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Saints and Martyrs of the Pacific On Wednesday this week, the lectionary remembers the Saints and Martyrs of the Pacific, and it is this topic that I wish to speak about tonight. The Pacific, especially Polynesia, is an area that holds intense interest for me in my capacity as an historian, and is a place close to my heart. The lectionary theme is in special remembrance of saints and martyrs of the Pacific, and as such, I wish to look at a couple of very well known servants of Christ who were very different to each other, but both laid down their lives in his service whilst taking His Gospel to people and places in the Pacific. One of these men, St Peter Chanel, a French Marist priest, was canonised by Pope Pius XII on 16 June, 1954, and proclaimed Patron Saint of Oceania and first martyr of the Pacific. The other, the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, and well known to us in this diocese, was the Rt. Rev. John Coleridge Patteson – a man who is not yet recognised by the Anglican Communion as a saint, although he clearly should be. I intend to look briefly at these two men, and what they did in God’s service and how they went about it. I then wish to comment on the missionary expansion of the 19th century that they were both part of. Peter Louis Marie Chanel was born on 12 July, 1803, in the hamlet of La Potičre in eastern France to farming parents. His mother, uneducated though she was, knew the importance of faith and prayer, and passed these on to her children. Early in his life, Chanel came under the influence of a local priest, Fr John-Marie Trompier, who inspired him and helped him recognise his vocation to the priesthood, into which he was ordained in 1827. It is noted that Chanel was a very conscientious and well-loved priest; one account from a former parishioner stresses his pastoral visiting, his care for the sick and poor, and the general transformation effected in the parish by his ministry. Amusingly, he was looked on as ‘a little fanatical’ by one of his more anti-clerical parishioners – a sure sign of his zeal and effectiveness. Devoted though he was, Peter’s heart was not really in parish ministry, and in 1831 he applied for admission to the Society of Mary, a new religious congregation that was in the process of establishment in the nearby Archdiocese of Lyons. Even before being ordained, it is known that Peter was very interested in the work of the foreign missions, and he felt that joining the Marists would be the means by which he could dedicate himself to the missionary apostolate. He was greatly attracted by the Marist ideal of willingness to work in any part of the world whatsoever for God’s glory and the salvation of souls. In late 1835, the Vatican invited the Society of Mary to take responsibility for the missionary Vicariate of Western Oceania, and the Order’s superior accepted early the following year. Peter Chanel was amongst the first group of Marists to go to the new mission field. The group also had another member who is well-known to us – the Vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania, Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompellier. This enthusiastic band set out, practically into the unknown, to take the Gospel to people who had not yet heard it. We cannot help but admire these intrepid missionaries: They did not know the customs of the peoples they were going to, nor their language, what they ate, let alone their politics. How could they begin to evangelise the people with no background knowledge? And what about the vast distance to travel, lack of communication from home and absence of amenities? And what of the dangers - The dreaded voyage around Cape Horn; the tropical diseases; the warlike disposition and cannibalism of some of the islanders. Focussed on their mission, the Marists dispersed to a number of different island localities, with Chanel and Br Marie-Nizier Delorme being assigned to the island of Fortuna. Upon their arrival on Fortuna, Chanel and Br Marie-Nizier were introduced to, and became guests of Niuliki, the dominant chief (or big man) on the island, who greeted them and undertook to provide for them, not knowing at the time that they were missionaries – a fact that Pompellier had omitted to tell him. Peter revealed his missionary identity shortly after, and celebrated High Mass with as much dignity as he could muster on Christmas Day, 1837. Despite receiving hospitality from Niuliki, Peter met and befriended Vanai, the main rival chief. Not long afterwards, Chanel attempted to mediate between the two men when a fresh round of hostilities broke out, but his lack of understanding of the situation coupled with his inability to effectively communicate meant that his attempt was futile. Following an intensive language learning exercise with a Frenchman living on Wallis, Peter became rather more effective in his work. He ministered to all people, especially sick and dying, and the young. He shared the Fortunians’ simple foods, ceremonies and kava. They in turn shared his house, eating there, talking there, sleeping there. A number of high-profile people had, following Peter’s teaching, become Christians and sympathies around the island were becoming more and more positive towards Christianity. Indeed, one leading elder suggested that the entire population were likely to become Christians if the king would allow it. Around this time, Peter was becoming more outspoken in his criticism of the local pagan religion and its practices, and people began, for example, to eat some of the foods which were taboo. At this stage, he still felt that Niuliki was well disposed towards him. Things were, however, about to change. Following the return of a Fortunian chief, Falema’a, who had fled to Wallis during a war, Niuliki’s attitude to the missionaries became increasingly hostile. In Wallis, Falema’a reported, the number of catechumens now numbered in the hundreds, and the king, Lavelau, was beginning to fear that his power base would