Jan 31, 2023
Dignity and hope at the Chevalier Training Centre
Located in Wainadoi in the province of Namosi, Fiji, the Chevalier Training Centre opened its doors in 1992 with the aim of offering a practical education to underprivileged young men between the ages of 16 and 21.
Each year, the CTC welcomes 60 – 75 young men who come from underprivileged backgrounds, preparing them for employment and making an important contribution to local society. Many of their students have not been able to complete their secondary education, because of poverty in the home or struggles with broken family units, while others find themselves unemployed and lacking the practical skills they need to find employment.
“Our mission is to help these young men to face life with confidence and dignity,” says the CTC community. “Our priority is to assist those who have the least hope.”
    
Students are taught basic life skills such as accounting and time management, in addition to the curriculum, which includes cabinet making, carpentry, welding and fabrication, motor mechanics, farm management, and animal husbandry.
Students are asked to contribute $150 Fijian dollars, approximately €65, per year; however, many cannot afford to pay. The students also generate income for the centre, through local carpentry and construction jobs, selling their farm produce, and an annual bazaar where goods created during school workshops are sold.
This year, the Chevalier Training Centre is working to raise funds to help with day-to-day expenses, covering costs such as school fees, food, workshops and counselling, and medicine.
- €345 will pay for all students’ food for one week.
- €865 will cover school fees for students who cannot afford to pay.
- €1,730 will be dedicated to medical expenses, wellbeing workshops, and counselling sessions.
- €3,945 will pay 10% of annual staff wages.
- €4,325 will buy essential new items of furniture and linen for students.
CAN YOU HELP THE CHEVALIER TRAINING CENTRE?
Second chances at the Chevalier Hostel
Established in 1981 in Suva, in the Fiji Islands, the Chevalier Hostel provides accommodation for young men who are trying to complete their education in the face of severely limiting financial difficulties.
The hostel is currently home to 13 students, between the ages of 13 and 22. The mission of the Chevalier Hostel is to provide a family-oriented, healthy environment for vulnerable youths. The community here also helps to rehabilitate young men who have previously been in trouble with the police, and who now wish to make a fresh start.
The hostel asks for a voluntary contribution of approximately €65 from each student per year, and those that can are glad to contribute. Students themselves also contribute to the running of the hostel, with regular fundraising activities such as selling raffle tickets, or hosting bazaars featuring homegrown produce and homemade cakes and preserves.
With the Chevalier Hostel stretched to capacity, the community is appealing for help in raising money to contribute to daily expenses. “We are grateful to these generous people who support and care for our boys and we thank them sincerely.”
- €305 will buy the hostel’s food for a month.
- €520 will pay for fuel for one year.
- €870 will be dedicated to medical expenses, wellbeing workshops, and counselling.
- €22 will pay for a Maths or English tutorial.
- €435 will pay for water and electricity for the hostel for one year.
IF YOU CAN, PLEASE SUPPORT THE CHEVALIER HOSTEL
Jan 31, 2023
For more than 35 years, young men have joined our mission in India,
answering the Lord’s call to be Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
Today, 71 priests and 14 professed brothers are fulfilling a shared vision
to bring the compassion of the Sacred Heart to those in need.
Journeying together in the love of the Sacred Heart
In India, training to be an MSC priest is a long process, involving spiritual, intellectual, pastoral, and personal formation. The formation programme takes 10-12 years, and is divided into several stages, each focusing on different aspects of personal and spiritual development: Pre-Novitiate Formation, Graduation in Philosophy, Novitiate and Post-Novitiate Pastoral Year, and Graduation in Theology.
Pre-Novitiate Formation takes place at our formation house, Hridayalaya (the Temple of the Heart), which is situated in Mysore, a city located around 160km south-west of Bangalore. Here, a great emphasis is placed on academic and intellectual formation during the two-year Pre-Novitiate programme, ranging from spoken English for new students, to sermon preaching as deacons. As many of our students with vocations come from rural backgrounds, they require intensive training in English.
