Missions Memoir: An Ode to Mary’s Love

Br Lawrence Hampton SM

Born the last of eight, how gracious that I came so late!! And why?
Well my Mother might have said: ‘Have I not enough mouths to be fed?’ But I was given life by a generous Mother,
Who chose to serve God and no other.Cared for and loved in the first years, even as a first-born child,
With sisters and brothers to form me,
did Mary have something in mind?

At five years of age, with the mind beginning to open, sickness came –
And it seemed sure – that the Lord was going to reclaim.
But the prayers of a Mother pleading for her Son –
To the Mother of Jesus surely must have won. For often the Mother would relate – that it was by Prayer –
the graciousness of God for the love of the Mother, was too great.

Br Lawrence in his studio

A Marist school and St Mary’s church were pointers on the way,
Until a certain day, a Marist priest would say – “What would you have me do, Lord?”A Priest, a Brother, nay, no Priest. A Brother I will be.
Many a year has passed since a young man ventured into the Family of Mary.
Others may give their life for King and Country, but he was contrary,
It was God he would serve under Mary

Met by a Marist with a smile on his face:
“You must be the present - for this house to grace – For today is the Birthday of Mary.”
Poor as the present was, Mary took it – too gracious to refuse. So mean a gift,
She would find a way to uplift it.
To tend the animals, so dear to God,
To have them breathe on you like Jesus in the cave of the Jews,
Sheep, oxen, horses like those which stood around the Child,
Were tended in turn.
The labour of love, some students to guide,

Landscape by Br Lawrence

Mary’s Mount called, and hands torn and scratched by the vine –
As Christ took wine and blessed it as His blood –
So our work would help young priests perform the work Divine.

Five years – and now ten in the Homeland
A desire to go far, and join the band –
Of young men who had left home
To bring the Good News to those alone.

A builder I would be, fine Churches and Schools were dreams in my mind –
The tools for this labour all oiled and shined.

But no. It seemed the “Star of the Sea” had marked me!
To travel its waters a servant to thee.
A bishop for cabin mate, so much to learn,
Of engines and tide rips, of seasickness and sunburn.
So almost thirty-five years a slave of the sea,
Its moods, its fickleness, its storms, all imprinted on me.

What cargo we carried – great people too, who came to see –
The Work of the Missions and what the future would be.
Mary the Star must often have guided us through storm and sea,
For neither reef nor the deep water were a grave to be.
The need for the ships is no longer to be,
But the work under Mary is still necessary.
With only a few years now short of the fifty,
The eyes grow dimmer and the feet seem faulty.
But it’s Mary’s house that shelters me and where I meet and greet

The St Thomas

Others who seek to follow and Marist be.

Memoir written during a Retreat in 1988.
Now retired at Armstrong Village in Christchurch, Bro Lawrence , an artist and expert gardener, spent nearly 50 years in the Pacific mission, much of it skippering mission supply ships ‘Star of the Sea’ and ‘St Thomas’ (opposite).