'I could not have written a better scenario for my life': Father Charlie Cheverie marks 60 years as a priest

On Sunday June 18 there will be a celebration at St. Eugene's Parish Church in Covehead, P.E.I., for Father Charlie Cheverie who is marking 60 years as a priest. He spent time teaching biology at St. Dunstan's University and UPEI and had the opportunity to minister at St. Eugene's. Cheverie stopped by CBC News:Compass to talk about his time in the Catholic Ministry.

You had a different path you were hoping to take initially?

For the last couple years before I finished off St. Dunstan's University, I had a real good girlfriend at that time and I prayed for many years for my vocation, what God was asking me to do. I thought she was the one that God wanted me to have for my wife. When I went to seminary for the first year, I prayed, 'Lord, what do you want me to do?' And near the end of that year, my spirit director asked me, realizing that I wanted to go forward to go on to medicine, 'do you want to heal the body, or heal the person?' and I said 'I want to heal the person.' I don't know how long it took me to do that, to say that, and get to that degree, but there it was. Take your orders. And since that time I have not turned back. And so that was the beginning, that was the path I chose.

Did you ever think 'maybe I should have gone the other way?'

No, I thanked the Lord. I could not have written a better scenario for my life. It's beautiful.

Things took a twist when you were sent to St. Dunstan's and UPEI?

When I think of the priesthood, I think of a parish priest and what you'd normally see a priest doing. But when I was ordained, they decided that I was to go on to study biology, which I did, got my masters and PhD and then I'd come back to teach biology. It took me a couple of years to appreciate that there was a ministry there with the young people which I spent the rest of my life doing really. And it was kind of ironic too because having thought about medicine, I end up teaching those subjects which mostly those who were going for medicine would take. Anatomy, embryology, histology and so forth. Right now I have a lot of people on P.E.I. who are taking care of me who are my former students. But teaching biology isn't what I thought of. In fact I think if I go back to that first year in seminary, if somebody asked me 'do you want to teach biology for the rest of your life?' I would have said 'no, I'm going out for medicine' and that would have been it. And then in 1975 another big blessing came into my life when I was called to minister at St. Eugene's in Covehead, P.E.I. It didn't take long for me to realize that there are a lot of fabulous people in Covehead and surrounding areas. I met a lot of people, Catholic and non-Catholic, that became my friends and still fabulous friends and very, very important people in my support system.

What's been the hardest thing with the life you've chosen?

It's a matter of journeying with people, whether it be students, adult people, whatever the case may be. Personally I find it difficult to journey with people who are having real difficulty, real crosses in their lives. Maybe people struggling with cancer, or maybe people who are struggling with Alzheimer's disease or dementia, or people who are just having some failure in their particular life. To try to be there to console them, to be with them, support them as best I possibly can. And that's when I really depend on the Lord to give me that extra help.

What's been the most rewarding thing?

It's just the joy I've had in my communication with all my friends all the way through my life. Go back to Queens Square School where we played hockey, rugby and sports together, and then later on in our youth club, the friends I met there and the joy I had from there. Then in university and the parishes, it's just the joy that you have from dealing with people. And to realize that the more you give, the more you get. I used to tell this to students at the university, I said 'if you want to get a smile, give a smile' and sure enough, it's amazing. I had a friend of mine, we went over to St. Mary's one time and we were walking along the campus and I was saying 'hi' and 'hi' and smiling at people. And he said 'do you know all those people?' and I said 'no, I don't know any of them.' It's not necessary to know them all, but you'll get to know them if you go that way yourself.

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