A spirit of community life is a core focus at every stage of formation. Members of the community wake up to pray together, celebrate the Holy Eucharist together daily, and spend time in meditation in order to deepen spiritual awareness. Students are trained in music, singing, washing, cleaning, cooking, and driving. The students themselves take responsibility for organising the kitchen and the weekly grocery shop, while they also take care of the garden, and must ensure that the house is kept clean and tidy. A great sense of brotherhood is nurtured here, as members celebrate birthdays and special occasions together in the spirit of family.
At present, there are 17 students and three priests in the Hridayalaya community, studying scripture, spirituality, and the history and vision of the MSC mission. Mysore student ministry includes parish ministry, education for underprivileged children, youth ministry, visits to the elderly, and prison visits, along with a dedicated daily routine of prayer, study, household chores, gardening, and meditation. After completing their Pre-Novitiate programme, students will begin a three-year graduate and philosophy programme.
MSCs in India are appealing for help with funding
college and boarding fees for the formation programme,
including travel, food, and expenses, at a total of €17,550.
IF YOU CAN, PLEASE SUPPORT OUR MSC MISSIONS IN INDIA
Family of the heart
From humble beginnings, with just 20 students when it opened its doors in 2006, the Chevalier Academy Matriculation School in Dindigul now cares for and educates 800 students. “Mrs Mary” has dedicated over a decade to serving the needs of students and staff as care-taker at the school for the past 15 years.
In turn, MSCs have taken care of Mary, a widow, by providing an education for her three daughters. One is now working, another has dedicated her life to the Lord, having joined a religious sisters’ congregation, and the youngest is currently studying nursing.
Now, the MSC Indian Union are raising funds to build a house for Mary, who currently lives in a thatched shed with no electricity, no security, and no proper facilities. The Irish Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart are helping to fund the project, which will cost approximately €15,400 in total, removing the fear of an uncertain future for Mary and creating a safe, secure space in which Indian MSCs can provide accommodation for generations to come. In the spirit of our founder, Fr Jules Chevalier MSC, who believed that “our spirit is one of love for justice and concern for all, especially the very poor,” MSCs in India continue to extend the hand of friendship, support, and God’s love to our extended family of the heart, in response to the signs of the time and the needs of the people.
“Please keep us in your prayers as we continue in sharing our mission to love through our Formation Programme. With sincere gratitude for your support; we will keep you in our prayers during our daily mass, our every prayer, and at every meal.”
~ Fr Darwin Thatheus MSC
Indian Regional Superior
IF YOU CAN, PLEASE SUPPORT OUR MSC MISSIONS IN INDIA
Jan 26, 2023
Heartfelt thanks to the community of Blessington Parish in Co. Wicklow, who collected a generous donation for our own Fr Alan Neville MSC, to support his current ministry in Rumbek, South Sudan.
Each year, a crib exhibition takes place in Blessington Parish Centre, with cribs on display representing different places and cultures all over the world. Local parishioners and clergy each donate their own unique crib to the exhibition, with over 100 cribs on display this year during the three-day exhibit from December 17th to 20th 2022.
A real community affair, the exhibition involves locals of all ages, with a reach far beyond the parish spanning cultures from across the globe. “There is a multicultural aspect to the display, as the cribs come from every continent,” Blessing Parish reports. “Local schoolchildren are invited to the exhibition and part of the enjoyment is observing the variety of materials used in the designs.”
The 2022 exhibition raised a total of €200, which was generously donated to Fr Alan in support of his work in South Sudan. This came in addition to another donation of a further €200, raised at a special Harvest Mass in Lacken Church, also in Blessington Parish, last November.
Fr Alan is currently ministering in South Sudan, working with both the Loreto primary and secondary schools and the Catholic University in Rumbek to promote truly vital education and empowerment for young women in a region where forced marriages are all too unfortunate a reality, and a teenage girl is more likely to die in childbirth than graduate from secondary school. This wonderful contribution from Blessington Parish is a real gift to Fr Alan and the Rumbek community, in a gesture of friendship that reinforces the inestimable power of kindness and unity across the miles.
