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Intra Nos

Rev. Fr Timothy (Tadgh) ODWYER C.S.Sp

The life of Fr Timothy (Tadgh) Odwyer C.S.Sp was a continuous act of witness of Religious missionary availability in the Spiritan family for Christian evangelization. Born in Ralthea, County Tiperary, Ireland in 1917, and after some work in the civil service, he became a Spiritan with his first religious profession made in 1949. Straight from his ordination as a priest in Dublin in July 1955, he made himself available for the Spiritan Missionary work in Nigeria. He therefore arrived in October 1955 to the then district of Eastern Nigeria of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Nigeria.

He made himself readily available, for the various apostolates of the Spiritan district according to need. As a qualified teacher, he was posted to teacher’s colleges in Achina and Emene, but he also undertook pastoral work in several village groups in the mission areas of Nsukka and Enugu. That was before the Nigerian civil war.

At the end of the war, in 1970, he moved to the English Spiritan District of Makurdi in the Benue area, where he was again available for teaching and for pastoral work in places including Ogbokolo, Oju, Abwa, Agagbe and Aliade until he finally settled and retired into Abwa for the last years of his life.

At the new form of integration of the Spiritan Province of Nigeria in 2001, Tadgh Odwyer was among the veteran Spiritan missionaries to readily embrace the changes and remain available. He identified fully with the new Nigerian Spiritan Province, participating in all the activities and assemblies within the Region of Makurdi where he was located and carrying on with heavy pastoral work despite his age and failing health. Fr Odwyer therefore lived through the full range of the transitional phases of the establishment of the Spiritans (Holy Ghost Fathers and Brothers) of Nigeria, and was a true witness to the availability which is so much required of the Spiritan Religious Missionary.

Rightly did Pope Paul VI say for the new era of Christian evangelization that “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses that to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (Evangelii Nuntiandi 41). This quality in Tadgh Odwyer C.S.Sp as a devoted witness and a preacher, which is rare to find, is deeply appreciated by the people of God among whom he worked. Hence the big clamour of loving devotion from the Church of the place to have his mortal remains rest as a spiritual treasure at his last and beloved mission, Abwa. This brings to completion, the total sacrifice which Tadgh Odwyer made of his life for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Mt 19,12).

May God grant Fr Timothy (Tadgh) Odwyer the eternal joys of heaven. Amen.

Very Rev. Fr Augustine Onyeneke C.S.Sp
Nigerian Spiritan Provincial Superior