From Fourvière to Ross

Fr Kevin Head sm

Fourvière

On 23 July 1816 twelve men committed themselves to forming a religious congregation of ‘Mary-ists.’ They did this in the Chapel of the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière in Lyon, France. A good part of this issue of the Marist Messenger is devoted to remembering and celebrating this event.
The commitment those men made came to life in the birth of the Marist family -- lay men and women, and congregations of religious: the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary, the Marist Brothers of the Schools, the Marist Sisters and the brothers and priests of the Society of Mary.
This year, along with many groups of Marist laity world-wide, Marist religious rejoice in and recall their beginnings and commit themselves once more to doing Mary’s work in the Church and in the world today.

Fr Jean-Pierre Chareyre SM

In the years following 1816 many Marists visited the shrine at Fourvière. In October 1836, on the first day of a novena of Masses offered there before the first Marist missionaries left for the Pacific, Fr Peter Chanel hung a heart around the neck of the infant Jesus. The heart contained the names of the first missionaries, and as more and more set out as missionaries, their names were added to the list.

Fr Jean Antoine Goutenoire

The heart, and Fourvière itself, were important for these pioneer Marists who were often homesick, hungry and lonely. From New Zealand Fr Catherin Servant wrote to his parents, ‘When you go to Fourvière you will see the image of the heart of Our Lady which contains a list in which the name of your son is written. This will surely bring you pleasure.’

St Patrick's Church, Ross

Closer to home, October this year marks 150 years since the opening of St Patrick’s church in Ross, on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. It is the oldest Catholic Church on the West Coast and, after Akaroa, the second oldest surviving in the Christchurch Catholic diocese. It is also probably the oldest remaining building in Ross.
The West Coast Times described the opening of the church as ‘being a ceremony worthy of the opening of a cathedral.’ High Mass was celebrated, and the choir, with the help of the Glee Club, sang Mozart’s Twelfth Mass ‘in a most reverential and artistic manner.’ It is the church in which my sister and brother and I were baptised and made our First Communion, in which our parents were married, and in which there is displayed a crucifix inscribed in memory of our maternal grandmother.
The first parish priest to live in Ross was Fr Jean Antoine Goutenoire, a Marist from Lyon, born in 1840. He had arrived in New Zealand in 1866 and was appointed to the town by Bishop Viard in 1869. He was described as ‘a very fluent speaker with a strong French accent ... loved by everyone,’ and it is on record that there was not a dry eye in the church when he preached his farewell sermon.
Fr Goutenoire’s successor in the parish was another Marist, Fr Jean-Pierre Chareyre. Born in 1834, he had arrived in New Zealand in 1867, working in Nelson with Fr Garin until 1871. A contemporary account states that he was ‘a fine, tall, good-looking Frenchman, who spoke good English, preached fine sermons, and was always on the move.’
It delights me to think that the first two priests that lived in the parish which nourished my faith as a child knew the Founder of the Society of Mary, Fr Colin, and that their names were ‘written in the heart of Mary’ in Fourvière.

References:

Fr Craig Larkin sm, Pilgrimage; www.maristinter.org; Fr Michael O’Meeghan sm, Held Firm by Faith; Fr Claude Rozier sm in Acta 1960, VI 29; Fr John Hosie sm, MA Thesis, The French Mission, p. 376; Susan Clarke, MA Thesis, 1929; The Catholic Missionary in Te Wahi Pounamu; Pam Wilson, NZ Historic Places Trust Report on the Ross Catholic Church, 2004.

With special thanks to
Marist Archives, Wellington.