Itâs 2019 and perhaps itâs time for something new. Maybe youâre looking for a challenge. You want to push yourself, move out of your comfort zone, and make a difference in the world. If thatâs the case our MSC Volunteering Project could be just what you need.
Summer with the MSC Volunteering Project is an unforgettable experience
We send volunteers to South Africa for seven weeks from the start of July until the end of the third week of August. There they work alongside the fantastic team based in the Holy Family Centre. It’s in the foothills of the beautiful Drakensburg Mountains in the Northern Province, about one hour east of Kruger National Wildlife Park. Holy Family is home for up to seventy children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS or TB. They range in age from babies and toddlers to teenagers.
Joy, one of our volunteers, with the kids on an outing
As you can imagine itâs a lively place! The kids are simply wonderful. They are so full of life, enthusiasm and joy. They love to sing and dance, run relay races with tyres and play football, go on outings, and sit around and chat.We are looking for people who would like to take part in the project. It is aimed at those between the ages of 23 and 40 and who perhaps have some practical skills. We need people with backgrounds in teaching, nursing, carpentry, electrics, mechanics and anything else. Volunteers are asked to contribute âŹ1,500 and we match this with âŹ1,500 ourselves. This covers flights, food, accommodation, insurance, transfers, and training. We look to support the children, but also to share our skills with others.
For our volunteers itâs a learning experience that they will never forget. The MSC Volunteering Project made a deep impression on those who have volunteered with us.
It was great to spend the day with so many amazing young people passionate about their faith.
When you’re organising a Catholic youth even for the first time common sense would tell you to start small, organise a few speakers, and tap some local talent for the music ministry. What you should never do is to book Matt Maher, the biggest name in worship music in the world, and see what happens. However, that’s exactly what the team at NET Ministries did for the Fortify Youth Conference. It was more than a shot in the dark. It was a leap of faith and it paid off!
Here are a few familiar faces from our NET Team.
The Fortify Youth Conference was designed to showcase youth ministry options available to parishes in Ireland. Over 200 people from across Ireland attended who were involved in or concerned about ministry to young people. As you can imagine there’s about two degrees of separation, so if you didn’t know someone the chances were you knew someone who did. The atmosphere was joyful and welcoming.
Matt Maher played an amazing set for a capacity crowd in Dublin.
The day began with a series of inputs from different speakers in the field of youth ministry, discussing the difference young people make in our Church. Our ministry can simply be about getting young people to go to Mass. We have to be clear what we’re hoping to achieve. We looked at what needed to change and what different groups were doing successfully. Then we asked the big question: What’s stopping you from getting stuck in and making a difference yourself? We finished the day with a sense of hope and enthusiasm for the future. The Fortify Youth Conference wasn’t a once off event. It’s a beginning. Now lets get moving!
After the conference we had an evening concert with Matt Maher. Matt is an eight time-GRAMMY nominee, he has garnered multiple radio successes writing and recording songs like âLord, I Need You,â âHold Us Together,â âChrist Is Risen,â âBecause He Lives (Amen)â and âYour Grace Is Enough.â Maher has penned songs recorded by Chris Tomlin, Crowder, Third Day, Matt Redman, Hillsong, Casting Crowns, Jesus Culture and Bethel among others. Matt has written or co-written five No. 1 radio singles. In 2013, Maher had a career highlight performing in Rio in front of Pope Francis and a crowd of 3 million people, as well as performing in 2015 in downtown Philadelphia as part of the World Meeting of Families with The Fray, Aretha Franklin, Juanes, Jim Gaffigan, among others. In 2015, Maher was awarded his first RIAA Gold certification for his popular single âLord, I Need You.â Most importantly having met him previously at the Brightlights Catholic Youth Festival and the Alpha Leadership Conference I can tell you he’s a really sound guy.
A gathering in the Scottish Highlands celebrating the Catholic faith
A Youth 2000 Retreat is always going to be special, but the last regional gathering in Craig Lodge in the Scottish Highlands was wonderful. This is the home of Maryâs Meals, the dynamic charity that provides over a million meals every day to children living in poverty around the world. This time we had almost 200 young people from around Scotland and beyond. Some even bussed it up from London. It didn’t matter where you came from. It was just fantastic to be there. We had those who have been at the last twenty Youth 2000 Retreats and others for whom it was their first time. All were equally welcome.
