IN the wake of Hurricane Maria, the Benedictine Monastery of Notre Dame du Mont des Oliviers of Terreville, Schoelcher in Martinique has been in mourning since Thursday, September 14 when Father Peter Barthelemy Caesar passed away at the age of 82.
He was born on November 5, 1934 in Soufriere, one of nine siblings. He is survived by three sisters and their families, and the Catholic community of Martinique and St. Lucia.
Father Peter Caesar was the Prior of the Monastery for thirty years, spending more than fifty years at the Monastery, apart from his studies for the priesthood in Switzerland. Coming from humble and modest beginnings, he migrated to Castries to work at Lafayette and M&C where, following the Castries fire of 1961, he left the gutted business place of M&C Toy Shop on Bridge Street and ventured towards the monastic life at the Benedictine Monastery in Martinique.
In the years, prior to the fire, he had resided at 34 Brazil Street, with the family of his godfather and mentor, the late Matthew George St. Clair, former schoolmaster of St. Aloysius R.C. Boys’ Primary School.
Given the liturgy of the Monastery is in Latin, he had to have a command of the language, given the fact that the Liturgy plays a great part in the daily work and prayer of the monks and the community of Christian Catholics, the community of priests and nuns it serves. People described him as a simple man, soft-spoken, wise and humble. Fellow monk and compatriot, Brother Sylvester, said in retrospect: “He was a true Christian. A man practising the word of God and precepts of the monastic way of life, hospitable, respectful, obedient, kind and clothed in the fraternal spirit.”
As Prior, head of the Catholic community during his thirty years of service, he was responsible for the training of the novices and, according to Brother Sylvester’s conclusion, “He governed the House of the Lord, like the Father of his Holy Family until his final call.”
Brother Thierry, another member of the Benedictine family, disclosed, “It was Father Peter who had suggested, through the story of Father Patrick Webster, another St. Lucian Benedictine priest, who incidentally shares the same resting place with Father Peter Caesar, that I enter the Benedictine Monastery. On reflection, he set my feet on the road to a spiritual serene life. Such was the manner of the man. He gave birth to my vocation. He had been researching and defining the work of the Benedictine Monastery in Martinique since he entered in 1961.”
Undisclosed to many, like his father and physical brother, John, he was a joiner and carpenter; therefore, he loved the trees of the forest in Martinique and used the wood to build the present benches and a huge cross at the entrance of the Church of the Benedictin, Notre Dame du Mont des Oliviers in Terreville, Schoelcher in Martinique.
On Thursday, September 21, there was a wake of prayer and singing in the Benedictine Church, followed by the funeral service of the late Father Peter Caesar on Friday, September 22, officiated by Monseigneur David Macaire of Fort de France and the former Prior, in the presence of parishioners, priests, nuns and monks, where afterwards his body, was placed in an enclosure on the grounds of the Monastery.
May the soul of Father Peter Caesar rest in eternal peace.