A couple walk up the steep incline which Monsignor Sean O’Shea paved
himself last year and ask if they can have a look at the church at the
top of the hill on Rottnest Island that looks out over the Indian Ocean.
“You’re very welcome … you can even say a prayer,” the 84 year old
Monsignor says, and turns to me and gives me a mock-horrified look as if
he just said something shocking.
It’s evangelisation by stealth – something the Monsignor has become an
expert at in his 48 odd years as chaplain of Rottnest Island.
The couple wave thank you and make their way up to Holy Trinity Church
which the Monsignor had built in 1975 when Archbishop Launcelot Goody
then opened and blessed it.
Inside they will find a small church seating about 100, and be greeted
by a Gregorian Chant CD playing faintly in the background. If you didn’t
know any better, you’d think you’d just walked into a Cistercian Abbey
in Spain.
That’s just the way Mgr O’Shea likes it.
“People act differently when they’re on Rottnest Island. They’re more
relaxed than they usually are, and more amenable to the influence of
something good when they’re on holiday,” he tells me.
Mgr O’Shea’s hospitality is as famous as the ripping yarns he loves to
tell. He always has a few rounds of pikelets ready to go should visitors
drop in, to be enjoyed with the famous fig jam he learned to make from
his mother in West Clare back in rural Ireland where he grew up.
He uses island figs which he says were planted by the early settlers
near Garden Lake.
Since he was appointed Port Chaplain of the Apostleship of the Sea
(otherwise known as Stella Maris) and given the responsibility of
providing Mass for Rottnest in August 1961, Mgr O’Shea, 84, has
developed quite a reputation.
Even the WA Tourism Minister, Dr Liz Constable, noted his “humour and
hospitality” which, she said, is “well known among those who frequently
visit the island”.
“As one of the island’s few residents, Mgr O’Shea has truly become part
of the heart and soul of Rottnest,” Dr Constable said when presenting
him with the third Des Sullivan Medal for his contribution to the island
on October 8 at the Tradewinds Hotel in Fremantle.
Rottnest receives over 600,000 visitors annually, so it’s crucial, he
says, for the Catholic Church to have a presence.
“If I’m not here, the church wouldn’t be open,” he says.
Prior to his appointment, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate had spiritual
stewardship of the island, as it were, and celebrated Mass there at
Easter and Christmas.
But Mgr O’Shea’s presence is vital. He constantly gets impromptu
requests for baptisms; even from holidaymakers from the Eastern States
who “pop over to have their children baptised”.
Business booms through the summer months, especially on school holidays
and public holidays.
Most days he gets hundreds of people – many non-Catholics – who avail
themselves of the church to pray, or to just take some quiet time out.
He celebrates Mass every morning at 9am sharp, but gets the most numbers
on Sundays, when the church is full much of the time.
In his 48 years on the island – though he’s only lived there for the
past seven – he’s celebrated Mass all over Rotto prior to Holy Trinity
Church being opened – in the picture theatre, in the Old Hostel and in
the Old Chapel that was also used as a school and community centre.
Before the ferries started, he used to fly over to Rottnest with Captain
Jimmy Woods, an old World War II pilot who provided flights to the
island for years.
Before he relocated to Rottnest, he was chaplain on the island while
parish priest at Mosman Park and chaplain to Iona Primary, where he
first started making fig jam when the Presentation Sisters running the
school suggested he make jam out of the figs off the tree in his
presbytery’s backyard.
He’d celebrate Mass at Mosman Park at 8.30am, jump on the 10am ferry and
be at Holy Trinity Church by 11 for Mass. “There was no mucking about
after Mass … I had to step on the gas,” he says in his still thick Irish
accent.
While he maintains a relaxed atmosphere in the Rottnest church, his
ministry is still deeply centred in the Catholic faith. He ropes off the
sanctuary when Mass isn’t being celebrated, to remind people “this is a
sacred space”.
He also gives Christians the opportunity to have their ashes placed
under a brick in the church floor and a plaque with their name is placed
on the wall.
“They’re people who have come here all their lives … they may end up in a
retirement home in Perth they have no particular ties to, and get
buried at a Perth cemetery … here, they get prayers from everyone who
sees their name,” he says.
As a “sobering reminder” of friends past and of his own mortality, the
gravestone of his old friend, Fr Joseph O’Hara who drowned with three
Presentation Sisters 50 years ago, lies in his backyard on the island.
Though there are strict rules against being buried on the island, he’s
already dug his own grave next to Fr O’Hara’s gravestone, who was in All
Hallows seminary with him, two years his junior.
“It’s a tradition among the Carthusians to dig their own graves … it’s a
sobering thought,” he laughs.“You just need permission from the
Minister for Local Government … only, you don’t get permission until
after you die.”
