A Catholic priest, belonging to the Holy Ghost congregation, who worked at Star of The Sea before retiring to Ireland died recently in that country.

Rev. Fr. Myles Fay is said to have been a missionary all his life and worked in several countries including Nigeria in the 1960’s and 1990’s, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, the United States, Ireland, Rome and The Gambia.

Fr. Fay had a parallel career as a scholar and student of the traditions and spirituality of his congregation. A year before his death friends and confreres gathered at Marion House in Kimmage Manor, Dublin to honour his work and achievements. The occasion also served as an official launch for part three of his translation of the venerable Liberman’s commentary on the Gospel of St. John.

Fr. Fey was a pioneer in making key French texts available in English. Until the late 1970’s the amount of material written by and about the two founders of the congregation (The Holy Ghost Fathers) was very limited and mostly in French. Other Rev. fathers have spoken very highly of Fr. Fay’s work in Rome in the 1980’s on what became known as the Spiritan Papers. This work exposed for the first time the distinctive Spiritan spirituality and gave confreres an opportunity to research and write about the congregation’s history and traditions.

Fr. Christy Burke, CSSP, himself a distinguished Liberman scholar, spoke about the actual translation and how Fr. Fay’s dedication and work pleased a lot of people.

Fr. Myles Fay will be much missed in The Gambia where he was District Superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers (Spiritans) and assisted Fr. Joe Boafo at Star of The Sea, Bakau. May he rest in peace. 

Editor,

It is incumbent on all good citizens whether civil servant or not, with a spirit of patriotism, to expose ideas that, when applied constructively by those concerned, will yield good fruits.

The Gambia is a secular state. But the colonial rulers did not give the Muslim community the plenitude of their time to consecrate themselves body and mind to the practice of their religious rites.

Saturday, the sabbath, is a sacred day for the Jews. No Jew will work on Saturday, Sunday is a sacred day for the Christians. No Christian will work on Sunday. Friday is a sacred day for the Muslim. Why should the Muslim work on Friday morning when they should be preparing themselves for the Friday congregation?

Now that we are independent and the colonial rulers are no more, some of their influences should be done away with.

My humble suggestion is, let us divide the four hours of the Friday morning by four and add one hour to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Work will then close at 5pm instead of 4pm and give Friday the devotion it deserves from the Muslims. This is the only way we can ensure a fair play.

Abba Faal

Brikama (phone contact withheld)