Fr. Patrick Fagan, C.P., and the St. Bridget’s Parish Ladies’ Choir

Father Patrick Fagan was an Irishman. He had given parish mission for five years in England when he was selected for the Australian foundation. His preaching was “discursive and persuasive.

He enlisted as an Army Chaplain in 1900. He returned after the war and gave missions until he died in 1913.

He was buried in at the Passionist Mary’s Mount Monastery in Goulburn, but later when the Passionists left there, his remains were transferred to Rookwood in Sydney.

Father Patrick Fagan, C.P., and the St. Bridget’s Parish Ladies’ Choir.

Cardinal Moran assigns first Passionists to Marrickville

Cardinal Patrick Moran, Archbishop of Sydney

“His Eminence congratulated the people of Marrickville on the privilege of having the Passionists established in their district.

“Of all the duties which had devolved upon himself since he took change of the diocese none had given him more gratification than that of establishing the devoted sons of St. Paul of the Cross in that place. When the foundations of the Marrickville church were laid, it would be remembered, he announced to them, that the special devotion of the church would be the Passion of Our Lord.  At that time he had not the remotest thought or hope that it would be their privilege and their happiness to have as their pastors the devoted spiritual labourers who were the standard bearers of that particular devotion. However, when he received the good new that the Passionits were coming to Sydney he immediately set apart as a fitting place for them that church to commence their labours in Australia.”

- Freeman’s Journal, 3rd October 1888.
 

21st November 1887 - arrival of the Anglo Hibernan Passionists in Australia

The first Passionists from the Anglo Hibernian Province arrived in Australia on 21st November 1887.

They were  Father Alphonsus O’Neill, C.P., Father Marcellus Wright, C.P., Father Patrick Fagan, C.P., Father Colman Noonan, C.P. and Brother Lawrence Carr, C.P.

Father Marcellus Wright, C.P.

Father Marcellus was a business man when he joined the Passionists at the age of twenty two. When he arrived in Australia he was five years a priest. After ordination, he spent twelve months in the Paris House at Avenue Hoche. Here the English Irish Passionists had served the English-speaking people of Paris since 1863.

After that, he had gone to live at St. Mungo’s in Glasgow. His ministry was taken up with the giving of parish missions and his preaching was described as “all fire and earnestness.”

In the course of his years in Australia, Fr. Marcellus was superior at New Town in Tasmania and at St. Brigid’s, Marrickville and he was the first Novice Master when the Novitiate was established at Mary’s Mount in Goulburn, New South Wales.

Resources for the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 21st November

Homily on the Feast of the Presentation   here

St. Paul of the Cross and the Feast of the Presentation  here

The Feast of the Presentation and the Passionists  here

The Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary  here

Miracle attributed to the intercession of Passionist Grimoaldo Santamaria in 1982

Little Nicholas Romano, four years old, of Cesca, Italy, benefitted from the intercession of Passionist Grimoaldo Santamaria on 15th May 1982.

That day a tractor was parked in the large courtyard of his home with the keys still in the ignition. Nicholas, who had often watched his parental uncle start up the heavy tractor, let his curiosity run away with him. Wanting to imitate his uncle, he climbed into the seat when no one was looking and started the engine. The tractor lunged forward, throwing the boy under the heavy right rear wheel which rolled right over his right cheek and chest.

While Nicholas still lay motionless, with light traces of the rubber tyre tread on his face and chest, his father, who had been the accident, instinctively cried out to Grimoaldo to save the boy. Still praying to Grimoaldo, the parents rushed their son to the hospital at Aversa. The doctors there found his face and head uninjured, and wondered whether the Romanos were not imagining things.  Mr. Romano was still not satisfied. He took the boy to “Santobono” Hospital at Naples for even a greater number of tests. The conclusion reached was the same as at Aversa: Nicholas’ head and chest were physically sound. Although the tyre weighed over two hundred pounds, it had done him no harm. At Naples, too, the doctors thought the parents’ account of the accident was exaggerated. In the years that followed, the boy was examined again and again, but the examination confirmed his perfect health.

In October 1993, the Medical Commission of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints reached the unanimous conclusion that the preservation of young Nicholas Romano from mortal injury was incapable of scientific explanation.

On 2nd July 1994, Pope John Paul II approved the miracle attributed to the intercession of Grimoaldo Santamaria.

- taken from The Life of Grimoaldo Santamaria, Passionist Student by Father Pierluigi Mirra, C.P. p. 31 - 32.