Saturday, September 20th, 2025 – 10:00am to 1:00pm
St. Agatha Catholic Church, 1839 Notre Dame Drive, St. Agatha, ON
You are invited to attend a poetry day in honour of Our Sorrowful Mother that will include praying for the repose of the soul of Father Eugene Funcken, C.R., and readings of some of his poems translated by our Communio Circle founder Peter Erb.
In response to a request for German-speaking priests to work in the newly created diocese of Hamilton Ontario, Eugene, only recently ordained (16 June, 1857) and a cleric, Edward Głowacki, were dispatched to the new mission in Canada, leaving Rome on 2 July, 1857. They arrived in the village and parish of St. Agatha on 14 August, 1857, where Eugene became the pastor, a position he would hold until his death in 1888. Fr. Eugene kept a Diary in which he describes his pastoral ministry; in addition to the ordinary duties such as celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, sick-calls occupied much of his time, because his parish was far-flung and travel in this rural area was sometimes difficult and even dangerous. Just two months after his arrival he wrote Fr. Jerome, “I would write more if I had more time but it is really quite impossible. For the last three weeks I have hardly had any rest because I have been to three different missions to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, baptize, preach and catechize; add to this the visits to the sick which sometimes take almost a full day due to the great distance.” . . . The people are very scattered here; the largest part of my parishioners live 7-10, sometimes even 17 miles away from the church. ”Fr. Eugene’s contributions to the life of the parish and the local church went beyond the ordinary. A lover of ceremony, he instituted celebrations of Feasts such as Corpus Christi which included much pageantry keeping with his desire to bring as much of the Roman liturgy to his parish as he could. His first concern, however, was the cemetery which he improved, refurbishing the walls, and building the small shrine to the Sorrowful Mother, which, though added to and improved over the years remains the only architectural testimony to Fr. Eugene.
On 12 July, 1888, he apparently suffered the first of series of strokes until on 19 July, in the words of his brother Luis, “An apoplexy, repeated, put an end to his days. . . . The mission lost a priest the likes of whom it will never have again.” In accordance with his wishes Eugene was buried in front of the cemetery chapel which he had built. Despite his admitted faults, Eugene remained faithful to his motto: “Man proposes, God disposes.”
Here is the schedule for the day:
9:30am Church Hall – Doors Open – Reception with Coffee
10:00am Welcome (Father Mariusz Durbajlo, Pastor)
10:05am Walk to the Shrine of Our Sorrowful Mother
10:20am Arrival at Shrine (Look around, relics, pray, …)
10:40 Office for the Dead – Morning Prayer (Father Mark Morley)
Devotion – The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
11:00am Funcken Poetry Reading (Peter Erb)
11:30am Walk to the Church Hall
11:45am Lunch
1:00pm END
For more information,
call Deacon Charles Fernandes: 519-923-0454
or e-mail Father Mark Morley
mmorley@communiohamiltondiocese.org
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.