be eroded. Niuliki did not want this to happen in Fortuna, so he began to make life harder for the missionaries, firstly cutting off the supplies of foodstuffs he had been providing. This simply led the Marists to grow their own food. By mid-1840, Niuliki had openly declared himself an enemy of Chanel. This did not stop Peter’s work however. He still taught the catechumens, who were increasingly harassed and persecuted for their faith. He preached the word of God powerfully wherever he went. Petty theft of the food that the missionaries grew and vandalism of their belongings occurred regularly. Things became even worse when news from Wallis came that the whole island, apart from the king, were preparing for baptism. When Peter heard that Meitala, the king’s son, wanted to become a Christian, he visited him and found that he was very keen. Meitala then joined the ranks of Peter’s group of students. Shortly after, Meitala’s mother found him and a number of the other catechumens, who had cooked a meal of yams – the consumption of which were prohibited by the traditional religion. Hearing of this was the last straw for Niuliki. He called for his son-in-law, and told him the Meitala must die for having embraced Christianity, and Peter and Br Marie-Nizier must also die for having taught it to him. Musumusu, the son-in-law, took a band of men. They firstly slaughtered a number of the catechumens. They then went to the house of Peter. Musumusu asked Peter to tend to a wound he had (which ironically had come in the fracas with the catechumens), while his men plundered the mission house. When Peter saw and questioned the looters, they grabbed him and attacked him with a club, beating him about the head. He was then assaulted. The end came, however, when he was hit in the head with an axe. It is said that, whilst awaiting the final blow, Peter told his attackers in their own language - ‘I am happy to die’. Peter Chanel left a strong legacy in Fortuna: The subsequent history of the island is one of peace, not war; with the whole population having rejected their old pagan religion and converted to Christianity. John Coleridge Patteson (or Coley as he was known) came from a very different background. His father, Sir John Patteson was a distinguished judge and intellectual, and a man of high culture who moved in the best circles in England. His mother was the daughter of an officer, and the niece of the noted poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was, by all accounts, an energetic child who was boisterous and at times known to throw tantrums. Lady Patteson taught her children the faith herself – emphasising the purity and majesty of God, and His fatherly love and friendliness. Her teaching and personal example led her son to a deep faith in Jesus Christ. Patteson had the benefit of a first rate education at Ottery St Mary’s in Devon, followed by Eton and then Balliol College, Oxford. He was, in many ways, the quintessential young English gentleman – he was athletic, he excelled as a cricketer (having played for Eton and been invited to play for Oxford), and he enjoyed ‘country pursuits’ (i.e. riding and the hunt). Patteson was at Oxford during a very important time in Church of England history – it was the height of the Oxford or Tractarian movement. He was exposed to the influence of such distinguished scholars as Pusey, Keble and Newman. The influence of these scholars and the movement they represented helped Patteson identify a call to the ministry of the Church of England, and on 25 September, 1853, he was ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Exeter. He became assistant curate of a small parish, Alfington, of which his uncle was the benefactor. Much like Chanel, Patteson had had thoughts about missionary service from an early age. The powerful preaching of the Bishop of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn, had struck a chord with the young man and he thought that one day he may go out as a missionary to the Pacific. Years later, when Selwyn was in England looking for young recruits to come to New Zealand and Melanesia (which was probably part of the Diocese of New Zealand due to an error in recording latitude), Patteson’s earlier vigour and enthusiasm was re-kindled. Not only was Selwyn looking for people to join in the work, he was also raising money to institute a new diocese in Melanesia, thereby allowing it to be more effectively administered through having its own bishop and diocesan structure. A meeting between Patteson and Selwyn more-or-less settled the matter of Patteson’s future – he would leave shortly with the Selwyns, bound for New Zealand. The parishioners of Alfington were rather put out that their young curate was poached by Selwyn, and they were sad to see him go. The voyage to New Zealand gave Patteson and Selwyn time to get to know each other. Selwyn, evidently, was very impressed with the young man. Patteson proved himself a good sailor, an above average preacher and he also was a gifted linguist, picking up the Maori that Selwyn taught him with ease. By the time the party arrived in New Zealand, Selwyn had made up his mind that Patteson would go to Melanesia. Selwyn suggested that his brief would be to cruise amongst the islands for six months of the year, collecting and returning young native boys undergoing teaching at central college somewhere, an idea that had great appeal to Patteson. From very early in his time in Auckland, Patteson was given responsibility for much of the work of the Melanesian Mission in Auckland, and Selwyn came to rely heavily on him. After about a year in New Zealand, Patteson finally got to go on a trip to Melanesia with Selwyn. The trip to Melanesia was an eye-opener for Coleridge Patteson. He saw amazing beauty and met warm people. He found he had a natural affinity with the Melanesian people, and his linguistic gifts meant that he quickly picked up many of the island dialects. Unbeknown to Patteson, by the end of the episcopal visitation Selwyn had singled him out as the first bishop of the new diocese of Melanesia. His excellent work with the young men and boys who were brought back to Auckland with them from the visitation confirmed his promise and effectiveness as a teacher of Melanesians. Indeed, Patteson confessed that he was much happier working with the Melanesians than he had been in any other work. He explicitly recorded that he had no desire whatsoever to work with the English people in New Zealand. Such was his care for the island boys that, when the autumn came, he made a special trip to take them back home because he realised how susceptible to the cold they were. Patteson and Selwyn made further trips to Melanesia to recruit students, whom Patteson taught at St John’s College. At this time he recorded that he was ‘thankful to be so constantly and uninterruptedly happy.’ His linguistic talents had led him to write and translate in the island languages and he and his colleague Benjamin Dudley were involved in printing various tracts and prayers in a number of languages. Selwyn also gave him the responsibility of baptising the Melanesian boys if and when they were ready. Melanesia and its people came to completely dominate Coleridge Patteson’s thoughts – about what the Mission needed and how things could be moved ahead. Selwyn, who always saw Patteson as his successor in the island work, was the principal consecrating bishop as John Coleridge Patteson was consecrated Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Melanesia on 24 February 1861 in St Paul’s Church, Auckland, in the presence of a large congregation including a number of his Melanesian students. The Melanesian Mission station on the island of Mota took much of Patteson’s attention when he next returned to Melanesia and after that trip he began to consolidate the Mission staffing ordaining two of the laymen involved and recruiting some other helpers both clerical and lay. Meanwhile, Patteson’s scholarly work continued, and he produced written grammars for no-less than 17 island languages, and extensive vocabularies for 6 languages. The Bishop was a good manager, and a good judge of talent, both in potential recruits for the Mission and potential students. He visited as many places in his scattered diocese as possible, ministering to the people wherever he went. A good number of his students had gone on to be pillars and examples in their communities and some had been ordained – indeed, the work had started to become self-perpetuating. Unfortunately, at this time the labour traders came through the area aggressively, and it depressed and upset Patteson about the widespread abuse of the Melanesians by unscrupulous individuals, and populations on many islands were decimated. Indeed, at one stage the Bishop seemed to despair for the future of the Mission such was the proportion of the population who had gone. At Nukapu Atoll, a place where he had visited previously and been received cordially, on 20 September 1870, Patteson was lured into a trap. The natives initially welcomed him and took him ashore whilst the remainder of his party waited for the tide to allow them to land. In the meantime, as Patteson rested in a hut, he was set upon and killed by a man with a club, and the rest of his party waiting for the tide to come ashore was attacked, a number of them dying later from their injuries. This evil act was probably the result of a recent visit to the island by particularly unscrupulous labour traders, which led the natives to resolve that the next white man to come ashore would be killed as revenge, regardless of who he might be. Ironically, to avenge a wrong done to them, the islanders had, in fact, killed one of the best friends that Melanesia had ever had. Chanel and Patteson came from extremely different backgrounds. But they had the most important things in common – a lively faith in God and strong belief that Jesus came to save all peoples as we heard in tonight’s Gospel reading. The need to ‘tell out the news’ as the old hymn puts it, was what brought these men (and many others) to the opposite end of the earth and far from civilisation as they knew it. Indeed, as we have seen, it also led directly to their deaths. The Pacific was the last major region of the world to receive intensive Christian missionary attention. Although there had been some pockets of Christian work in the area, the major developments were in the 19th and 20th centuries. Any missionary undertaking in the Pacific is impressive because the region is so large, stretching from Australia to Easter Island, and Hawaii to New Zealand, and encompasses the island nations of Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The earliest formal mission work in the wider Pacific was in Tahiti (1797), followed by New Zealand (1814), Hawaii (1820), Tonga (1822), and then wider and wider. The work was carried out by Protestant missionary societies such as the London Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Missionary Society; by Anglican groups, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Church Missionary Society; and Roman Catholic orders such as the Picpus Fathers and the Marists. Whilst we honour the evangelists, it is also important to remember the early converts. Many of them suffered for their faith. Others became priests, teachers, evangelists and catechists, and helped spread the Gospel amongst their people and others as well, often in the face of loneliness, sickness and death. Chanel, Patteson and all these others lived the Gospel and dearly loved their Lord. They lived out to the full, even (or maybe especially) in their deaths, the words of St. Matthew 5:16 – ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven.’ Let us pray: God of the boundless ocean and the southern stars, You have set the saints and martyrs of the Pacific To light the way for the churches of this region; In turn make us true and trustworthy beacons, Pointing to our Way, our Truth, our Life, Jesus Christ our Saviour. Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, World without end. AMEN. |
