Obituary Notice
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Obituary Notice published in The Universe on 10 April, 1869 OF Aloysius Bamber, C.P. DEATH OF THE REV. FATHER ALOYSIUS OF THE ORDER OF PASSIONISTS. (FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT) Another good priest has gone to reap his reward on high. Father Aloysius of Jesus of the Order of the Passion, as he was known in religion, Augustine Bamber as he was recognised in the world, is dead and laid to rest in a foreign grave. On Tuesday, the 30" March there was an air of unusual depression in the house of the English Passionists in the Rue de Berri that contrasted strangely with the cheerful hum of the busy thoroughfare of the Fabourg St. Honoré beside, and priest and brother of the congregation moved to and fro with the sedate melancholy of religion, for one of theirs was on his bed of death, and not the least among that band of holy men who have a undertaken to keep alive the lamp of faith amidst the English speaking colony of Paris The gracious face and fine dignified figure of Father Aloysius had been missed often of late from the little chapel of St Nicholas de Beaujou, hard by the Arch of Triumph; for sickness had stamped him as its own, and the man was obliged to succumb to its imperious exigencies, though the priest would fain have held on until the last, aye, even until death came to him, yet “in harness”. The sufferings of the missioner were borne with the fortitude of a true soldier of Christ, and they were indeed trying . For a lengthened period poor Father Bamber had been afflicted with disease of the heart, and in these latter days this sore affliction had been aggravated with dropsy. The final scene was effecting the extreme. It is related of Addison that when he felt his end approaching he sent to invite one of his friends to come and “see how a Christian could die”. The Passionist had not the ostentation if the calmness of the poet: but those were admitted to the solemn intimacy of his dying couch were not the less witnesses of how bravely the Christian can die. His submission to the will of God was humble, but confident in the reliance on the merits of the Redeemer, in whom and for whom he had lived. When he felt that his hour was come he composed himself for his departure for another world much as did our great cardinal - he who said when breathing his last he felt “like a schoolboy going home for the holidays”. The crucifix was his badge and buckler in death as in existence, and the Passion of the Lord his consolation. Meditating on the sufferings of his Master, Father Aloysius passed away, almost his farewell words being that exquisite touching sentence of St. Theresa, “to suffer or to die’. How much nobler that adieu than “to conquer or to die of worldly heroism!” By his sufferings and death he conquered: and today let us trust he is enjoying among the blessed those riches of grace he had devoted his pilgrimage on earth to amassing. May we not indulge the belief without profanity that a cohort f those white souls he had been the happy means of winning to God, ere they went before him to heaven, were at its portals eager to welcome their benefactor. At half-past one the 30th of March 1869 Aloysius became a citizen of heaven. Nine and forty years before, on the 21st of October 1820, he was born to us in Salford, of the good old Lancashire family, one of those who had never lost their faith. Early he evidenced a vocation for the church, to which his stock has given so many zealous members. He commenced his ecclesiastical studies at the English College in Lisbon, where he passed four years. It was while attending a mission given by Fr Dominic (the worthy confessor who planted the Order of the Passion in Great Britain) in the city of Manchester that the idea first took possession of him to enrol himself under the banner of Jesu Christi Passio. A conversation with the saintly Italian confirmed him in the good intentions; he entered the novitiate and on the 5" February, 1848, he was professed at Aston Hall, near Stone, in Staffordshire. His after career is an epitome of the history of the progress of the English province of the Order -- a history of trial and triumphs, patience. struggle and prayerful perseverance. As he was one of the first Englishmen to join it (indeed by his demise the last link which binds the very Rev Fr Bernard, superior of the house at Paris, to his ancient fellow workers is broken) so was he amongst the most earnest. His labours in the confessional and in the pulpit — from which his impressive accent so often waked the sinner to repentance -- will long be remembered in many a populous and fever stricken district of manufacturing England, where the faithful Irish congregate, and to the Hyde and breezy Highgate, where his presence was familiar. There are many anecdotes connected with his labourers among the poor, which show the character of what Banim has fondly called the saggart aroon, and which at some future day IJ shall endeavour to lay before the reader of The Universe, in the certainty that they will interest them, and obtain a willing prayer for the greater glory of him who is their subject. On Thursday 1* of April, the funeral service was celebrated in the parish church of St Philippe de Roule, the aged curé officiating and rendering all the honours the church could show to his deceased brother in Christ. Otherwise the obsequies were simple, there were no luxurious and outward trappings of woe, palls sprinkled with silver tears, or funeral gauds of that kind. The Passionists adhered strictly to the spirit of poverty to which they are vowed: everything was plain, decent and severe. But there was that there which not all the gold of the great city could purchase, nor the resources at the Pompes Funébres could supply - a flock moved to natural tears for the loss of one of its faithful pastors. Theirs truly the loss and his the gain! The long sad cortége trained slowly through the busy streets to the cemetery at Montmartre, every head uncovering in reverence as it passed, and in the English
comer of God’s acre was laid to rest all that was mortal of the dead Passionist. May our end be, like to his, as peaceful and happy; and as their petitions ascend to heaven in his favour so may his voice intercede with the Most High on our behalf.
Source: Obituary Notices, Provincial Archive, St Joseph's Province. Passionist Congregation.