A Beautiful Story

God is such an artist. He has an ability to transform tragedies into sources of wonderful graces.  Quinton Peters was a South African, born and bred in Cape Town, that was studying to become a priest in the Netherlands but who died tragically in a car accident in the year 2007. He was 38 years old.

He came from a difficult family background but his sufferings brought him on the path of the Neocatechumenal Way, which he joined in 1986 when he was seventeen years old. Here he discovered his calling to the priesthood that led him eventually to the Diocesan Missionary Seminary Redemptoris Mater of Haarlem-Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

"To move to the Netherlands was a life-changing experience for Quinton", recalls his Rector Fr. Luc Georges, "demanding a profound interior transformation." Still, this time of Seminary led him on a path of full reconciliation with his family and his own history.

On the day of the accident, just two days before Christmas, he was traveling with another seminarian when their car slid on the icy road and they found themselves beneath the frosty water. "The death of Quinton, together with the other Deacon Juan Torres, has been a moment of great suffering for our Seminary.  The Rector Father Luc explained.  But it has also been a moment in which we all were helped to raise our eyes to heaven and to strengthen our faith in the resurrection of Christ. During the funeral, Juanita, the mother of Deacon Juan, testified that, even if she had lost her husband some months before because of a cancer, and now her son, she was in pain but with joy, because of the certainty that they were both in heaven. These words gave to our faith a great strength."

The earthly end of this seminarian has an amazing twist.  This seed, sown in the cold Dutch winter, bore many fruits in the mission of the Neocatechumenal Way in South Africa. "At first the family and the community couldn't see this tragic death as something that divine providence could have permitted for a good", says Dino Furgione, the responsible of the Neo-catechumenal Way for South Africa. "The feelings were of disappointment and failure, as if this death was a denial of hope for the future. But since the very first years after Quinton's death, things started to change and we have seen a new spirit coming. Many families of the Way started to give their availability to the mission. The Way has experienced a sort of rebirth, after many years of difficulties and disillusion. In a few years, the Way opened in four other dioceses, with many communities, and since 2012 the Archdiocese of Cape Town opened its own Diocesan Missionary Seminary Redemptoris Mater. All of this, just ten years ago, would have been unthinkable. And Quinton has a part in all of this, with his intercession by God".

The birth of the Seminary is mysteriously linked with Quinton. "On the day that we visited Bishop Brislin, - it was the 19th of August of 2012 -  and for the first time he told us of his resolution to erect a Redemptoris Mater Seminary, we went to the tomb of Quinton, to pray. Would you believe that the 19th of August is Quinton's birthday? This is why we consider this Seminary as a fruit of his intercession.”

In the eyes of faith, everything has a meaning.

Adapted from Zenith Rome, August 27, 2014 (Zenit.org) |