When the customary telegram announcing the death of a religious is sent out to the various Passionist Retreats of the province the sad tidings almost invariably stir memories of personal recollection and local association. There are those who had lived with the deceased; perhaps he had laboured for years in those very Retreats to which the sad news is now borne. But the announcement of the death of Fr. Dunstan (McGurk), C.P., on the morning of 3rd November., at St. Anne’s Retreat, Sutton, recalled few memories, revived few associations. In this part of the world it was, practically speaking, only those who had lived at Sutton within the past ten years who really knew the dead Passionist.
The white-haired old priest, broken in health, who came to St. Anne’s nearly ten years ago, was almost a stranger to his own. It was not merely that forty years of priestly labour in the Near East had dimmed or obscured the recollection of the young man who had volunteered for the mission-field of Bulgaria; it was not the fact that almost his entire student-course was spent in Belgium and Italy, giving him little or no contact with the brethren of his own province – these were not the reasons why he was comparatively unknown. It was that with the zeal and zest of the true missionary he had spent himself entirely, he had buried himself, in the love and spirit of his mission. God’s work was the sole object of the mind and energy of this truly zealous priest. and that work meant for him lonely years of hardship and toil in Bulgaria. How whole-heartedly he entered into that work was written on the weakened frame of the prematurely old man. In him one grasped something of the captivation of the missions. Bulgaria meant everything to him. Looking back ten years, one recalls the edifying yet unusual picture of the Fr. Dunstan who, to all appearances, had come home to die. It did seem strange to hear this old priest speaking broken English with the richest of Irish brogues and constantly referring to Bulgaria as “home.”
Few realise just how much sacrifice and suffering is hidden under the bald statement that he laboured for forty years in Bulgaria. The Balkans have always been the stamping ground of revolution and war, and Fr. Dunstan knew from sad experience the terrible consequences of these upheavals. He lived right through the World War in an enemy country. His church was shelled and he himself was, more than once, literally starving. Yet, in the face of all trial, he was first and foremost and always the missionary and the priest. As proof of that one need only state that he was decorated four times by Bulgaria, twice by France and once by Poland – a striking tribute to his impartiality in those times of strife and hatred.
He was a personal friend of the Bulgarian Royal Family – all of whom, except King Boris, are Catholics. Until his death, Princess Eudoxia corresponded regularly with him. Most of his priestly life was spent in the town of Varna on the Black Sea. The Royal Family had a summer-house there, and when they were in residence, Fr. Dunstan was their chaplain. He was an accomplished linguist, and there were few foreign Consuls, resident in Bulgaria, to whom Fr. Dunstan could not speak fluently, in their own language.
Known in the world as Patrick McGurk, he was born at Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, in 1864. was professed a Passionist in 1885. Six years later was ordained priest in Bulgaria. We of the younger generation who knew him only late in life will remember the venerable old priest. who in spite of ill-health, was a model of punctuality and exactness in the observances of the religious life. May he rest in peace!
(The Cross, Vol. XXVII, 1936-37; p.343)