Mar 21, 2013
‘The Africa Bug’
Last weekend saw the first gathering of our lay missionary volunteers in Sacred Heart Community, Western Road. It was an opportunity for the four people who are preparing to journey to South Africa for three months to meet up and get to know one another. As part of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Volunteer Programme ( MSCVP ) they are going to spend the summer working with the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and the team in the Holy Family Centre in Ofcolaco. The Centre is home to around seventy children, ranging from babies to teenagers, who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS and TB. (more…)
Feb 15, 2013
Last week I was at a talk in Dublin on the work of the VSO and the future of overseas volunteering after 2015. All in all an interesting morning with good contributions from representative of the UN, the European Parliment and academia. They also invited Fr. Fachtna O’Driscoll, the Provincial of the SMA Fathers, to address the group about the missionary legacy of the Church and its future. In the course of his talk he revealed a startling statistic. By adding up the number of years that missionary brothers, sisters and priests worked all around the world he estimated that their commitment added up to more than 200,000 years altogether.
Fr. Tom O’Brien MSC working in Venezuela
It was an astonishing figure. When he said it the reaction of the people in the room was interesting. There was admiration, a little indifference, but above all surprise. There is something to be proud of when we think of all those people who had the courage to follow their vocation; to go out to the whole world and to proclaim the good news. (more…)
Jan 31, 2013
Fr. John Glynn
What would possess you to risk your life in the service of others, for decades, in one of the world’s toughest and most dangerous environments? In prison terms, 30 years is a life sentence. It is also the average period spent by Irish missionaries in the field, working in the service of the poor and oppressed, often in the most challenging, dangerous and brutal environments on earth. RTE’s documentary Lifers tells the story of two missionary priests and a sister who have done just that.
Sr. Pat Murray
Fr. John Glynn is a priest who runs the We Care Foundation in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, one of the world’s most dangerous cities. John, originally from County Clare, has spent five decades working in Papua New Guinea. Sr. Pat Murray is a Loreto sister who worked in education in Ireland and is now the executive in charge of Solidarity with South Sudan, an organization that is pooling the resources of 200 missionary orders towards the basic development needs of South Sudan, which is the newest country in the world. Fr. Pat Brennan is a Divine Word Missionary who has lived in Brazil for more than three decades and who fights for the human rights of indigenous Indians living in the Amazonian rain forest. (more…)
Oct 18, 2012
This coming Sunday we celebrate Mission Sunday. It about celebrating the hundreds of years of selflessness, compassion and faith that make up the Mission tradition in Ireland. The theme in Ireland this year is Growing in Communion. We have an example of that growing in communion with Aisling Foley, a member of Viatores Christ. “I felt I had left my heart in Africa,” was Aisling’s response when she returned home from her first visit to South Africa.
She had volunteered to work with Home of Hope, a project that provides accommodation and foster care for children at risk. She took redundancy from her job as a solicitor and returned to South Africa for a year. That year has now become three! “I truly believe that I was guided to work in Home of Hope and that my mission is to stay here until God tells me that my work is done,” wrote Aisling. Every day these amazing children I work with teach me so much about tolerance, patience and love and these lessons will stay with me for life.”
Aisling follows in the spirit of Pauline Marie Jaricot, the young French woman who reached out to the needs of the Missions just after the French Revolution. Pauline’s wisdom was that all should be supported, none neglected, especially the most needy. Among Pauline’s achievements was the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith 190 years ago this year. It is the Society that organises the celebration of Mission Sunday each year.
The poster above shows Aisling Foley, a lay missionary from Co. Cork with Neo in her office in the Western Cape in South Africa. Aisling is a member of Viatores Christi and Neo is one of the children with whom she works in a school called Amathemba (‘Our Hope’) for children with Fetal Alcohol spectrum Disorders.
This year the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart are starting their volunteering programme with our sisters in South Africa. It’s an opportunity to make a real difference in our world, while having an unforgettable experience that will change your life. If you would like more information simply click here.
Oct 9, 2012
On Thursday coming we’re going to be launching the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Volunteer Programme at the DCU Volunteering Expo. We’ll be in the Venue – Students Union from 11:00am to 3:00pm, so if you’re around make sure to say hello. Below you’ll find details of the Programme.
With the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Volunteer Programme you will work with a community who need your skills, talents and enthusiasm. It’s about being in partnership with others, teaching and learning at the same time, and sharing of yourself in order to make a real difference in your world.
The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Volunteer Programme (MSCVP) is a new initiative that:
– looks to provide enriching, challenging and meaningful short term voluntary experiences.
– seeks to share the talents of our volunteers with our partner projects.
– works towards promoting responsible volunteering in our partner projects in South Africa.
We are looking for young men and women, between the ages of 25 and 40, who are interested in undertaking three months of volunteering work abroad over summer. Ideally applicants should have relevant skills, such as a teacher, mechanic, carpenter, nurse, electrician, doctor, etc. All necessary training will be provided. Part of the expenses for the trip will be provided, but there will be a need for fundraising.
If you would like further information you can contact Fr. Alan on (086) 7857955 or by email fralan@mscvocations.ie
Jun 27, 2012
Leah Libresco has caused something of a stir in the US. Most of us in Ireland and England probably never heard of her, but she’s all over CNN at the moment. In the course of her regular atheist blog, ‘Unequally Yoked: a geeky atheist picks fights with her Catholic boyfriend,’ Libresco announced that she is in the process of becoming Catholic. For Libresco this journey of faith has been about finding one’s moral compass and exploring questions of morality.
“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to,” Libresco told CNN in an interview this week, a small cross dangling from her neck. “And it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.” “There was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth,” Libresco wrote about Catholicism in her conversion announcement post, which has been shared over 18,000 times on Facebook.
Such a road to Damascus experience has been equally lauded by churches and pilloried by atheists. For some this is an opportunity to crow about the unassailable truth found in religion in general and Catholicism in particular. For others it marks a phase or an illogical shift into the world of self delusion.
For ourselves though it represents a reminder of the richness of the tradition we have in the Church and, most importantly, the compassion of Christ in reaching out to all people. This mustn’t be simply a case of one-upmanship, because I suspect that the number of Christians becoming atheists is greater than the reverse. We need to be able to enter into reasoned and faithful dialogue with others. Above all we need to follow Peter’s command to be “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have within in you ( 1 Peter 3:15 ).” It’s more about spreading Good News than winning converts. Above all it’s about helping others discover the vocation that God has for each one of us.
Additional reporting available from CNN
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/22/prominent-atheist-blogger-converts-to-catholicism/comment-page-35/#comments
‘The Africa Bug’