Images courtesy of Carmel O’Neill at Blessington Parish.
*
Jan 19, 2023
At the end of 2022, the Philippines Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart marked the completion of the Gilutongan Island phase of the MSC Typhoon Odette Housing Project with the blessing of the newly constructed houses in the area, just short of a year after Typhoon Odette hit the region in December 2021.
The house blessing ceremony took place at the end of November, with Fr Joel Bonza MSC (Cebu District Superior) and Fr Samuel Patriarca MSC (Director of the Philippines Mission Office), leading the celebrations, alongside several MSC priests from the Cebu District, including Fr Reynante Joseph Ga, Fr Ramil Baluran and Fr Juls Amaneo.
Hundreds of thousands of families found themselves displaced from their homes in December 2021, when Typhoon Odette hit the Philippines with devastating consequences. The super-typhoon was the strongest storm of the year, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries, and damaging – often destroying – hundreds of thousands of homes. Recalling the impact of the typhoon shortly after it passed, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart – Social Initiative and Collaborative Action Project said, “When it made landfall, winds of up to 210 km per hour were uprooting coconut trees, ripping down electricity poles, and hurling slabs of corrugated tin and wood through the air.”
Work had commenced on the Gilutongan Island project, situated in Cordova, Cebu, back in July 2022, following the first stage of the Typhoon Odette Housing Project in Bayagnan Island, Surigao City, earlier in the year. As reported by the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines, a total of 254 households benefitted from the Gilutongan Island phase of the project, including 108 homes that had been completely destroyed by Typhoon Odette, and 146 houses that had partial damage.
“On behalf of the beneficiaries, we thank all our donors, mission partners and volunteers who helped us in many ways to make this project possible,” read a post on the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office in the Philippines. “We also extend our gratitude to the Task Force Typhoon Odette – Gilutongan and the community leaders who worked hard in the implementation and monitoring of the project. To all of you, DAGHANG SALAMAT KANINYONG TANAN! (Thank you all so much!)”
    
Now, a year after the storm, we send our heartfelt congratulations and blessings to our MSC brothers in the Philippines, and to the families and communities who have been working so hard to rebuild their homes and their lives since. We keep them in our prayers, that they may be safe and filled with hope as we begin a new year and mark a new chapter for the people of Gilutongan Island.
    
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC Mission Office Philippines, Inc.
PLEASE HELP OUR SACRED HEART FAMILY IN THE PHILIPPINES
Jan 12, 2023
As hearts all over the world rejoiced in unity at the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we were delighted to see these wonderful photographs of this year’s Christmas celebrations from our MSC mission in Mozambique.
On December 23rd, Fr Jose Eduardo Paixao MSC celebrated a moving Christmas service with the nurses of the Metuge District Hospital, before joining the community of St Antonio de Metuge for a beautiful Nativity Mass on Christmas Day itself.
    
Established in March 2018, our Mozambique mission is now coming into its sixth year of ministry in the Diocese of Pemba. In a region that is besieged by war, violence, and political unrest, along with the threat posed by natural disasters such as cyclones, the mission is constantly adapting to meet the needs of local communities and parishioners as they arise.
The Irish Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart has a long-standing friendship with our Mozambique mission, most recently joining forces with the community of Metuge to raise funds for war refugees who have settled there. Since 2017, war in the region has left over 850,000 displaced, with many having lost their lives or gone missing from their homes. Along with Fr Jose, we have been raising funds to establish two new projects, a chicken farming programme and a community radio project, to encourage self-sufficiency, dignity, and an improved quality of life for the local community, including those who have been displaced by war, in the district of Metuge.
