By LYNDSAY FREER
Much loved Mill Hill priest Fr Anton Timmerman celebrated his 100th birthday on Sunday January 19 with a Mass at Mercy Parklands Hospital and Retirement Home in Auckland, led by Bishops Denis Browne and Stephen Lowe.
Present also, along with friends and colleagues, were Auckland diocese vicar general Msgr Bernard Kiely and two of Fr Timmerman’s fellow Mill Hills Frs Mikaere Ryan and Anselm Ahern.
Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn was unable to be present at the Mass, but he wrote a tribute on his Facebook page, offering prayerful love and gratitude to “Fr Timm” for his long years of generous service to the Church. This posting has received an unprecedented number of views for the page – more than 15,000, with 367 “likes” and 137 comments, many from Maori recalling the work Fr Timmerman did with their whanau.
A further testimony to the esteem in which Fr Timmerman is held is that 77 individuals, parishes and organisations have shared the bishop’s Facebook tribute to their Facebook pages. Ad multos annos!
I am interested to know about Fr Anselm Ahearne who was a contemporary of mine in Freshford in 1950s