Jun 30, 2026
On Wednesday, June 24th, the city of Caracas, Venezuela, was devastated by two earthquakes following each other in under a minute. Our latest correspondence from Venezuela comes from Brother Deiby Fuenmayor MSC, who is working alongside Fr John Jennings MSC (originally from Cork), in the parish of Propatria, in Caracas. This is located on the outer regions of the area affected by last week’s earthquakes, and while the aftershocks are still being felt, the structural damage has not been as severe as it is in more central areas. In Propatria, Fr John, Br Deiby, and their parishioners are working to help those suffering in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, with extremely limited resources.
Fr John is working to provide spiritual support to the local community, while Br Deiby explains that he is “fully committed to coordinating the social area” as donations of food and clothing are distributed to families in urgent need. (Read Br Deiby’s full letter below.)
Irish Provincial Superior Fr Joe McGee MSC is keeping in close contact with our MSC brothers in Venezuela, as we monitor the situation and work on providing financial aid to assist with the immediate emergency response. “I have been to Propatria several times,” says Fr Joe, “and I know that the people there have very, very little. Now, we are seeing these people, who have so little, helping people who have less than nothing.”
“I am reminded of the story of the widow’s mite (Mark 12:41–44 and Luke 21:1–4), where a poor widow gave two small coins, all she had to live on, as an offering at the temple. To Jesus, her gift was greater than all the larger contributions, as it represented so much more than financial value, but real sacrifice and total, unreserved faith in the Lord’s love.”
“Here, the people of Propatria are doing all that they can to help others who have less than nothing. Our men on the ground are doing their best to help these people help their own people, and we are so very grateful for your invaluable support, prayers, and contributions. Thank you.”
Here, you can read Br Deiby’s full letter to Fr Joe, dated Monday, June 29th:
Dear Father Provincial,
Present.—
Receive a cordial greeting, trusting in the Lord that you are well.
The purpose of this letter is to inform you about the complex current situation we are experiencing in Venezuela, particularly in Caracas and La Guaira. We want to report that it has been a weekend of intense work. Our parish headquarters has become a collection center and, thanks to God and to the men and women of faith and goodwill who trust the parish and the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, we have received numerous donations. As you know, we do not have our own MSC resources, so all this work is being sustained thanks to the immense generosity of the people. Along with this letter, I will send you some images of what has been collected, although it is worth noting that a large part of these supplies has already been distributed to the different centers. Hand in hand with the laity of the Chevalier family, we are visiting different spaces where refugees are located, such as sports courts and public parks. Yesterday we managed to assist 117 families and 40 children, delivering medicines, diapers for adults and children, toys, candies, non-perishable food, and other basic necessities, providing them, above all, with our accompaniment and listening. For this afternoon, we have scheduled a visit to a place that shelters 500 people (including 100 adults and 180 children) to assess their urgent needs, listen to them, and see how we can continue to help. Thanks to the valuable support of the laity, we are carrying out this work. Father Juan Jennings is 100% dedicated to sacramental care, while myself, as a religious brother, am fully committed to coordinating the social area.
On the other hand, we inform you that the airport infrastructure is completely out of service due to severe damage, a situation that will remain until further notice. Both domestic and international commercial flights are suspended, which greatly hinders the transport of supplies and aid by air. Currently, the runway only operates for strictly humanitarian flights coordinated Page 1by the government with other countries. Added to this logistical situation is a strong structural alert, as frequent seismic movements are being registered in the area. Yesterday a 5.5 earthquake was felt, and this morning, at 7:00 a.m., another 5.1 magnitude one was registered. Due to this, at 8:00 a.m. today, we received a visit from two trusted bricklayers from the parish to assess the damage. They inspected the existing fissures and cracks in the areas you already know (the temple entrance, the sacristy, the oratory, the small hall, the multi-purpose hall, and the offices). Although initially these are small and shallow fissures and cracks, the specialists suggest and recommend taking action as soon as possible, since the continuity of the earthquakes could deepen the damage and generate a major structural problem.
With a view to coordinating the Church’s actions in the face of this panorama, tomorrow, Tuesday, we will attend a meeting called by the Archbishop of Caracas, which will include the participation of pastors, vicars, male and female religious, and brothers who provide service in the communities. The objective is to listen to the diocesan guidelines and together design strategies for the coming weeks and months. We are preparing well in advance for the imminent shortage and lack of supplies ahead, seeking the best ways to respond effectively to the needs of our people and our refugee brothers and sisters.
Despite the adversities and risks, we remain firm in the mission, trusting in providence and in the solidarity of our community. We thank you in advance for your constant guidance and your prayers for us, for our infrastructure, and for our people. We remain entirely at your disposal.
