough, this is the right place', and 'This is the right time', 'Let's go'. Only two hours later back at the Columban Centre House, we received the staggering news that Leo had moved on, leaving us with our memories and his testimony, with our fullness and our emptiness. Our world would never be the same.
By means of the strangest set of circumstances - within a few days Leo had been moved from the comfort of the Centre House to the isolation of a clinic to the crowded bustle of a public ward.
God had given his son the blessing of dying as he had always chosen to live, as one with his people. His cup was full and flowing over.
He lived to the last drop his priestly missionary ministry with and as one of his adopted people.
Columban Fr John Hegerty has been a missionary in Peru since 1971.
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LISTEN TO: Reflection - Linked with the people (Duration: 4.01mins, MP3, 1.83MB) |