Rev. Fr Hubert Austen, C.SS.R. (1884 – 1964)

Father was born in Hamburg on 16 May, 1884, into a profoundly Catholic family. It was from them and the priests who formed his soul as a child and a young man that he acquired the simple, profound and indestructible conviction that our life only fulfils itself in God and His service, a conviction, which, with the grace of Our Lord, made of him a religious priest and missionary.

Professed on 29 September, 1905, and ordained priest on 29 September, 1910, he thereafter employed his energies and his zeal in the extension of the Kingdom of God in the Congo for almost 50 years. There where he had shown much heroism he desired to repose in death  Thus he was disappointed when the events of 1960 forced him to return to Belgium but  his confreres and all those who had approached him testified to his fidelity to the ideals of his youth which had ennobled his soul, so limpid, radiant and joyful.  His virtues, in particular his perfect modesty and his fidelity to the least of his tasks, commanded respect.

He died at Brussels on 27 April, 1964, leaving to  his confreres (for whom he was charity without fail), and to all those who knew him, the good memory of an irreproachable life of a morality perfect and exemplary religious, serenely and decisively rooted in God.  †