Mgr O’Shea was ordained at All Hallows, Dublin in 1955, a seminary set
up to train priests to follow the migrating Irish. There was a strong
emphasis on priestly vocations in Ireland when he grew up, he says.
There were promotions everywhere for people to work for or pray for the
missionaries. He requested Perth as his sister had already moved there
in 1938. Archbishop Redmond Prendiville accepted him to the Archdiocese.
He’s proud of his heritage – about half the priests in Australia were
educated at All Hallows over a period of 50 years, he says.
Holy Trinity Church, too, is steeped in history, despite being built in
1975. Stained glass windows at the back of the church depict Bishop
Rosendo Salvado, one of the first Bishops of the Perth Swan River
Colony, with local Aborigines. “He visited the island a couple of times
to minister to the Aborigines,” Mgr O’Shea informs me. The other window
at the church’s rear depicts carpenter John Watson and some teenage lads
of the Reformatory that was based on the island in the 1880s. “The boys
apparently loved it so much they didn’t want to leave,” says Mgr
O’Shea, who also happens to be a font of knowledge of the island’s
history.
He built the church with a loan from the Archdiocese of $90,000. Today,
he says, it would cost $500,000 to build.
The bells in the tower can be rung with a simple keyboard. Children
often have a go between 3-4.30pm. Ode to Joy is popular, he says. Bishop
Salvado may have liked Holy Trinity Church. Like many buildings on the
island, it’s designed “with a Spanish air”, with Mediterranean
colouring.
While he’s largely a lone ranger – he built the pathway leading up to
the church brick by brick himself – he received, just while I was
visiting, his first offer to help clean the church from a Filipino woman
who lives on the island.
Mgr O’Shea is preparing her nine year old son for first Holy Communion.
He introduces the boy to me, and asks him how many children are in his
class.
“Six,” is the short answer.
The Monsignor turns to me with his brow furrowed and says, “they may
close the public school on the island next year …”
He’s not only the spiritual beacon for the island, he’s genuinely
concerned with the day-to-day lives of those on the island.
People know him; people love him. They recognise him as they return
annually or more often to the island.
In a place of constant comings and goings, he is a constant. A beacon.
He’ll be there until the end, but until that time comes he’ll continue
to plug away.
“If the Lord spares me another winter, I’d like to line my grave with
timber …” he says while we’re standing over his old comrade Fr O’Hara’s
gravestone.
Many on the island, and back in Perth, and probably around the country,
would be praying the Lord does just that, and many more winters beyond
that.
He certainly shows no signs of slowing down.
Fatima introduces
Monsignor to beauty of figs
By Anthony Barich
MONSIGNOR Sean O’Shea is known for his famous fig jam, but he has the
parents of Fatima seers to thank for his “first introduction to figs”.
When Monsignor was 18, before he’d even joined the seminary, he embarked
on a remarkable 2,000km pilgrimage to Fatima from his family farm in
West Clare, Ireland – on his bike.
Having ridden from the Fatima parish centre to Aljustrel, the small
village where Jacinta and Francisco, who saw Mary in 1917, lived, he’d
got off his bike and was walking around, not knowing what to expect.
A kindly lady approached him and, though Mgr O’Shea’s Portuguese was
patchy at best, she motioned him to join her for tea.
He followed her in, and met at her house some American pilgrims, who
informed him that he was standing in the home of Jacinta and Francisco,
and that the woman who had kindly invited him in was their mother. She
and her husband were highly respected in the village.
They suggested that he take off to Loca do Cabeço, meaning ‘the top of
the hill’, the grassy hill about a kilometre from the hamlet of
Aljustrel where the angel appeared to the children.
On the way, some local children started plucking fruit off trees on the
way – “beautiful fresh figs”.
CONFIDENTIAL:
Monsignor Sean O’Shea’s (secret) recipe for fig jam
Cut the stems
off the figs, which have the pectin, the white milky substance used as a
thickener.
Cut up the figs in little chunks, put them in a large container.
Add the ground cloves, ginger and grated lemon on top of the figs.
Add sugar, let it all rest without mixing it, letting it marinate
overnight.
The next day you’ll find it’s quite liquid. No water is needed, though
the Rottnest figs that I use are drier than those on the mainland.
Put them on a heated stove, bring to the boil, turn it down and stew it
for three hours.
The more it’s stewed, the browner it gets.
Slowly stewing it makes it better. If you boil it too quickly, you’ll
burn it.
Sometimes I skim off the excess juice if there’s too much so the jam is
thick and chunky, and put it on my porridge in the morning.
In the pikelets that go with the jam, I put in a fist of dried black
currents.