Dear
Friends,
Each year
during May, a second collection is taken up in our diocese for Diocesan
Missions abroad. May is a fitting time to do that, for May is Easter time. When
Jesus left his disciples after the
Resurrection, He said to them, “Go and make disciple of all nations.” That call
was further conveyed to the whole church by the Second Vatican Council. Our
diocese was particularly mission-minded, with wide-ranging programs which
educated both adults and children that everyone, by virtue of baptism was to be
mission-minded. In addition, while Religious Orders of women and men had been
sending missionaries out for the whole of the twentieth century and before, this
was a new moment. Sisters and priests, used to ministering in our diocese, were
asked to consider being missionaries.
In our
diocese, the Sisters of Saint Joseph were the first to respond, sending five
Sisters to the Diocese of Jatai, Brazil, in August of 1964. Initially, we
worked in education, nursing and parish ministry. Our sisters are still in
Brazil, but spread from north to south, in the interior and in cities, engaged
in new works as needs emerged. The Sisters of Mercy went to Santiago, Chile in
August 1965 and worked in ministries to families. Eventually they too moved
into rural places to do pastoral work among the very poor. The Sisters of Mercy
remain in in Chile today.
Our
auxiliary bishop, Lawrence B. Casey, met the archbishop of La Paz, Bolivia, in
Rome during the Council. A plan was developed to invite our priests to go to La
Paz for service. Fr. Peter Deckman and Father Tom O’Brien went in 1966 to work
at San Jose Obrero, a parish in the northern part of the city. Priests from other dioceses in the USA also
ministered in LaPaz parishes. (The Archbishop was resourceful in getting the
help he needed!) Between 1966 and 1974, when the mission ended, five priests
and a layman from our diocese worked hard to prepare the people to take over
the functioning of the parish, which they do to his day. The original plan was
not that our clergy remain there, but that they be interim – in the service of
the people at a time of specific need.
I had the
privilege of traveling some five thousand miles through Brazil visiting our
Sister’s missions. Three brief anecdotes put a human face on their activities.
In Goiania, a city of over a million, recent arrivals from the interior were
given a small plot of land and some money to build a house. They were relegated
to the red clay hills on the edges of the city. All they could afford to build
initially were “half houses”. (Think of a house that had a central roof line.
Now cut that house in half.) When the people had saved enough money to build a
church in their midst, the Benedictines were commissioned to create a tabernacle.
As the artists listened to the people, the shape of the tabernacle became
clear. The tabernacle was created in the shape of a half house. On it were the
words, “God lives here.”
Two of us traveled by bus for 18 hours to get
to our Sisters who lived and worked in the Amazon region. The bus was no
Trailways! Two drivers were on board. So were people, their chickens and
bundles of what not. I held a sleeping girl on my lap fir six hours. When we
needed to cross a river, one driver got out and guided the other over two beams
that spanned the river.
Later in the
trip, near the equator, one of our Sisters took us on a long jeep trip to an
area where indigenous people lived. We were going to the funeral of chief who
had been assassinated by thugs, who, people believed, were hired by greedy
landowners who wanted the indigenous people’s land. At the funeral, the wife of
the slain chief stood in the midst of the people. In a strong voice, she
proclaimed. “Today, we are not here to bury my husband. No. We plant him, and
from his life and death, we draw strength to go forward to be strong and firm
in our quest for justice.”
It is
mistaken to believe that as missionaries our Sisters and priests went to Latin
America to bring faith to the people. The faith was already there. We were,
instead, to accompany them on their journey as they discerned their hopes,
needs and desires for life.
It was and
is a journey worth our taking.
