“He is fine. He had recovered by the time the news broke,” Fr Murphy said. “He was a Minister of Communion on the Sunday after he returned from the US and the five people who received from the cup after him were required to self-isolate, but they were all fine.”

International bloodstock agent John Curtin and his wife went into voluntary self-isolation after he tested positive for the virus. Both are well, Fr Murphy said.

“John thought he had the flu, and it was only when he found out that his contact back in the US had died that he decided to have himself tested, and by then he was virtually recovered,” Fr Murphy said.

Mr Curtin, who was interviewed by TV One, was one of the earliest patients recorded by the Ministry of Health to have contracted the disease. He was designated as patient number six.

In that interview, he said he got tested after one of the guests at a dinner he attended in New York died from the disease. The guest was John Brennan, a prominent figure in the racing community.

Mr Curtin, on the other hand, was sick for only a day.

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Fr Murphy, the diocese’s director for contemplative prayer, said a moment of quiet in the frenetic pace of life is a means of healing one’s soul. Fr Murphy is also a member of the New Zealand Community for Christian Meditation.

“The silence, that contemplative silence, when people are in harmony with one another in prayer can be both very beautiful and very profound. It touches people,” he said.

Sometimes, the quiet can be so profound that it moves him to tears.

Fr Murphy said the secular world is now pushing meditation as a form of well-being. Contemplative prayer takes that further, he said.

“The obvious time for quiet is after Communion. And three minutes is a reasonable length of time,” he said.

“It’s just to give them (parishioners) experience of the quiet. If they get at least a taste, it gives them some idea of the experience. It adds another dimension of their experience of God,” he explained.

“I think it’s was (German theologian and mystic) Meister Eckhart who said ‘there is nothing so much like God as silence’.”

Fr Murphy said an aspect of the complaints people have about the new order of Mass is that there’s little room for quiet.

“I know in the parishes I was in before, there was silence while people processed to Communion, but they’d have a hymn afterwards. It should be the reverse. It is very difficult often to break those patterns when they’re entrenched,” he said.

Fr Murphy had been teaching contemplative prayer to children for a number of years. He is also encouraging Catholic schools to do the same.

“It’s important these days, particularly for children, to learn this at a very young age because it would stay with them for life. It’s a gift for life,” he said. “It is something that even if they
move away from the Church, they can always come back to this practice. (They will) always have a centre to come back to, particularly in times of trouble,” he stressed.

Contemplative prayer is a practice that has somehow been lost in the western Church, said Fr Murphy.

“It seems foreign in the west because we developed much more intellectually. That dimension of the heart somehow disappeared or got lost along the way,” he explained.

“Nowadays, it is widely recognised that we need to restore that balance of heart and mind.”

To meditate, Fr Murphy suggested sitting with one back straight, hand on one’s lap or knees, eyes lightly closed.

He recommended saying a prayer word like “Jesus” or “Abba”. “You don’t focus on the meaning. You listen to the sound. You sound the word. The whole purpose of the word, is to lead one into stillness. In the stillness of your heart, you experience the love of God.”

The regular practice is 20 to 30 minutes, twice a day.

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Papakura parish priest Fr Peter Murphy completes the turning of the first sod, saved in the box at his feet. The
sod will be used when the school is blessed and opened in January 2017.

A few figures in a driveway take some form in the gloom. “Is this the school?”
“Yes,” with a laugh.
The ceremony for the turning of the first sod on the site of Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School in Takanini began at 6am — still before dawn on September 29. Fortunately it was fine, although misty and unusually cold for the
time of year.
The site had been a poultry farm, and “chooky poo” is still advertised at a gateway.
After quiet chat in the moonlight, with added light from cellphones and torches, the group of about two dozen faced
into the driveway. Kuia Waiata Ngataki called with a karanga. Then her husband, Ted, and two other kaumatua,
Matua Toimai and Bob Clarke, chanted in Te Reo as the group made its slow way several hundred metres down a track and past disused chook houses to the edge of a large open space — a space that looked easily big enough for two schools.
Holy Trinity School Board of Trustees member Anthony Noble-Campbell spoke in Te Reo, then in English.
The mission of Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School, he said, would be to love,serve and learn in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
“I acknowledge our board members who have given so generously of their time from their schedules,” he said.
Papakura parish priest Fr Peter Murphy took a spade and dug out a sod, which he placed into a box for safe keeping. That soil will be returned when the school is opened in 2017.
Fr Murphy and Faye Gibson led a short liturgy, then Mr Clarke spoke briefly. “Thank you for inviting us,” he said, “for this is our tupuna [ancestor].”
The guests included the diocese’s Property Group manager Michael Stride, staff from the Catholic Schools Office, a former teacher and diocesan staff member, a representative from Holy Trinity’s establishment committee, local MP Judith Collins, and supporters.
As a band of red brightened the edge of the eastern sky, the party made its way back to Airfield Rd, then repaired to the café next door for breakfast — and to warm up before facing rush hour traffic.

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Fr John Vianney Makanda and St Mary's parish priest Fr Peter Murphy.

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