End of era as Pā Mikaere Ryan farewelled

Pa Mikaere Ryan MHM

After nearly seven decades working in the Maori mission, the earthly journey of Fr Peter Michael Ryan, MHM (Pa Mikaere) is over, and he has been laid to rest in the far north. 

Pa Ryan died at his home in Mt Eden, Auckland, on February 9. He was 93 years old. A funeral Mass was celebrated at the Hato Petera College chapel on Auckland’s North Shore on February 12, with Bishop Michael Gielen as principal celebrant, before Pa Ryan’s body was taken north to Waitāruke in Northland. A requiem Mass was celebrated on February 13 at Sacred Heart Of Jesus/Te Ngākau Tapu o Hehu church, at Waitāruke, with Fr Anthony Trenwith as celebrant. Pa Ryan’s body was interred at Te Puna Roimata, Waitāruke. 

                                                     Fr Emile Frische, MHM, incenses Pā Ryan’s casket.

At the Mass at Hato Petera, Auckland Bishop Emeritus Patrick Dunn said in a homily that Waitāruke was the first placement for Pa Ryan in Aotearoa New Zealand, although he only spent a few weeks there before moving to Panguru and then Rotorua. Pa Ryan’s ministry saw him teach for 15 years at Hato Petera College, and he would later work in Hamilton and elsewhere in Auckland. 

“As we know, he was an excellent teacher and a scholar,” Bishop Dunn said. “He was very down to earth. But he also had that scholarly side to him.” 

According to the Mill Hill Missionaries’ website, Pa Ryan attained a BA in Te Reo Maori and anthropology from the University of Auckland, “qualifications he used to publish the ‘Reed Dictionary of Modern Maori’, for which he was awarded a Gold Certificate for being a Best Seller in New Zealand”. 

Bishop Dunn recalled Pa Ryan telling him that being a Pakeha was an advantage in putting together such a dictionary. It meant that no-one could accuse him of bias in favour of his own iwi. 

Originally from England, Pa Ryan was one of 30 men ordained in Olympia Hall in London on July 12, 1953. According to the book “Mill Hill and Maori Mission”, by W. Tuerlings, MHM, published in 2003, Pa Ryan learned on the evening of his ordination day that he would “be assigned to the Auckland Māori Mission”. 

“I was a bit stunned, because I had studied for all the other missions in the charge of Mill Hill – India, Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, Congo and even the Falkland Islands, but somehow I had only a very cursory idea about New Zealand,” he wrote in the book. 

He arrived in Wellington in January, 1954, aboard the Zuider Kruis Dutch emigrant boat. Bishop Dunn noted that the Mill Hills had two “Father Peters” in New Zealand at the time, and so the order’s leadership in this country decided that Pa Ryan would be known by his second name, “Michael”. Thus, “Pa Mikaere” was born.   

Bishop Dunn said that, all told, Pa Ryan worked for 46 years “on the mission here in Tamaki, in the city. All during those years – he loved making books – he produced all kinds of hymn books, prayer books, prayers for tangihanga, prayers for Mass, every sort of prayer book”. 

Pa Ryan “became the parish priest of Te Whanau Tapu parish in his 80s. And he was very proud of that. When most parish priests have retired, he was being appointed. I said he was a late developer”, Bishop Dunn laughed. 

The bishop also recalled Pa Ryan’s memorable weekly newsletters, which included, among other things, jokes and the Lotto numbers. Bishop Dunn said he would often use Pa Ryan’s jokes in the bishop’s own newsletter to priests. 

Another significant feature of the newsletters were the Scripture passages.  

Bishop Dunn noted that, at age 23, Pa Ryan had taken a perpetual oath, “for the rest of his life, to be a missionary, and then was appointed to Aotearoa New Zealand, and devoted his heart and soul to the proclamation of the Word of God here”. 

“That is his legacy to us – a missionary. Pa spent all those years sowing the seeds of the Word of God for us, in our hearts.” 

Bishop Dunn also paid tribute to the other Mill Hill Missionaries who had worked in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

In announcing Pa Ryan’s death, the Mill Hill website article stated that “Peter, up until almost the end of his life, continued to make translations of sacred Scripture, especially the Sunday Readings for all three cycles.  

“As Peter approached his twenty-fifth year of priesthood, the superior general at the time wrote, ‘You have every reason to feel deeply grateful to God for all he has enabled you to do for him and the Maori people. You have kept pace with the changing pattern of Maori life. You stand out among the brethren for the very special contribution you have made.’ 

“In his 69 years as a missionary amongst the Maori people,” the website article continued, “Peter grew to love the people, their language and culture, in the beautiful country of New Zealand.” 

                                         Pā Ryan’s casket is taken from the Hato Petera College chapel.

He received the papal medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 2019. 

The Tuerlings book also mentioned the significant role Pa Ryan played during the visit to New Zealand of St John Paul II in 1986. 

“. . . when the Pope visited Aotearoa, it was my voice that taught him the Māori prayers and greetings. I was against doing it when I was first asked by Father [Patrick] Brady, who was in charge of that side of things. I gave names and phone numbers of real Māori people to contact, but in the end when the deadline drew near, he still had not managed to get a proper Māori speaker, so I did the job for him sounding as Māori as I could. The Pope’s Māori was pretty good I thought, better than a lot of New Zealand priests. I still chuckle when I think of the Pope listening to my voice whispering in his ear.” 

Speaking after a Mass at Te Unga Waka marae in Auckland in 2013, marking his 60th jubilee of ordination as a priest, Pa Ryan joked that, “The older I get, the better I was”. 

 

fb-share-icon
Posted in

Michael Otto

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *