We were delighted to receive some images this morning from our friends in the Loreto Schools Rumbek.
Progress on the building of the graduate housing is coming along very nicely and this is all thanks to your kind and generous support of the South Sudan Summer Appeal 2017.
We’re looking forward to watching the project progress over the coming months.
Keep up the great work everyone ?
Click on an image to view larger.
Click on image to view larger.
This summer, the MSC reached out to support the Loretto Sisters in Rumbek, South Sudan, where they have made huge strides in creating a better life for residents with life saving medical care and essential educational facilities.
During her recent visit to Ireland, Sr Orla Treacy IBVM visited the MSC Missions Office, to personally thank Fr Michael O’Connell MSC and all of the MSC mission friends for their financial support from their recent fundraising Summer Appeal.
Sr Orla, far left, with some of the Loreto School students
“It is unique for one congregation to financially support another one, so this contribution to our work in Rumbek is extremely generous” she said. In 2008, the Loretto Sisters began working in the rural community of Maker Kuei, Rumbek, where daily life is a constant struggle for 1,000 families. During this period they have built a Primary School that caters for almost 900 students, both male and female, where students are guaranteed to have clean water, nutritious meals, access to health care and a quality education.
The Loretto Secondary School is an all girls’ boarding school, where students are educated in social and life skills as well as receiving a full academic tuition. Currently, 240 girls attend this school, and the demand for places is increasing as principal Sr Orla works with families to protect these young women from enforced marriage. As a result of the very successful MSC Summer Appeal the funds collected have been sent to the Loretto Sisters and work has begun on the foundations for a new dormitory which will accommodate 16 girls each year as they embark on an additional internship year and vocational opportunities.
The foundations for the dormitories which will house 16 of the Internship Programme students
In recognition for her work in South Sudan, Sr Orla was the recipient of the 2017 Hugh O’Flaherty International Humanitarian Award, at an event in Killarney on the 4th November 2017. “It is very humbling to accept this award and I do so on behalf of our sisters, staff and students at loretto School in Rumbek, South Sudan” she told a large and appreciative audience who came to honour her inspiring work.
Sr Orla with the statue of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and her Humanitarian Award
We are calling on all our mission friends to join with our MSC community in supporting this crucial work in a country that’s crying out for urgent aid.
PLEASE HELP US TO SAVE LIVES IN SOUTH SUDAN
Read more about the Loreto Sisters and their incredible work in the war-torn South Sudan.
The winter edition of the MSC Message has arrived!
Read the MSC Message Winter 2017
November is the month of the Holy Souls, a special time when we remember those who have gone before us. The Light Up a Memory Mass is a beautiful celebration of the lives of our dearly departed, as we join together to pray by candlelight in an evening of reflection and remembrance.
“This is an opportunity to remember those who are no longer with us with fondness and affection,” says Fr Michael O’Connell MSC, director of the MSC Missions Office. “During the dark winter days, a light is unique gift, and each of these lights is a beacon of remembrance in honour of the loved ones who are always in our thoughts.”
On the evening of the Mass, the Sacred Heart Church is illuminated by the glow of hundreds of candles, with choral music adding to the peaceful and prayerful ambience. We come together to pray by the welcoming glow of candlelight in an evening of reflection and remembrance, with each flame burning brightly in memory of those whom we have lost.
We would like to extend an invitation to you to join us on Saturday 25th November at 6.30pm to remember our departed family, friends, and loved ones who have gone before us.
The Light up a Memory Mass is a very special occasion and we would like to offer you the opportunity to submit the names of your departed loved ones online before the 25th and our MSC priests will remember them specially during our Light Up a Memory Mass. We would greatly appreciate your support for our ongoing mission projects, and in gratitude for your contribution, we will be glad to remember your intentions at our annual Mass.
If you are unable to join us on the night we welcome you to watch the Light Up a Memory Mass live here on our website.
The Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30). You have been faithful in small things; come and join in your master’s happiness. The parable of the talents, read in today’s Gospel, can be easily understood, and its message is clear: we should make good use of the gifts which the Lord, God, has given us, and be aware that we will have to render an account of their use to the Lord in due time. Fundamentally, a talent was a weight of 80 pounds, or 36 kilograms. We are then not surprised to see how in the parable one of the persons involved dug a hole in the ground and hid the single talent. A talent had also money value, and in this context it is reckoned to be equal to six thousand (6000) denarii, a single denarius being the ordinary daily wage of a workman. This would mean that a single talent would be equal to twenty years (some would say more that fifteen years) wages for an ordinary workman. The word talent is also used in the sense of gift, natural endowment. The message of the parable, as has been noted, is that people should use the gifts, the talents, whether great or small, which the Lord has given them. Although five talents, or even two, was a large amount, in his reply to those who used them with profit, the Lord calls them “small things”, and they are invited to join in the master’s happiness – which in the Christian context of the parable would mean eternal bliss.
As a parable in itself, this one could fit into any part of the Gospels. However, in its present context it forms part of Jesus’ final discourse on the Last Things, which has as its central theme: Watch, stay awake, be prepared for the day and the hour. Immediately before this parable we have that on the Ten Bridesmaids, with the same theme, and immediately after it Christ’s discourse on the Final Judgment, the Judgement of the Nations. It is thus a suitable reading for this Sunday, at the end of the liturgical year.
Traditionally, at the end of the liturgical year and at the beginning of Advent the Church in the Sunday liturgy devoted its attention to the Last Things, and to the importance of being prepared to meet the Lord at the particular judgment that follows earthly death. No great attention is paid today to death and to the importance of dying in God’s grace, or even to Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians to live as children of the light, according to the teaching of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. And even if these truths are forgotten, death can come suddenly, as a thief in the night.
There is further material for reflection in today’s Gospel reading that everyone should use their God-given talents, whether great or small., to the best of their ability for their own good, that of their neighbour and of the entire community.
Martin McNamara MSC