The music ministry is always great, but this time is was extraordinary
We were blessed to have some of the most amazing music ministry, led by Kate and the team. Throughout the whole weekend we had Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It was the perfect opportunity to raise hearts and minds to God, while putting up with the midges. I had heard about them, but honestly anything I was told didnât do them justice. They were relentless, as was the rain, but plagues of insects and floods of water couldnât dampen the spirits of all the people there. In fact it kind of made it better. In the River is now officially one of my top five favourite hymns, along with Kate Curran’s Pentecost Sequence that she sang for the first time that weekend.
Thereâs something special about getting up before dawn each morning, finding your boots (or runners â weâll get to that later), and heading off with fellow pilgrims in a gentle procession across the Spanish countryside. This is the daily rhythm of those who walk the Camino de Santiago, as we walk from horizon to horizon to the resting place of St James the Apostle.
“On the Way, you take time – for yourself and for others.”
This is perhaps the greatest challenge of the Camino, that of slowing down. Our world today is fast-paced and constantly moving. Being under pressure is seen as a virtue for some strange reason. On the Way, you take time â for yourself and for others. You speak with absolute strangers. People come from all over the world, drawn by something they find difficult to put into words. One of our group this year hit it on the head when he said that we were walking in the footsteps of millions of people, along pilgrim pathways that stretch back over a thousand years and that will continue into the future.
While itâs a reflective, meditative experience, itâs also good fun. When we arrived into these old towns, we would take a siesta and spend most of the day exploring, before gathering for a shared meal in the evening. We met a navy chaplain who keeps bees, a part-time Mr and Mrs Santa Claus who spend their summers caring for pilgrims, and plenty of people from South Korea, who couldnât speak English but who were ace at sign language.
A small aside for future pilgrims â while runners look great, theyâre not really ideal footwear for a walk like this. One statement from someone in this yearâs group summed it up beautifully. Following a torrential rain shower, she told me, in what has to be the most positive interpretation of an uncomfortable situation ever, âFr. Alan, my soaked trainers make it much easier to walk on my blistered feet!â
Buen Camino, Fr. Alan
If youâd like to know more about our Camino trips, you can contact Fr. Alan at camino@mscmissions.ie, or call +353 (0) 86 785 7955 (Ireland) or +44 (0) 75 2676 4236 (UK).
On the Camino, we began each day with a moment of reflection. This was one of a number of pieces from the poet Mary Oliver, titled “Invitation”, which we used to inspire us for the day ahead:
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude â
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
Meet Mark Quinn, one of two pre-novitiate students who began his studies in our MSC formation house in Dublin in autumn 2016.
By spending time in personal reflection, and living and working as members of a larger group, MSC pre-novitiate students gain a rich and varied experience of the community, its works, and its mission within our world.
Mark is from Castlebar, Co. Mayo and is a chef by profession. A number of volunteering experiences in Africa led him to consider missionary life, and he has now come to explore his vocation with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Here, he shares his reason for choosing to study with the MSC.
âIn the midst of a deep discernment process, I found myself on a volunteer trip in the coastal city of Dar es Salam, Tanzania. One evening, while travelling home from our daily trip to the orphanages, my gaze was drawn to a small girl standing outside a makeshift hut as we sped along the dusty road. While her impoverished surroundings were heart-breaking, it was the expression on her motionless face that captured my attention. Her eyes transfixed on mine, I felt as if Christ himself was looking at me, calling me, or asking something of me that I was yet to fully understand.
A couple of days later, home in Ireland and with East Africa still fresh in my mind, I began to look deeper into religious missionary orders in Ireland. If I am to be honest (and maybe a bit superficial), I was initially attracted by the MSCâs online presence. It showed that the congregation was very much contemporary, and alive and kicking. I contacted Fr Alan, who came to my home to meet with me for a relaxed chat. He was genuinely interested in my story and was honest and informative about the MSC.
A few weeks later, I was invited to stay with the MSCs at their formation house in Dublin. It was great to see and talk to more young men in formation, and I was able to meet a number of priests who are working in a wide variety of roles for a question and answer session. It was a revelation for me to learn about the diversity and internationality of the congregation, and how I could bring my skills to them as well as being formed by their unique charism.
