{"id":97937,"date":"2021-03-26T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/regnum-christi-downunder-a-faithful-fathers-legacy\/"},"modified":"2024-10-27T11:26:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T15:26:21","slug":"regnum-christi-downunder-a-faithful-fathers-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/regnum-christi-downunder-a-faithful-fathers-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Regnum Christi Downunder: A Faithful Father\u2019s Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very early on Christmas morning, Michael Devereux passed away in his hometown of Dunedin, New Zealand. Father of seven sons, including three priests of the Legionaries of Christ, Michael was a devoted husband and father who leaves behind a family legacy of faithful and generous service to the Church and Regnum Christi.<\/p>\n

Michael Devereux was born in Dunedin into a strong Catholic family. The second of five children, Michael grew up close to the family\u2019s parish of St. Mary\u2019s, Kaikorai, where he served as an altar boy, and fellow parishioners and the local priests were frequent visitors to their home. The presence of God was a constant reality in the Devereux family \u2013 they prayed together daily, and the Mass and the Sacraments were integral in their lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Steeped in the Catholic faith, Michael grew up knowing that God loved him with a personal, intimate, infinite love, and his faith grew stronger year by year. By the time he was in his early twenties, he had finished his formal studies and was working as an accountant, and he was ready to settle down and start a family. Because he had a great devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Succor, Michael asked for her intercession in finding a wife, and Our Lady wasted no time \u2013 Michael soon met his wife, Marie, at a tennis tournament in Christchurch, and by the end of the weekend, the two were already \u201cinformally\u201d engaged. Michael and Marie were married before the end of the following year, in 1959, in Wellington, New Zealand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael passed on that atmosphere of faith in which he was raised to his own family \u2013 he and Marie had seven children in total, all boys! Says one of Michael\u2019s sons, Andy, \u201cMy parents had a sense of mission raising their family in the Catholic faith and tradition, balanced with providing opportunities for their sons in education, sport, and later on, travel abroad. They wanted us to have the opportunity to engage with the Universal Church and experience its Catholicity through its history, art, culture, and most importantly, through the Vicar of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Michael and Marie\u2019s mission to raise their sons with a deep understanding and a profound love of their Catholic faith soon began to bear fruit. In 1985, their fourth son, Peter, approached them with the news that he felt a call to the priesthood. Father George Duggan, who was serving at St. Patrick\u2019s College, Silverstream, the boarding school that many of Michael\u2019s sons attended, passed on the name of a missionary priest who had just come to New Zealand and who might be able to help Peter with his discernment process. That priest was Fr. Anthony Bannon, LC, and after some discussion and planning, Michael and Marie travelled with Peter and his younger brother, Matthew, to visit the novitiate of the Legionaries of Christ in Cheshire, Connecticut, and then on to Rome to meet the Legionary community there. The trip \u2013 and the Legionaries of Christ \u2013 had an enormous impact on the family, and two years later, in 1987, Peter began his studies to become a Legionary priest.<\/p>\n

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Throughout his life, Michael, along with his wife, Marie, worked to establish Regnum Christi in New Zealand and Australia. The couple sponsored the road teams of Legionary priests and Consecrated Women that would make the annual trip Downunder to offer spiritual guidance and accompaniment, and to establish and develop the Regnum Christi section in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide in Australia and in Auckland and Dunedin in New Zealand. One of the highlights of Regnum Christi\u2019s presence in Australasia was the Youth & Family Encounter held in Sydney, followed by World Youth Day, in 2008.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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