With local struggles ongoing, and the mission facing constant challenges, it is a joy to see the spirit of Christmas, of unity, and of compassion, in these very special images. As we begin a new year, we ask you to keep out MSC Mozambique mission in your prayers, as we send every grace and blessing of the Sacred Heart to our MSCs and the communities they serve in Metuge.
Images via the Facebook page for MSC Mozambique, with credit to Abudo Manara.
*
Jan 5, 2023
“Growing up in Ireland, it was impossible to get through December without hearing Do They Know It’s Christmas? repeatedly. Like crackers with bad jokes, or recipes that try (in vain) to make brussels sprouts tasty, the song was an essential and important part of festive season. It electrified people and called them to act in solidarity with the people of East Africa who were suffering from famine in 1984. As I wandered around the Loreto convent in Rumbek almost forty years later, I could hear it again – repeatedly. One of the sisters in the community is a keen Christmas music aficionada – and when I say keen, I mean really keen!
The run up to Christmas in Rumbek has certainly been busy. We finished up work in the Catholic University on the 16th, concluding the first half of our bridging course with our new students. Due to conflicts that eventually led to South Sudanese Independence and the civil war of 2013, levels of education remain stubbornly low. Consequently, everyone beginning our degree programmes must undertake six weeks of intensive maths and English to prepare them for third level studies. We are hoping to welcome almost forty new students who are planning to study a degree in either business administration or English and English literature. We have a record number of women joining our courses, which is a real gift. They benefit from a scholarship programme supported by the Mission Support Centre that reduces their fees and supports their studies. In our small way, we are looking to redress the gender imbalance in education that excludes that vast majority of women.
This last year has been one of the most peaceful in Lakes State, but it does not happen by chance. Initiatives on many levels in both Church and state work to create a safer, more secure environment. Just before Christmas, Sr Orla planned a peace walk with the young women from the Loreto internship programme. Over twenty of us began before dawn and walked towards Cueibet, a parish some 50km away. We got most of the way there, before the temperatures went up to the high thirties. Part of the reason for the walk was to model how young women from different ethnic groups all around the country journeyed together in solidarity and encouraged people they met, especially young girls, to pursue a brighter future.
We all went to a local parish where I was celebrating Mass for Christmas Eve. It was to begin at 8:30pm, but, based on my experience from being there last year, I settled on a wall outside and welcomed people as they gradually arrived. In no time at all, the church was packed to the rafters, and we all welcomed the birth of Jesus with joy and song. Previously, it would not have been possible to have so many people out that late at night, but now the streets were busy with groups of people on their way to their churches. They absolutely know it’s Christmas time.
For Christmas Day, the girls who stayed with us for the holidays cooked the food, while I was off for another Mass. Each year a group remain in the school, either because they live far away from Rumbek or they cannot go home due to a forced marriage issue. Either way, we all sat down to a lunch of pork, sakumawiki (like cabbage, but not really), tamalaka (a peanut and greens like sauce), paper food (not sure how to describe that one), and Irish potatoes (which are just potatoes, but in the market that’s what they are called). We were joined by our Bishop and some guests, including boys from the La Salle school who also couldn’t make it home. The day ended with Sr Orla introducing the girls to Monopoly, which in retrospect, based on years of inevitable conflict in Irish homes, was not the best idea. Still, good fun was had by all, even if the Bishop’s team cheated.
So, we are looking forward to the New Year with a sense of anticipation. The new library renovation for the University supported by the MSC benefactors will be completed in January. I won’t have to worry about the bat droppings landing on my desk anymore through a ceiling that looks like Swiss cheese, and the students will have a place to study and do group work. The Pope is planning to come to South Sudan in February as part of an ecumenical peace initiative. The Loreto team and students will lead an eight-day walking pilgrimage to Juba for the event. It should be a wonderful occasion. Please do keep us in our prayers, as you are most assuredly in ours.”
Wishing you and your families every blessing for 2023,
Fr Alan
Read more from Fr Alan’s missionary journey in South Sudan:
PLEASE HELP US TO TRANSFORM LIVES IN SOUTH SUDAN
