17 June 2024 · 2024-06 newsletter
Fr. Ivanhoe ministered to our Schoenstatt family in Australia from 2000 – 2007 and contributed much as he helped us grow in our Schoenstatt spirituality as well as personally supporting individuals and groups in NSW, VIC, WA and QLD. We missed him very much when he was transferred to Nigeria. Later he was incardinated into the Cape Town Diocese in South Africa.
Only last year he gave a much-appreciated input at our National Conference by means of a video. We all enjoyed seeing and hearing from him once more. His sudden passing on May 13 was a shock to all of us. Masses have been said for him at Mulgoa, in Perth and in Melbourne.
Below is a tribute from Monica and Ralph Perez from the family branch in Perth.
“I know that the day will come
When my sight of this earth shall be lost,
And life will take its leave in silence,
Drawing the last curtain over my eyes.”
The opening lines of the poem ‘Last Curtain’ by poet, playwright, philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. Fr Ivanhoe’s favourite poet at work. Fr Ivanhoe knew this day would come, as it must for all of us, the day when sight of this earth shall be lost.
God had the place, that placed Jesus promised us. He went ahead to prepare for us in His father’s mansion (John 14:3). For Fr Ivanhoe that place was ready … but our hearts were not.
With sadness and shock we mourn – from Germany to Nigeria, from South Africa to Australia, New Zealand and India.
‘Yet the stars will still watch by night;
And the sun will still rise like before.
The hours will still heave like the sea waves,
casting up pleasure and pains’(Tagore)
We mourn – though we know that life heaves on like the waves … for now yet our hearts hurt, and we mourn, for now we are allowed to mourn.
Ralph first met Fr Ivanhoe on a work stint in Sydney in 2000 although we live in Perth. One weekend he decided to visit the Schoenstatt shrine in Mulgoa, NSW. They were introduced, enjoyed wonderful conversation and dialogue – he came home with much admiration for the Schoenstatt Father he was blessed to have met.
Fr Ivanhoe called our home one day to thank me for an article I had submitted to our WA Schoenstatt newsletter. “Ah, Miss Corden-Lloyd English language and Miss Corden-Lloyd grammar” he said with what became a familiar twinkle in his voice, “I recognised the style via my older brother” he continued. That call was my introduction to Fr Ivanhoe.
(Miss Corden-Lloyd taught English at Wittebome High School Wynberg, Cape Province, where both his older brother and I attended).
Formation in Perth
From the year 2000 to 2007 Fr Ivanhoe visited Perth, from September to mid-October, to lead the Movement in formation – this included a family branch live-in retreat weekend – an event that became the highlight of our formation year.
Both parents and children alike warmed around him. Fr Ivanhoe would bring with him a spark that would reignite our fires, our commitment to once again do ordinary things extraordinary well, a spark and vitality and a wonderful warm sense of love for life.
We would all crowd around him like eager children wishing to learn. We discovered how much he loved his family, how much he loved his work, how he loved his fellow man and how dearly he loved Schoenstatt. We debated with him as easily as we sang hymns and songs of praise and thanks to God and to the Blessed Mother together.
We also got to know that Fr Ivanhoe bore the people of Africa closest in his heart.
Receiving questions with respect
At one family branch retreat I remember a question being put to Fr Ivanhoe – what is your definition of ‘community’ father? His reply was as simple as it was profound. ‘Making room for one more, then one more, then room for one more’. But what stood out most of all was that her simple question to him received the same dignity and respect and warmth, equal to him discussing Canon Law with a fellow priest or debating the subject of autocrats, magnates and oligarchy with a fellow PHD student. The same respect and the same utmost regard.
Fr Ivanhoe’s impact
A member of our family branch always speaks of the impact Fr Ivanhoe made on him.
He relates: “I watched as Father distributed the Body of Christ at Mass, each action was deliberate and slow to each communicant, unrushed and with intention, so as to say, ‘be aware and present as you receive the sacred body’ with each utter of ‘Body of Christ’.
Father was not one who divides, he was one who made room for one more, then one more, and then yet one more, to build the loving family of God. Culture or creed bore no division, there was always room in his heart for one more.
Father Ivanhoe stood strongly on great shoulders: shoulders of loved Schoenstatt Fathers before, e.g. Fr Ripberger, Fr Schneider, Fr Boes, Fr Evans: he stood strongly on their shoulders as a true son of our father and founder, Father Joseph Kentenich.
A linguist and polymath
Father was a linguist – he was at home with the German language as he was with English and Afrikaans, with Spanish as he was with Latin, and the odd click of the tongue, with Xhosa.
He was a polymath, a great thinker, a renaissance person one may say – comfortable in the fields of faith, science and art. But his education and guidance to us in Schoenstatt teaching was where he surpassed, beyond being a linguist or a polymath – he was foremost a father figure, and a priest in the line of Melchizedek.
The Shrine
Fr Ivanhoe believed that the Shrine is a place of Grace – a place where Our Blessed Mother has made her abode. He lived the Covenant he made with her.
God was the God of his life – The Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – who was, who is and shall be forever more. Holy Scripture was his daily sustenance. Father Ivanhoe told us once that his ordination card was inscribed with words – ‘Speak Lord your servant is listening, you have the words of Eternal Life.’ ( I Samuel 3: 9,10)
Thanks to Father Ivanhoe
Your earthly life has ended Father, and we mourn you, but we do know with confidence that the angels and saints were there to meet you, to Eternal Life.
We thank you Fr Ivanhoe, with all our hearts, our own family thank you: all people from the depth and width of this wide continent/country Australia thank you – from Toowoomba to Katoomba, from the hinterlands of Mulgoa to Melbourne and from far-flung Perth, resounds and reverberates a heartfelt thank you!
We extend our warmest love, prayers and sympathy to Fr Ivanhoe’s family and to his friends, to the people of the Archdiocese of Cape Town, to all members of Good Shepherd Parish, Bothasig to whom he was Shepherd, to the Schoenstatt community in South Africa, to our Schoenstatt Communities in the world whose lives Father touched, and to all who knew and loved him.
Farewell
Father Kentenich once said; ‘Heaven will tell of our contributions to the treasury of grace’. Fr Ivanhoe bore his asthma bravely; heaven will tell of his contributions.
God called him home in May, a special month of Mary. Rest in God’s Peace Fr Ivanhoe.
Taken from Sequence – Feast of Pentecost: “Give us comfort when we die, Give us life with thee on high, Give us joys that never end.”
Final commendation and farewell at Christian burial … “Before we go our separate ways, let us take leave of our brother. May our farewell express our affection for him; may it ease our sadness and strengthen our hope. One day we shall joyfully greet him again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself.”
Farewell Father Ivanhoe, you will be dearly missed!
Now and then after a presentation Fr Ivanhoe, with a twinkle in his eye and laughter in his voice would say “… fluit fluit my storie is uit!!!”
The poet Tagore speaks of the new morning, when new life awakens in the God of Love. I will conclude with his words …
‘The Rise of the curtain and the new Morning and my life awakens. In its fresh surprise of love.’
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