Cordially and fraternally in the Heart of Jesus,
HOLY CROSS PARISH / MISSIONARIES OF THE SACRED HEART
BR. DEIBY FUENMAYOR MSC
A prayer for Venezuela from Fr John Fitzgerald MSC:
Jun 30, 2026
This year, we’re celebrating the 60th anniversary of the MSC Missions Office on the Western Road, Cork, and as part of our anniversary commemorations, we’re looking back on old issues of our newsletter, the MSC Message, on a walk together down Memory Lane.
Jomo’s Story
In the Summer 2013 edition of the MSC Message, we shared a letter from Jomo Kgapane Simango, who was being cared for at Tshwaranang Hospice, located close to Ivory Park in South Africa, following a HIV diagnosis. The care he received here allowed Jomo to reclaim his life, and go on to have a family and a successful job.
For sure I would have died!
I was 24 years old when I discovered I was HIV positive. One morning I was preparing for work, I felt dizzy, cold and very weak. When I got to the butchery my boss could see that I was not right and called an ambulance. They took me to the hospital and said I was dehydrated. They put drips in me and I felt better. The following week the same thing happened and I was back in hospital again. The doctor advised me to get tested for HIV.
I ignored his advice but weeks later the illness came back even worse, I could not take the pain and terrible diarrhea. This time I had the sense to go and get tested. The result came back positive and very shortly I started on the Anti Retro Viral tablets.
After some months I felt so good I forgot I was HIV positive and I stopped taking the tablets. It was not long before I was in hospital again. I was so weak I couldn’t even walk. I was there for almost a year but did not seem to be improving and the nurses seemed uncaring. So I discharged myself. I was foolish as I was in no condition to look after myself and I struggled with the simplest of tasks. I could not even get to a toilet even if I had one.
I had the help of a Home Based Care Giver coming to visit. She told me about Tshwaranang Hospice set up by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and how good they cared for people. I was frightened but I went. The hospice was like a five star hotel and the nurses treated me very well. They bath you in the morning and give you breakfast and all meals during the day. Over the months I learnt to eat properly, take my tablets and walked again.
I thank all the sisters at the hospice for giving me hope and changing my life. I am now blessed with a baby boy and he is negative. I am back at work again and proud of my life. I thank the hospice for giving me my life back. I will never forget the staff. Keep up the good work and save more lives.
With thanks
Jomo Kgapane Simango
Ebiany’s Story
Summer 2013 also shared Ebiany’s story, as a student in the school run by the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
My name is Ebiany Yussayu. I am a 4th year student in Our lady of the Sacred Heart School in the barrio of Chino Julio, Maricaibo, Venezuela, where I live. I belong to the Wayiuu ethnic group.
For those of you who do not know our tribe, I will give a little information. The original habitat of the Wayiuus is the territory north of Maricaibo right up to the Columbian border.
My parents moved into Maricaibo some years ago and took up residence in barrio Chino Julio where we live today. Our house is a humble residence made of galvanised sheets and wooden poles. I live there with my parents, 5 brothers and sisters and my paternal grandparents. At home we speak Wayuneiki, our native tribal Indian language but with others Spanish is the language.
The presence of Our lady of the Sacred Heart School in our barrio has meant a lot to my family and me. If it was not there, we would have had to walk very long distances to school. The school gives a good education. We get secondary education with emphasis on technical subjects such as accountancy and computers.
After graduating from high school we will be able to get a job or if we wish we can go on studying in the University. A few friends of my family have already done this and have got on very well and are now able to provide for their families.
This opportunity gives families like mine hope for the future and for this we are very grateful to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart for providing this school. The school caters for 800 students now having recently opened 3 new classrooms for an additional 150 students and I know they hope to build more in the near future. Supplying learning materials to children makes a huge difference as it changes all of our lives.
Thank you.
Lorraine’s Story
Finally, Summer 2012 gave us Lorraine’s story, as a volunteer care worker at the MSC HIV/AIDS Response Programme in Nzhelele, South Africa.
I am a volunteer at the Drop-In Centre in Nzhelele, South Africa, working with Fr Andre Bohas MSC helping orphans and vulnerable children in the HIV Aids Response programme.
Our care-givers who visit families in the village come across orphans and inform us. We visit the families to see their needs. These children often live and are cared for by a grandmother, the real unsung heroes of the Community. If necessary, we provide them with food-parcels and help them apply for grants. But what happens when the children out there, living with a grandmother, or in a child headed family? Our church is looking after some of their needs. I volunteered to work at this mission according to what I have learned before.
