By Fr Martin Sirju, Vicar General
Fr Michael Makhan was a giant among priests. I got to know him better when I moved to Port of Spain in 2018. He longed for a simple life and lived it. He worked in a variety of settings including Erin parish, where he is still fondly remembered.
He spoke of the late Msgr Urban Peschier with whom he enjoyed working in Erin and will surely be missed by his “partner” at Cathedral – Fr Michael Cockburn.
He is fondly remembered as an effective and compassionate teacher at St Joseph’s College, St Joseph where he taught English and Religion.
He loved his students and always looked for a “counselling opportunity” in class. He even worked for a short while as a diocesan missionary in Grenada.
He had the most visitors at the Cathedral presbytery and the most telephone calls, too. We received tons of phone calls when people heard of his move to Pieta House, fearing he was very ill, and people were extending condolences days before he died. Many more came after his death.
As a man who walked the streets, whose close contact with the people on Nelson, Duncan and George Streets left him with dusty shoes – something Pope Francis would extol – it is no surprise he thought too many priests do not walk the turf anymore nor are they in close contact with the poor. He felt priests had grown too accustomed to a middle-class lifestyle and urged simplicity.
I feel indebted to him and those of his era. They cleared the way for us – faced the condescension, endured the racism/classism, persevered in tough parishes, and made the local diocesan clergy more acceptable to the faithful.
We take so much for granted that without an occasional presbyteral anamnesis (‘calling to mind’) we run the risk of being ungrateful to our elders in the vineyard.
People loved his preaching, easy to understand and full of fire – “brothers and sisters”, “boys and girls”. He was an avid reader and kept cuttings of interesting articles of years gone by which he pinned onto the door of his closet.
He did not take leaving the Cathedral lightly, a place he lived at for almost 40 years. We feared his health might fail at Pieta House but not he. He was too proud and strong to let that defeat him and kept his spirits up till the last, especially that sharp mind of his.
He desired a humble exit and his brother Reynold chose a simple coffin. In that simple gesture, he was teaching us an important lesson: you can never get into Heaven with too much baggage.