Charles Kong Soo

Ro­man Catholic Priest Fr Regi­nald De Four says his call­ing was cho­sen for him when his moth­er made a promise to the Vir­gin Mary that if he sur­vived a life-threat­en­ing child­hood ill­ness, he would be con­se­crat­ed to God's ser­vice.He was speak­ing at the Solemn High Mass on the Feast of the Queen­ship of Mary, at the Sa­cred Heart RC Church, Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Eighty-year-old De Four was al­so cel­e­brat­ing the 50th an­niver­sary of his or­di­na­tion.

De Four said, "We were eight chil­dren. Af­ter the third child was born, he died af­ter six months."Then I came along lat­er, af­ter 18 months, I was on my deathbed with dysen­tery and Dr Hayes at­tend­ed to me."Dr Hayes told my moth­er if he vom­its once more, he's dead."My moth­er turned to our La­dy and said, 'If you let him live, I will con­se­crate him to you.'

"And then I lived and I'm still here."He said what was amaz­ing was that he can­not vom­it and has nev­er done so since.De Four said it was a sign from the Vir­gin Mary that it was she who had cured him and she was the rea­son for his strong de­vo­tion. He said of great con­cern to the church was that there were not many re­place­ments for the priests who had died dur­ing the year–Frs Knol­ly Knox, Ger­ard Far­fan, Neil Ro­driguez, Phillip Howard and Arthur Lai Fook.

The ser­vice was a tra­di­tion­al Latin Mass (TLM) which De Four said was still rel­e­vant be­cause peo­ple grav­i­tat­ed to­wards tra­di­tion even though many were not fa­mil­iar with Latin. He said peo­ple's flock­ing to the Vat­i­can to see clas­sic paint­ings, art­work and for TLM was in keep­ing with the tra­di­tions of the church. TLM was ob­served for about 1,000 years and was on­ly changed in 1970.

De Four said some peo­ple were hold­ing on to TLM, and the num­ber of peo­ple at­tend­ing TLM was grow­ing ex­po­nen­tial­ly in the US and gain­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty in France, and at­tract­ing more peo­ple dai­ly.He said at his St Anne's parish in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, USA, TLM was held ex­clu­sive­ly.De Four, who was or­dained in 1964, was taught Latin at the Spir­i­tan sem­i­nary, in Port-of-Spain, and as a stu­dent at St Mary's Col­lege. He said parish­ioners re­mem­bered that form of mass.