Dec 11, 2025
As we approach the end of the year, we have been catching up with the community at our vocational school Centro Faustino Villanueva in San AgustĂn, Guatemala, where students and their teachers have been extremely busy! Fr Jairo Sevilla Mendoza MSC, director at the centre, has been in touch with some wonderful photos of the latest news from the school, from hard work and dedication to celebrations and graduations.
“We are already in the final stretch of the school year,” Fr Jairo writes, “a year full of hopes, but also of challenges due to some economic realities. We continue to move forward, with the great desire that young people achieve their goals and have better opportunities.”
Founded by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in 1984, Centro Faustino Villanueva has been dedicated to helping vulnerable and disadvantaged youths in the rural region of San AgustĂn, Alta Verapaz, and its surrounds, for over 40 years. The school is situated approximately eight hours’ drive from Guatemala City, in an extremely remote area, and is an invaluable resource for young people who would otherwise be isolated by their locality and the challenges raised by coming from backgrounds of severe poverty.
“It is with great gratitude that we thank you for your help,” Fr Jairo says. “With this, we can continue to make the support for the young people we accompany in our establishment a reality – especially the young scholarship holders who live at the boarding school.”
“I am glad to send a set of photographs of the students in workshops, on the farms, and at the graduation stage. We are currently in occupational training workshops, where our students are learning electricity, baking, and computers. This aims to support them so that they can carry out entrepreneurship in their villages or places where they are from.”
“Together, we are reaching goals. May God bless you always.”
Images courtesy of Fr Jairo Uriel Sevilla Mendoza MSC, Director of Centro Faustino Villanueva.
Nov 27, 2025
On Saturday, November 22nd, a team of MSCs and volunteers visited Nuestra Señora del Carmen Church, in the parish of La Santa Cruz in Propatria, Venezuela, to distribute care packages to hungry families.
With local communities facing on-going struggles with social and political unrest, poverty is a real and pressing issue in these barrios, urban neighbourhoods where families have very little income and often live in extremely overcrowded and uncomfortable conditions. Many families don’t know where their next meal is coming from, or how they are going to feed their children, and these care packages are a lifeline to them.
Bro Deiby Fuenmayor sent us some photographs of last weekend’s food drive, writing that it was completed “with the support of people of goodwill”, with thanks for their “cheerful hearts”. These pictures show more effectively than any words can describe the extremely difficult living conditions in the uphill region of Propatria, Caracas, where homes are the most basic shelters and accessibility is enormously challenging, especially for the elderly or infirm.
Irish MSCs Fr Tom O’Brien, Fr John Jennings, and Fr Tom Jordan continue in their ministry on the Venezuelan mission, working together with local communities across Maracaibo and Caracas to provide spiritual guidance and practical aid, including essential food and medical care, to those in great need. The social and political situation in Venezuela continues to be volatile, and it is the country’s people that suffer the effects of this with lack of employment opportunities, insufficient income, and a huge shortage of adequate food and medical care. We keep our MSC brothers, and the communities they serve, in our prayers as they continue to share God’s love in these regions of real and pressing need.
If you are able to help our ongoing ministry in Venezuela, please click here.
Oct 15, 2025
Welcome to the Winter 2025 edition of the MSC Message!Â
- Read a special greeting from Fr John Fitzgerald MSC, Director of the MSC Missions Office.
- Catch up on the latest news from the mission fields, including updates from our MSC brothers in Mozambique and the Philippines.
- Enjoy the latest updates from the Irish Province, with news of our fundraising hike through Gougane Barra and our annual Novenas to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
- Read a special thank you letter from our OLSH Sisters, who are keeping us up to date on mission work completed with funds raised from our annual World Projects Appeal.
- Discover more about Irish Provincial Leader Fr Joe McGee’s recent visit to South Sudan.
- Find the latest pictures and updates from our ongoing ministry in Venezuela.
Please click here to read the Winter 2025 edition of the MSC Message
Oct 14, 2025
On September 30th, a devastating earthquake measuring at a magnitude of 6.9 struck the Cebu Province of the Philippines – reportedly the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Northern Cebu. The earthquake had a shattering impact, killing at least 75 people, injuring over 1,200, and causing huge infrastructural damage, with homes and businesses alike destroyed. Reported as the deadliest earthquake in the country since 2013, it has demolished buildings including churches and hospitals, and ruined countless livelihoods.
MSCs in the region have been providing emergency response aid to as many people as possible in affected communities, with the MSC Centre for the Poor working alongside the MSC Mission Office and several other support teams and volunteers. On October 7th, an outreach programme took place in Bogo City, providing emergency essentials such as food and safe drinking water to over 700 families in Brgy. Anonang Sur.
“The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart – Cebu District conducted a relief operation together with the parishes under their care (Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish-Babag, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish-Marigondon, Our Lady of Fatima Parish-Pusok, Nuestra Señora de Regla Parish National Shrine and San Roque Parish-Cordova) and with support from the MSC Mission Office Philippines, Fr. Jules Chevalier, MSC Mission Center, St. Alphonsus Catholic School and MSM Sisters,” reports the Facebook page for the MSC – Center for the Poor Cebu District.
Thanks to the continuing generosity of our mission friends and benefactors here in the Irish Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, we have been able to provide our MSC brothers in the Philippines with emergency financial aid to support their urgent relief projects in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Please continue to keep them in your prayers as they work to help families and communities across the Cebu district to rebuild their lives in the ongoing wake of this natural disaster.
PLEASE SUPPORT OUR MSC MISSIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC – Center for the Poor Cebu District
Jul 31, 2025
Welcome to the Summer 2025 edition of the MSC Message!
- Read a special greeting from Fr John Fitzgerald MSC, Director of the MSC Missions Office.
- Catch up on the latest news from the mission fields, including updates from the Holy Family Care Centre in Africa, from our MSC brothers in Mozambique, from the MSC Centre for the Poor in the Philippines, and from the Chevalier Training Centre in Fiji.
- Enjoy pictures from Holy Week and Easter celebrations and ceremonies around the world.
- Read a special tribute to the late Pope Francis, and learn more about our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV.
- Fr Alan Neville MSC writes from South Sudan, where he is currently ministering with the Loreto team in Rumbek.
- Find the latest updates from the Province of the Pacific Islands, where this year so far has seen eight young men beginning their pre-novitiate journey, two MSC brothers undertaking their Perpetual Profession, and great celebrations for the ordination of Fr Richard Momo MSC.
Please click here to read the Summer 2025 edition of the MSC Message
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