Then, in July, I was also able to take part in their fantastic annual volunteer programme. I travelled to the Holy Family Care Centre for children orphaned by HIV/AIDs or TB in South Africa, where I could see first-hand the heart of Jesus being brought to life. It confirmed for me that God was indeed calling me to be a missionary. But not just any missionary, a missionary of his Sacred Heart!â
Giacomo Gelardi, from Italy, is one of five novices who are working and studying with the community of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Myross Wood House, Co. Cork. Here, Giacomo reflects on his experience to date.
The MSC novices with their group leaders (L-R): Fr Nicholas Harnan MSC, Jaime Rosique Mardones, Giacomo Gelardi, Piotr Zlobinski, Domenico Roza, Fr Michael Curran MSC, Daniel Filipek, and Fr Michael Huber MSC.
âIt only seems like yesterday, but it has already been seven months since I, along with four other novices, embarked on an experience that, with the help of God, will take us to consecrate our lives to Him.
Each of us travelled from a different part of Europe in August 2016, arriving in a quiet corner of Ireland to begin our novitiate with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Myross Wood House in Leap, West Cork. The novitiate year is devoted to deepening our knowledge of ourselves, of the divine within us, and of our relationship with God â and our response is a resounding âYes!â, declared with complete freedom and awareness.
During these months, under the wise guidance of the Novice Master, Fr Michael Huber MSC, we have been expanding our knowledge of the MSC congregation, beginning with the spirit that inspired the MSC founder, Fr Jules Chevalier. At the same time, we have also been developing a prayer life that is the foundation of human and spiritual growth towards a profound understanding of Jesus being present in each instant of our lives. This whole experience is enhanced by a wonderful natural setting in West Cork, where calm and solitude induce reflection and contemplation.
The Lord has granted our community the grace of getting on well together â within the limits of our humanity, obviously!
People may be curious to know what encouraged a Polish theologian, an Italian journalist, a Spanish lawyer, a Slovak computer scientist, and an Italian chemist to join the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Although the familiar answer is âbecause God called usâ, each one of us had a personal reason that drew us to this religious congregation.
Piotr, who hails from Poland, tells us that he was inspired by reading a book written by Fr Emilien Tardif MSC. Piotr was particularly impressed by the idea that we should be bold in prayer, and ask for the complete healing of soul and body â not just for small things. This brought him to believe in and place his trust in God.
Domenicoâs experience was somewhat different, as he began his career studying journalism in Italy. Having moved away from the Lord for a number of years, he began to understand the longing to dedicate his life to Him when living in the MSC college institute in Florence, which was led by Fr Carmine Pace. Domenico decided to read the MSC Constitution, and he was struck by a particular passage from Fr Chevalier: âKnowledge becomes dangerous without piety. They will learn far more at the foot of the Cross than in booksâ.
For Jaime, it was the example of the priests in the MSC school in Barcelona, Spain, that had an impact on him. He had studied there since he was a child, and the spirituality of the Sacred Heart still fascinates him, particularly as a model by which he can live his favourite Gospel passages: âthe good thiefâ (Lk 23:40-43) and the giving of oneself in the manner of Simon of Cyrene (Mk 15:21-22).
Danielâs initial interest came about as a result of the spiritual retreats organised by the MSC community in Nitra, Slovakia, which focused on spiritual and psychological development. During these retreats, Daniel gained a greater knowledge of community life, with the understanding that he could fulfil his own broad concept of mission within the MSC congregation.
As for me? I was a bit like Jonah â I ran away ignoring the Lordâs voice (Jon 1:1-3). Then, one day, I met Fr Alan Neville MSC, who showed me the friendly and humorous face of God. After visiting several communities in Ireland, I recognised that with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, I can be at home, and I can realise my desire to love and be loved completely.â
Thereâs something special about getting up before dawn each morning, finding your boots (or runners â weâll get to that later), and heading off with fellow pilgrims in a gentle procession across the Spanish countryside. This is the daily rhythm of those who walk the Camino de Santiago, as we walk from horizon to horizon to the resting place of St James the Apostle.
footsteps of millions of people, along pilgrim pathways that stretch back over a thousand years and that will continue into the future.
Mark is from Castlebar, Co. Mayo and is a chef by profession. A number of volunteering experiences in Africa led him to consider missionary life, and he has now come to explore his vocation with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Here, he shares his reason for choosing to study with the MSC.
