’LL never forget the words of encouragement.
As my eldest daughter affectionately climbed on to his lap and chatted away in two-year-old babble, Monsignor Duffus embraced her and acknowledged Emily’s friendly, loving nature.
“Your new daughter will be the same,” he said.
“It’s a sign of the parenting they are receiving.”
This was only the second time I had spoken with Monsignor Duffus, but from that moment I knew he was a special man.
In the weeks that followed Monsignor became a friend and mentor.
This gentle man with a gift for encouraging others baptised my precious newborn and welcomed her into his church family.
But in doing so he also endeared himself to ours.
His eagerness to join us for lunch and enjoy a light beer; to chat with our circle of family and friends regardless of their beliefs; his willingness to talk about any issue they presented to him.
He was approachable, interested and engaging. And humorous.
It was during this gathering that Mons explained the wink offered to me as he spoke during my daughter’s baptism.
Monsignor Duffus had spoken of Saint Charles, after spending some time trying find a link to Charlotte.
A male saint was the best he could do.
It now seems fitting that Saint Charles was chosen to reflect the occasion.
Saint Charles spent his life and fortune in the service of the people of his diocese, fighting for peace, founding schools for the poor, seminaries for clerics, hospitals for the sick, conducting synods, instituting children’s Sunday school, carrying out great public and private penance and working among the sick and dying, leading his people by example.
He was not unlike Mons.
So as thousands gather today at the Sacred Heart Cathedral to remember an outstanding priest who led by example, I will look to the altar and remember watching a three-month-old child smiling into the eyes of an equally joyous Mons as he wet her thick curly hair with holy water over the baptismal font.
Such memories no doubt will also be in the minds of every person at today’s service, for few who met Mons walked away without being touched in some way.