Love, adore, delight, follow and enjoy!

21 November 1887 Passionists arrive 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.

21 November Feast of the Presentation of Mary

Passionist Saint Vincent Mary Strambi gives this account of the devotion of St. Paul of the Cross to the Presentation of Mary:

He prepared himself for the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the temple… by a fervent novena.  He desired that the religious community of the Retreat of Monte Argentario, whose church is dedicated under the title of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, would make this novena with him, using the following ritual: After the Blessed Sacrament had been exposed for adoration and the appropriate prayers had been said, Psalm 65, Cry out with joy to God, all the earth, O sing to the glory of his name, was to be sung.  In this psalm Paul recognised the way in which God had led him.  The psalm also reminded him of the exceptional graces he had obtained through the Blessed Virgin, who had always helped and protected him….  On the day of the feast, he seemed to be totally penetrated by a spirit of tender devotion.  Even on his deathbed, he recalled: “The day of the Presentation was always a most holy and solemn day for me.”

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

During the month of December

7th December

Anniversary of the birth of Luca Daneo, father of St. Paul of the Cross (1659)

9th December

Feast of Blessed Bernard Mary Silvetrelli, C.P.

10th December

Introduction of the Cause of Ven. John Baptist Daneo, brother of St. Paul of the Cross and Co Founder of the Passionists (1930)

22nd December

Introduction of the Cause of Beatification for St. Paul of the Cross (1784)

1796

In 1796 the Passionist Congregation numbered 208 professed religious: 105 priests, 20 clerical students and 83 brothers. The average age was 43 years. (History of the Passionists, Fabiano Giorgini, C.P.)