Last week I was at a talk in Dublin on the work of the VSO and the future of overseas volunteering after 2015. All in all an interesting morning with good contributions from representative of the UN, the European Parliment and academia. They also invited Fr. Fachtna O’Driscoll, the Provincial of the SMA Fathers, to address the group about the missionary legacy of the Church and its future. In the course of his talk he revealed a startling statistic. By adding up the number of years that missionary brothers, sisters and priests worked all around the world he estimated that their commitment added up to more than 200,000 years altogether.
Fr. Tom O’Brien MSC working in Venezuela
It was an astonishing figure. When he said it the reaction of the people in the room was interesting. There was admiration, a little indifference, but above all surprise. There is something to be proud of when we think of all those people who had the courage to follow their vocation; to go out to the whole world and to proclaim the good news.
This missionary tradtion continues today. Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and our lay partners continue to work throughout the world in some of the most marginalised places, supporting and reminding people of their inherent dignity as brothers and sister of Christ, as children of God.
Out MSC Volunteering Programme has officially got the green light and we’re very excited to continue the missionary tradition by sending four lay people to work with our Sister congregation in South Africa. Over the summer months they will live and work in the Holy Family Centre in Limpopo with almost seventy children who have lost parents due to HIV / AIDS and TB. It will be an opportunity to serve and grow and add yet another year to the rich history of missionary life.