The children age from 7 to 17 years. They have had no time to grieve and as a child they feel the pain but nobody cares. Later they act out of character. We sympathise with an adult, but not with a child. It hurts me. I lost my parents as an adult and found it difficult having no one to turn to. Children who lose parents keep everything to themselves as they afraid that life might become worse and they could be victimized.
Street children are vulnerable and some beg for money to buy bread, but often for something else like drugs. They are neglected and nobody wants them. They did not choose to be orphans. We talk with them and find out the true situation. If we don’t see them for two weeks we ask the care-givers about them. We have become a big family.
At the Drop-In Centre the children meet other children and it is there that they become friends for life. Most of these children do not know anything about Christmas or the Church. To me, it is my calling, my passion to care. It is mostly our Church who cares for them and we do not discriminate, there are no Catholics among them. It takes a village to raise a child.
I am happy to show love, compassion, to be the love of God in Africa, in every situation, where children are involved. What can a child do when he or she is left alone in the world?
Lorraine
Jun 23, 2026
Our 2026 Novena to the Sacred Heart has come to an end, and it is with truly grateful hearts that we thank everybody who helped to make it such a special occasion for all involved.
This year’s Novena took place from Thursday, June 4th to Friday, June 12th, at the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork. We were delighted to see so many familiar faces join us during the Novena, and of course to welcome new friends along too. An astounding 13,500 people joined us in prayer on our live stream over the course of the nine days, from close to home and across the world, reminding us in such a lovely way that we are all very much interconnected and part of something bigger, part of a great community of faith, wherever in the world we may be located.
MSC Novena to the Sacred Heart 2026 – Fr John Fitzgerald MSC introduces Fr John H. Walsh OP at the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork.
It was a joy and a privilege to have this year’s Novena to the Sacred Heart celebrated by Fr John H. Walsh OP. Born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, Fr John entered the Order of Preachers in Cork after leaving school. Having been educated in Maynooth, Oxford, and Rome, Fr. John has served as a preacher of parish missions and retreats, and was also promoter for the Rosary Apostolate and a superior of Dominican communities in Ireland. Currently, he is the director of the St. Martin Apostolate in Dublin and the editor of the St. Martin magazine, as well as promotor for itinerant preaching for the Irish Dominicans.
Having been welcomed by our own Fr John Fitzgerald MSC, Fr John Walsh opened the Novena with some lovely words. “It’s a great honour to be asked to preach this Novena,” he said. “It’s a great honour for a Dominican to come down here to this Church of the Sacred Heart and to lead you in these nine days, and to remind you of the love of God. It’s a great honour for me to be with you and I look forward to these nine days here on the Western Road.” This set the tone for the nine days ahead, and we were extremely grateful to Fr John for leading us through this special time of prayer and reflection with such an open, loving heart.
Fr John H. Walsh OP (left) and Fr John Fitzgerald MSC (right) mark a day of healing at the Sacred Heart Church Hall on the Western Road, Cork.
A reflection on love
“There’s only one word in English for love, you know, and that’s love,” reflected Fr John at the opening Mass of the Novena. “There’s only one word we use, it’s this love, but it’s kind of fluid in many ways – there are differences in love, aren’t there? What the Lord is asking us on this first day of this Novena, is, he’s asking the question, what have we to do? You have to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Continuing with this thought, Fr John spoke about the picture of the Sacred Heart in so many Catholic homes. “Why do we have the Sacred Heart picture?” he asked. “It was to remind our mothers and our grandmothers, who spent most of their days in their houses, that they weren’t alone.”
“It was to remind them that they were loved. And you are loved. You might feel unloved, and we struggle with that as humans, we struggle with love… And that’s why I want to spend these nine days with you, is to show you that love.”
Fr John Fitzgerald MSC and Fr John H. Walsh OP celebrate Mass at the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork.
Going to on speak about love, and the importance of loving your neighbour, Fr John explained, “You can love the Sacred Heart all you like, and you can love your God all you like, but in order to love him fully as the Gospel says today, you have to love your neighbour. You might say, ‘Who’s my neighbour, Father?’ Your neighbour might be the cat at home. It’s the next person you meet. It’s the person you meet in the shop, and you hold the door for them… I don’t know the person, but I have to see in the person and each person, God, to see that Sacred Heart in them. It’s hard, it’s difficult, people ignore you, people blank you out – but we have to love them. St. John of the Cross said, if you want to find love, put love into it, and therefore you’ll find it. You’ve to go out of yourself, and that what Jesus is asking every one of us today. Go out of yourself. A simple smile won’t crack our face, does it? No. You mightn’t feel like smiling, but that’s what Jesus is saying – you will find me if you go out of yourself. Go out of yourself. Hold the door, be patient.”
