Prayers for Fr David Arms
Fr David Arms on his 60th Anniversary outside the Columban Chapel, Lower Hutt
To all our donors and friends,
Fr David Arms was admitted to hospital on St Columban’s Day (Nov 23) last week. He has been battling melanoma (skin cancer) over the past three years. The immunotherapy was working and helped to stem the spread of the cancer in his head and lungs. It was remarkable to see how he responded so well to the treatment. He was even able to recover well from a severe attack of diverticulitis earlier this year. But eventually the melanoma was to resume its attack on other organs in the body. Dave was suddenly admitted to the hospital a few weeks ago with severe stomach pains. The pain was eased through medication. But there was little that could be done to stop the spread of the cancer. With remarkable calmness, Dave accepted the situation. For a number of weeks, Dave’s sister, Judith, has been the main caregiver. This enabled Dave to spend a few more weeks in his house here at Francis Douglas Way. He even continued to do more work on his Fiji-English dictionary. With dogged determination he continued to make his way to the chapel each day for mass, to the office for our morning tea, and to the main house for lunch. More recently he has had to rely on a walker. After a couple of falls, he became increasingly confined to his bed. Then, on St Columban’s Day, when there was suspicion that he may be suffering internal bleeding, the ambulance was called. He has since been confined to Lower Hutt hospital and we hope that, within the next couple of days, he will be admitted to hospital care at one of the local rest homes.
Lower Hutt is Fr David’s hometown. He was in the first class of the newly founded St Bernard’s Secondary School. After seven years in the seminary in Australia, he was ordained to the priesthood. For most of his life as a Columban missionary priest, he has worked in Fiji. Because of his gifts with languages, he went to the United States where he obtained a doctorate in linguistics. Back in Fiji, he put together a Fijian language-learning course. He was elected the regional director for Fiji and then, in 1976, he was elected Vicar General of the Missionary Society of St Columban. For the next three years he resided at our headquarters in Ireland. Following this term of office he returned to Fiji to continue his work in setting up a translation office. During this time he was briefly assigned to Pakistan and Vanuatu to assist in the work giving written form to two languages in each of those countries. Apart from his work in producing homiletic notes for Fijian catechists, he was in charge of a committee that re-wrote the Catholic missal and the lectionary. He was also parish priest of Ba for a number of years and was deeply committed to the work of the Columban Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation Office. For the past number of years, he has been working on his dictionary project and has reached the letter T. A close friend and a linguist in Fiji will help to finish the project. He retired to Aotearoa-New Zealand about four years ago.
Please remember Fr David in your prayers. He remains in good spirits and is very grateful for the remarkable care and love shown by his family. We miss his company at mass, for morning tea and lunch. But we trust that he continues to keep us in his prayers.
Tom Rouse
28 November 2022
Shop
Comments (0)