Fr Leo's last wish

The 4th of February, 2015 marked the first anniversary of the death of  Fr Leo Donnelly, who was a Columban missionary priest in Peru. Fr Leo always searched for ways to be in solidarity with the poor. Here is how Fr Leo's last wish was fulfilled:

Scenes of the apillero.
There has to be a truck bringing freshly picked fruit into town, and it has to be white. There must be pigs grazing in a paddock; and the cemetery where Sr Irene McCormack and her five fellow victims of the Shining Path lay resting in peace; and of course a long majestic church that runs along one side of the plaza and the school...

These are some of the indications Fr Leo Donnelly gave to artist, Mrs Maria Reyes (of the ladies cooperative in the parish of Saints Peter and Paul, Lima, Peru).

It was October 2013 when Leo commissioned Maria to prepare an apillero, a tapestry with multiple figurines to cover one of the walls of his abode. It was to represent the town of Huasa Huasi in the Peruvian central highlands where Leo had been to hell and back for some 12 years, accompanying the local potato growers and towns folk.

Scenes of the apillero.
The purpose of the tapestry was to cover one of the walls of his chalet to help deaden the echo and help his poor hearing. It would also to provide a scene where he could sit and contemplate and give thanks.

I heard about the tapestry in May last  year, some months after Leo’s death. He would never see Maria's artistry fruits of six months, executed  in accord with his wishes. Conscious that Maria would be left with many months of work on her hands, I asked her for a viewing of the ‘magnum opus’ - what great work!

Scenes of the apillero.
It is a vast splash of colour, full of figures and events. From a distance it is a blur, but up close you can see the details of all the activities typical of an isolated mountain village. The corn, the fruit, the potatoes and the wool are all being gathered into sacks and loaded into a truck; the kids are lined up in the school yard; and a procession heads for the cemetery carrying a coffin to where a prepared grave lies open and waiting.

This masterpiece now hangs in the Columban Centre for Mission Studies in Lima, Peru. On another wall is one of Leo’s paintings representing the rape of Peru by the uncontrolled export of minerals.

Columban Fr John Hegerty has been a missionary in Peru since 1971.

Read the Columban Fr Leo Donnelly prayer card

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