Remembering Fr. Benno Singer: “A Comboni missionary exceptionally positive and creative”

Remembering Father Benno Singer
(14.3.1936 – 16.05.2023)

The sad news of Fr. Benno’s death on May 16, 2023 took me by surprise, since the day before I received the happy news that he was feeling better. Although I feel the urge to write about Fr. Benno, I feel a certain uneasiness to speak about him since he was a multifaceted man, man of many trades, always on the move looking for new adventures in the mission. Besides being a “Singer” by name and by love, and a violinist, he loved beekeeping and his gift to the communities was always a nice flask of good honey from his beehives! He cherished also the “marriage encounters” movement in South Africa and got many good friends among those couples. When Benno felt passionate about something, or some subject was considered relevant by him, you could be sure that he would never give up and would bother you whenever he was meeting you to make his point clear. He was exceptionally positive and creative.

I met Benno for the first time while he was provincial superior in South Africa, when I arrived in the country, in 2005.  He was very jovial and welcoming. He was passionate about evangelization, vocations, ongoing formation of the confreres. He loved people and lived for people and treasured their stories and struggles, empowering and encouraging them in their ministries. He liked talking and being in good company while enjoying a nice cup of coffee or savouring a nice beer with a good German sausage. He treasured friendship and was ready to travel many miles to meet a friend and enjoying with him a short moment of leisure and friendship.

Since 1964 up to the time of his death, Fr. Benno worked mainly in South Africa, except for some 15 years (83-98) he worked in Germany, his province of origin. He started with another confrere Fr. Robert Sottara, on the 1 January 1992, our presence in East Germany, in Halle, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and which lasted till August 2004.

His last years in South Africa were passed in urban pastoral, always in the peripheries of great cities, Soweto and Orange Farm, periphery of Johannesburg, Mamelodi-Mahube Valley, periphery of Pretoria, and then Pietermaritzburg, where we have the scholasticate. He was always joyful, a good example for the scholastics, aware of his limitations and ready to acknowledge them. When I met him one year ago at the scholasticate, he was ready to hand over his responsibilities, since he was still caring for the parish of St. Joan of Arc, and its premises, where our scholasticate is located.

In Benno we lost a good friend and a good Comboni missionary, who loved his vocation and was passionate for mission. I believe Fr. Benno fulfilled in himself, in a special way, the words of St. Augustine: “you have made us for yourself, o Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”. When he knocks at paradise’s door, the Good Lord will tell him, “Come, Fr. Benno, and find some good and deserved rest close to your Lord and Master”! From there, he will be caring for his “bees” and interceding for the people he loved!
Fr. Jeremias dos Santos Martins

The homily delivered at the Funeral Mass of Fr. Benno Singer at Maria Trost
March 14^th, 1936 – May 16^th, 2023

A Time to be born – A Time to Die

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are gathered here for an appointment that Fr. Benno, a confrere, a missionary priest and a dear friend of many has mysteriously invited us to. We are here for a farewell, a decent send-off. Above all we are here to fondly remember Fr. Benno and to renew our faith in the God of life and in the Risen Christ.

Ecclesiastes in the first reading dwells on the concept of time. So, from the perspective of time, Fr. Benno’s death gives us occasion to reflect on time as a gratuitous and precious gift of God who has indeed made everything beautiful in its appropriate time. That means that every little thing matters, for it is all part of a grand design or plan of God. This is indeed a statement of faith that we would like to renew today. We are also invited to reflect on time in terms of the shortness, fragility and poverty, and smallness of our life, even when it lasts for the better part of eight decades as it has been in the case of Fr. Benno. It is interesting to reflect on the paradoxes of life in today’s first reading showing God’s timing and sovereignty in all things. God is indeed in control.

A TIME to be BORN... and a TIME to DIE.  Fr. Benno’s time to be born was 1936, during the great depression which left its indelible mark on everyone in that time. As a little boy Fr. Benno experienced the devastating effects of World War II during which  his own dad was conscripted to fight. Those times were very different and difficult compared to today. Television had not yet made its debut on the world stage. The car was still relatively in its early stages. Computers, smartphones and most modern gadgets were simply unheard of. Plastics had just been invented during that time.

Fr. Benno grew up at a time when hard physical work was the standard of the day, something he embraced with diligence and devotion. I remember how even in his 80s Fr. Benno still worked hard in our garden in Pietermaritzburg and had time for bee-keeping. He witnessed the many transitions and changes to our times, especially, those of instant communication and the world becoming a global village.