“You don’t know what a person is carrying… You never know what another person is carrying.”
“It’s a small thing, this is how you love others as you love God.”
“It’s for us Christians to go out of ourselves, and that’s how we change the world, that’s how we’ve always changed the world, because we went to incredible strengths to do things. And you’re asked to do the same today. I’m not asking you to be a Missionary of the Sacred Heart – your mission is at home, or your mission is in the car park, or holding the shop door… Go out of yourself for love.”
Fr John H. Walsh OP and Fr John Fitzgerald MSC celebrate Mass at the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork.
Celebrating the Feast of the Sacred Heart
“The Feast of the Sacred Heart is a feast of not just something Jesus did, but something who Jesus is, his love, his infinite love for each one of us,” said Fr John on the final day of the Novena, and the Feast Day of the Sacred Heart.
“Isn’t it amazing, you never know what you live with, or what you live among, and you never know what another has suffered for you, and that’s what we celebrate in the heart of Jesus, and the wounded hands. This is how much I love you, that I would die for you to save you – and to know that you’re loved. You just think back on your own lives, the love of your parents and your grandparents and your neighbours and your friends, and all those who have done so much for you, that you could have life.”
Fr John H. Walsh OP (left) and Fr John Fitzgerald MSC (right) mark a day of healing at the Sacred Heart Church Hall on the Western Road, Cork.
Pausing in the love of the Lord
In a beautiful moment of peaceful reflection, Fr John invited all those gathered in the Sacred Heart Church, and watching on the live stream, to pause for a moment of prayer.
“Feel your pulse,” he said. “You know, I often sit in prayer, and that’s all I do. I listen to my heartbeat. Feel your pulse, your heart is beating out that blood. And if you close your eyes and just think of the love of Jesus for you, that’s what we’re celebrating for nine days here, the heart of Jesus that beats out of love for you.”
“The beauty of our faith is that heart didn’t just stop on Calvary, it continues to beat for you. So if you feel lonely, if you’re under stress, if you feel insulted or hurt or abandoned by your family, abandoned by your world, even by those whom you love most, and yet you keep pouring it out, check your pulse. Just close your eyes, and say Lord, that’s your heart too, beating for love of me. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? You could spend hours listening to your pulse. If it stops, good luck to you! But if you do feel lonely sitting at home, and if you’re feeling depressed or anxious, angry or hurt, just close your eyes or look up at your Sacred Heart picture, check your pulse, and sit and listen to that rhythm – I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you above all things, and I would die for you. It’s what we all need, don’t we?”
“No matter what you’re going through, or whatever pain that you’re undergoing, return love, not hatred, not vengeance. Jesus is the opposite.”
MSC Novena to the Sacred Heart 2026, led by Fr John H. Walsh OP at the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork.
With heartfelt thanks
We are profoundly grateful to Fr John Walsh, who provided us with great pause for thought in his daily reflections, helping us to look ever deeper in our spiritual reflection and healing, and leading us down useful, interesting, and healing paths of prayer. “You brought the power of the Sacred Heart so close to us that it’s just straight in front of our eyes and in our hearts, and we are privileged to have you with us,” said Fr John Fitzgerald as the Novena came to a close.
“We will leave this place, and there’s a bit of a sadness always when we leave a nine-day thing like this, when we’ve come together,” said Fr John F. And with that slight regret at the ending of such a special time, comes a great hope.
“There’s a letter here from one of the priests in 1975, and he said that the Sacred Heart Novena was on its way out because everyone was in their 50s and 60s and 70s,” recalled Fr John F. “This is when we were slips of boys and girls back in the 60s and 70s – and of course how wrong he was.”
“I remember here, there might be a little basket of petitions – and now there are thousands of petitions all around, and still some to come, so it is far from a dead Novena.”
With so many mission friends and parishioners joining us from near and far at the Sacred Heart Church each day, and thousands of others tuning in from around the world, it is clear that the Novena to the Sacred Heart is as powerful and beloved as ever.
We are truly grateful to all who contributed to making this year’s Novena such a resounding success, as we take with us such a powerful and great message of love. The time and effort that went into the many details, from flowers, music, and readings, to the teas and coffees and socialising, and the planning of all the details in between, is always hugely appreciated. To all who joined us in prayer, be it in person or online, your presence has been a blessing and a gift. God bless you all.
MSC Novena to the Sacred Heart 2026, led by Fr John H. Walsh OP and accompanied by MSCs Fr John and Fr Tijo at the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork.
If you would like to watch this year’s Novena Masses,
please click here to view recordings of all nine days.
