01 Mar 2023
Passionist's 50 year journey comes full circle
Father Denis Travers has made an enormous contribution to the Passionists in Australia and around the world over five decades. The affable parish priest spoke to Jenny Brinkworth after celebrating his golden jubilee on January 21, in the same church where he made his first vows.
In his myriad of ministries as a Passionist priest Fr Denis Travers has been guided by a vision of God as “nothing but kindness and compassion”.
Attributing this vision to the founder of the Passionists, St Paul of the Cross, he said “that’s how I’ve tried to speak of God and live my own ministry and membership of the Congregation”.
Within the Passionist Holy Spirit Province Fr Denis, 70, has served as a formator, retreat master, spiritual director, parish priest, superior, provincial consultor and provincial superior – most of them a number of times.
He was only 27 years old and two years ordained when he was appointed head of the seminary at Templestowe, Melbourne, an early indicator of the strong leadership qualities that led to his election in 2007 as a General Consultor based in Rome. For the next 12 years much of his time was spent visiting English-speaking Passionists working in Africa, India, northern Europe, the United States and Canada.
Living in the Monastery of Saints John and Paul built atop the temple of Emperor Claudius adjacent to the Colosseum, Fr Denis described his days there as “being in the middle of faithfulness”. The Basilica of Saints John and Paul was built 1700 years ago above a small ‘house church’ constructed in the third century to honour the two martyrs.
“I used to go down into the house underneath the basilica, sit quietly and think that in the early 300s the two brothers were executed by the Emperor basically for being Christian and that the early Christians kept the brothers’ bones in a little coffin inside the house and then built a house church,” he said.
It’s a long way from the suburb of Edwardstown where he grew up in a family of eight and spent much of his childhood helping his parents run their air conditioner business.
Educated at St Anthony’s School and Christian Brothers College, Fr Denis said he was especially grateful to Mgr Harry Skene, his parish priest as a child and teenager, whom he described as “just a wonderful, pastoral person” and to the Christians Brothers who were “wonderful at promoting vocations”.
His knowledge of the Passionists came through their ‘missions’ to St Anthony’s and their occasional celebration of Sunday Mass. He also participated in Passionist retreats while at CBC and the family attended Eucharistic processions at The Monastery.
“I didn’t know so much about the charism, I knew more about the desire to be a priest,” he said.
“I think I had that (desire) for quite a long while, not that I wanted to admit it because it looked like a bit of a hard life.
“I intuitively went towards a religious order because of a sense of family connection. Our family was an inter-connected, extended family; relatives were important, cousins were important…I grew up in a family that loved reunions just for the sake of catching up with each other and being together.”