He was ordained a Comboni missionary priest on July 28^th, 1963. One of his big dreams was to return to Germany to celebrate his Jubilee Ordination anniversary in the very same Cathedral of Bamberg where he was ordained 60 years ago. He had an air-ticket booked for May 16^th, 2023 but alas on this very day Fr. Benno passed away in Pietermaritzburg! Of the sixty years of his missionary priesthood, apart from the 15 years he served in his native Germany, the rest of his time as a missionary priest was spent right here in South Africa whose soil today welcomes him in a loving intercultural embrace as he awaits in Christian hope the gift of a glorious resurrection. Fr. Benno is truly one of us, a son of the African soil!  I see the experience of Fr. Benno in the light of our Founder St. Daniel Comboni who had this to say to the people of Sudan on May 11^th, 1873: “Yes, I am your father, and you are my children and as such I embrace you and press you to my heart.  I have returned among you to be always yours, as I am consecrated for your highest good. I make common cause with each one of you, and the happiest of my days will be the one on which I will be able to give my life for you." (Writings 3158 and 3159)

God granted our dear confrere Fr. Benno 87 years of earthly life, much of it lived working hard as a missionary priest - a life totally dedicated to the mission and lived to the full. Fr. Benno had slightly over eight decades of celebrating the good time as well as the hard times which were surely there, always with a great sense of serenity, commitment and youthful enthusiasm.

From 1936 to 2023 was his time to live, to work, to serve, to love, to give, to receive, to enjoy life as well as to struggle. With faith we acknowledge, there is a TIME to be BORN, and a TIME to DIE. This has happened to Fr. Benno and it will not be any different for each one of us still on this earthly pilgrimage.  Even for Jesus, in his humanity there was a time to be BORN and a time to DIE and God the Father raised him up to new life. For us now, it is the time to REMEMBER, to thank God for our beloved Fr. Benno who leaves us with a memorable legacy to cherish. We gladly offer him this fraternal service of remembrance, of prayer and of charity.

In today’s Gospel Jesus gives us words of comfort, consolation and encouragement: Don’t be troubled, trust God, trust in me, I am going to prepare a place for you, when everything is ready I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am.”

The setting is Jesus’ farewell address at his last supper with his disciples in the Upper Room, the Cenacle. The atmosphere is that of intimacy, familiarity, straight talk. Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet and has explained to them what this means. He has foretold his betrayal by Judas, and Judas has slipped out into the night. He has told his disciples that he will be with them only a little while longer, and that where he is going, they cannot come. He has also foretold Peter’s imminent denial.

No wonder the disciples are troubled. Their beloved Master is leaving them, one of their own has turned against them, and the stalwart leader among the disciples is said to be on the point of a great failure of loyalty. It is as though the ground is shifting beneath their feet.

Jesus responds to the anxiety of his disciples by saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me” Jesus calls them back to this fundamental relationship of trust and assures them that he is not abandoning them.

There is indeed time for everything. Fr. Benno surely had his share of much of what Ecclesiates described in the first reading. Times for much planting—of a busy missionary life and friendships—healing, building, laughing, embracing, gathering and keeping precious values, mending, speaking, love and peace. There were lots of blessings and joys in his life. Added to this list he also had hard times of being uprooted, tearing down, weeping, mourning, scattering, searching, giving up, throwing away, being torn, silence, hate and war. For Fr. Benno all of that is now over. He is in the hands and bosom of God, our loving Father and Mother.

We, however, are still experiencing our time for everything. What can we learn from the event of Fr. Benno’s death? This event is for us the celebration of his life. However, there must also be some take-away for each one of us. This event is pregnant with some significant messages from God to each one of us. Personally I would like as take-away a share of his optimism, youthful enthusiasm and faithfulness to his missionary vocation up to the end. Like our dear Fr. Benno, let us make the most of the time we are given. We do our best not to let our hearts be troubled, just as Jesus said.

Fr. Benno, auf wiedersehen! Hamba kahle, ubaba omkhulu! You have successfully run your race. For us who are still on this earthly pilgrimage – let us brace ourselves to take the relay baton you have left to us and continue the race in earnest, for there is work to be done – a world to be transformed, a Gospel to be proclaimed through our own words, actions and life-style. Moreover, while on the one hand the place that the Risen and Ascended Christ has gone to prepare for us his friends is promised and given gratis, on the other hand it is also a task, a responsibility, a work in progress for each one of us.
Auf wiedersehen! Hamba kahle umkhulu!
Homily delivered by: Fr. John Baptist Keraryo Opargiw, MCCJ