Divine Word Missionaries Father Liam Horsfall may be 84, but age has yet to stop him from sharing his knowledge and compassion of the poorest of the poor with Australian youth, reports The Catholic Leader.

We are not talking armchair stories, although Fr Liam's sense of humour and gift of the gab would be perfect for such a setting.

No, Fr Liam still escorts an annual trip to India to visit and work among the poor, the marginalised and the outcast.

His latest trip just before Christmas involved a group of senior students from St Patrick's College, Shorncliffe, on Brisbane's northside, and, "God willing", he will be off again at the end of this year.

Fr Liam didn't expect to end up in India when he embarked on his chosen vocation inspired by two New Guinea chaplains during his own school days.

Liam was born in Graceville, Brisbane, one of three children. "My father was a farmer at Graceville but there are no farms left now," he said.

"I went to Marist Brothers Rosalie for primary and Marist Brothers Ashgrove for secondary and at the time we had a couple of men from (Papua) New Guinea that were rescued from the Japanese concentration camp up there and they were chaplains sent to the Marist Brothers.

"For a while we were in exile in (Mt) Tamborine and they had been in camp down at the foot of the range when that was a very big military camp. There is no sign of it left at all, not the skerrick of a stump."

Fr Liam said after working for a year with Main Roads he joined the Divine Word Missionaries and went to Marburg, west of Brisbane, for three years then on to Techny, near Chicago in the United States, to study philosophy and theology.

"That was the English international group of Divine Word Missionaries at that time," he said. "There were a lot there - English, Irish and German, a few South Americans and rather a big number of American Negroes. It was something unique of its time."

FULL STORY Fr Liam's sharing God's word all over the world (Catholic Leader)