WORK OF MERCY OF AN OCEAN PRIEST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 223, 21 September 1936, Page 10

WORK OF MERCY OF AN OCEAN PRIEST

Visits to Newfoundland’s Banks

THE FISHERMAN’S FRIEND

Thanks to Father R. !’• Yvon, a Capuchin monk at ISt. Malo, three thousand men who fish the Grand Banks of Newfoundland no longer feel themselves prisoners of that maddening toil which, for the sake of winning out over holds them for months and months anchored in the pathetic desolation of vast waters and leaden skies. Every .Year in his 180-ton schooner, this ocean cure weaves his 25,000 miles of furrow between the 45th and 65th degree of the frigid zone. Fog and iceberg make up the sum total of the wear and teai of days which are lit only' by love of his fellow-man, I? roiu April 20 to September 25 the Banks of Newfoundland and Greenland receive his calling-card. Originally, Fattier Y'vou was a member of the 62nd infantry during the war, when he won the military medal, honourable mention and a lieutenant’s stripes, a foreign decoration . . . and 11 wounds Then, for a while quitting ttie Mouastry of St. Malo, he preached up and down Brittany to the seafaring folk, soothing grievances. Even the Communists listened to his i open-air talks on the Douarnenez quais i But in seeking a more arduous life among the truly unfortunate he became I chaplain to the men of the Great Fish- - Ing Fleet. i For this work on the seas, the sailor monk secured a 180-ton schooner, the t Saint Yves, an Iceland cod-fishing boat 3 provided with a ship’s hospital. When 5 he first set off for Newfoundland he was gibed about this craft.

“So you are going to the Banks in that walnut-shell, Father Yvon?” “Sure, boys, and what is mole I shall come back in it.” And he did return,, too, with a cargo of sick and shipwrecked men. 1 “To De sure she jumps the waves I like a little girl skipping, ...” And so in the convexity of this cockleshell boat, crammed with letters, newspapers, tobacco, packages, the Saint Yves steers for foggy Newfoundland, its booted Capuchin at the prow. During long pale days this ocean cuie visits his oases which are dotted over ttie immensity of his parochial waters, seeking out among the moving, glassy slopes the masts which arc listing heavily. When he discovers such a schooner, he anchors close to her, “takes a notch in his robe,” and puts off in his ramshackle dory which looks about as important as a water bug on the green-black gleaming back of the waves. He makes for the three masts, hoists himself over the rough greasy hull which is listing under the shoulder blows of the billow’s; at last, in his dranget robe and girdle, his beard,.

which is the colour of dry brushwood, tormented by the tempestuous wind, he I leaps over the bridge which is gleaming | with the blood and entrails of cod, two shouts, “Greetings, lads; I bring new* | from home ... ” i The whole crew besieges him. Huge hands, o : iy and deformed from scooping out the innards of the cod, stiffened by the oars and from hauling in miles of hue. hands hacked with cold, frost and potash or swollen with rheumatism, reach for the letters and newspapers that the Capuchin takes from lus rubber-lined pouch; for those humble little things which for tho time being will relieve their awful solitude and inhuman desolation. Good old Father Yvon. He doesn’t come to mutter paternosters to them, but to tell them that back home the potatoes are growing well, that they were planted before the Pilgrimage, that the youngsters are thriving and that the wives are faithful. He reports that farther north fishing is not so good and that the Cancalais has lost Iwo men and that the captain of the Ang,elus . . Ln truth, Father

Yvt.ii is i,. ( < .izcllc of the Banks, a .•ues.-vau- • 'r r.. the world at large, liaisuu .iv- i<; :•:! these floating firesides lie whistles the Boujaron with then., (ii.'irihales cigarettes, bites into bis plug ul tobacco, gives a hand, if neresss:;y, in working the. fish in whose gelatinous mass they sink half way up their boots. He takes their photographs fjr the families, and turns off a good letter to the w’ives and sweethearts for i those who can’t write. i If it happens to be Sunday, he offieI lutes*at an altar made of planks which are still fishy with cod’s blood. Thea, after mass *the tyrannical labour, which is interrupted ouly by tempests in a country where spring never comes, is resumed After 599 consultations as doctor and loaded with 13,060 letters Father Yvon sots off for St. Pierre, whero he leaves (he men who are seriously ill, and transfers the mail to another boat From schooner to fishing-smack the voyaging of this indefatigable monk begins all over agaiu. But in the autumn when St. Malo sees the St. Yves put in again, Father Yvon uoes not feel that his task is over. He wants to testify to these physical suffei mgs, wounds and privations, and to gel help. So driving an old car , and carrying a projection lantern and the film which he ground out at each > stopping place at sea, he traverses i j France, going from town to town, striv- : ling to aicuce the pity of the Innd- • j dwellers for the unfortunates of the ' J bUL.