They Were An Unusual Pair, An Odd-Looking Twosome Which Had A Way Of Making People Stop And Appearance Twice.
They were an unusual pair, an odd-looking twosome which had a way of making people stop and appearance twice. She was skinny, 30-ish and blond, with hazel eyes as deep as two oceans. And the man was a Catholic Bishop, a septuagenarian in a clerical collar with a wispy powdering of snow-white hair.
Stranger than their physical appearance were the poses they struck at the pub in Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Heads slightly cocked, eyes closed, with fiddle bows available and with fingers flying, dancing throughout the strings, summoning traditional Celtic tunes – jigs, marches, reels, waltzes and airs – directly from Cape Breton before a smattering of happily speechless onlookers.
“When we proceeded this trip people got a serious kick out of seeing a bishop and also the little blond girl playing together,” says the little blond girl, better known as Natalie MacMaster, the Cape Breton fiddling queen.
“I don’t determine if Bishop Faber ever aspired to be famous for his fiddling; you know, he had an incredible ear for the music, and he could enjoy anybody.
“But somebody in that position – you will need to practise, you have to be dedicated to something – anf the husband was dedicated to his priesthood.”
Bishop Faber MacDonald, the red-headed, fiddle-playing priest from Little Pond, Prince Edward Island, died last Friday in Charlottetown at the age of 80. Sick with pneumonia, he fell for a heart attack after a long, good life.
Ms. MacMaster can’t remember when they first met. He was just always there, at East Coast music festivals, and try to with a fiddle tucked beneath his arm.
Spiritually, they shared perhaps the most common faith. Musically, they came from the same place and time, a mostly bygone era of kitchen parties, chowder pots and foot-stomping fiddling fun that runs deep inside the seams of Cape Breton’s rock and also the Island’s red mud.
“He grew up with the background music as a part of his way of life therefore did I,” Ms. MacMaster says. “There are a handful of unspoken commonalities there, which is not something you raise up, because it is obvious.”
Ordained a priest in 1963, the future bishop served several Catholic parishes around P.E.I., entertaining them, sometimes, with his fiddle. He concerned with the death of traditional music and worked difficult to revive it, helping found the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival. Now in its 36th year, it is a top draw for tourists and fiddle masters alike, such as the little “blond girl” and her famous Cape Breton cousin, Ashley MacIsaac.
Ms. MacMaster would receive letters from the bishop once her life as a travelling musician had begun. Lengthy dispatches that were spiritual, musical and affable in tone, they mixed words of encouragement and praise with theological meditations on whatever her latest musical project was.
“He had this incredible chance to express the depths of his spirituality,” Ms. MacMaster says. “I accepted his letters as gracious gifts.”
In 2003, the fiddlers trekked to Medjugorje, together with Ms. MacMaster’s fiddler-husband, Donnell Leahy. The village is often a pilgrimage site for Catholics. The couple confided inside the bishop, expressing their desire to have children, a great deal of children. He prayed on them; Ms. MacMaster is now pregnant with your ex fifth child.
“He said some beautiful things,” she says. “Every time I examine my children I am reminded of him.”
Music is an additional reminder. Bishop Faber’s funeral will be held Friday at St. Dunstan’s Basilica in Charlottetown. His old pen pal may be asked to play a tune.
“My Mum was saying to me, ‘You know, you are going to require a really amazing piece.’ However i don’t look at it that way.
“I think all I have to play is something simple. I have to have the
intent, and the simplicity, but that will be more powerful.
“One of my favourite quotes of Bishop Faber is the line which he ended his homily with at our wedding. He explained, ‘In the words of Father John Angus Rankin there’s 2 things in life that are eternal – music and love.’
“I think of that a lot, and I agree” as reported tagza.
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