Fr. Salvian Maguire, CP 1925-2017

thought-for-sundayFrom the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, 22nd October 2017

  

 

Some old people seem as if they were always old – you just can’t imagine them ever being young, whereas with others it’s the opposite. You can see the young man or woman in the old. And that was certainly true of Fr. Salvian who died last Sunday night at the ripe old age of 92. It was no problem at all to imagine him as a child, a student or a young Passionist heading off to Paraquay with Fr. Theophane Cooney and Fr. Mel Collier to start a new mission there. I love this photo of him on his horse setting out to visit the sick in the parish. He looks completely in his element. As we know, life breaks everyone in some ways but Salvian never seemed to lose his wonderment, his enthusiasm and delight in life. Also, he had an enquiring mind and never ceased wanting to understand things.

He was full of wonder about nature and all the new knowledge about the earth and the universe. And he was quite at home up there in the spiritual stratosphere exploring the mysteries of our faith in his homilies. He enjoyed walking and in recent years was so happy when wheeled around the garden and the park. I’m sure too he won’t ‘make strange’ when he arrives at heaven’s gate.

Everyone remarked that Salvian had a great face, a most expressive face, with big eyes ready to break into laughter at all the foibles and craziness of human nature. He was our Provincial Superior from 1974 to 1980 and showed he had vision by planning, with others, various courses to help us explore our humanity and recognise that we had feelings as well as brains and to rid us of any illusions we might have  about ourselves. Up to that, training for Religious Life and Priesthood focussed largely on intellectual and spiritual formation, as we called it. At the time we called these courses “Our Road to Damascus” which being translated is “to demask us!”

I’m very conscious this is such a brief word about a very good man and priest. There was far more to Salvian than I can record here. He was a man full of concern for others, who lived up to that well known axiom “As you live so shall you die” He lived a cheerful positive life of faith and hope and in his last years he was equally cheerful and concerned about everyone but especially Nurse Teresa and his many devoted carers, all the time enquiring, “But how are you?” May he rest in peace.