From your Pastors
This past weekend at both parishes we participated in the annual mission support appeal, as we do every year. It was an honor to host Sister Regina Mgbakor and Fr Magnus Irele, both from different areas of southern Nigeria.
Sr Regina spoke with great enthusiasm and effectiveness at St Boniface, sharing about the life changing work of the Maranatha Care Mission, providing cataract and other surgeries. Fr Magnus celebrated both masses at ABVM and shared about the work of the diocese of Bomadi and the local church’s role in providing portable water to the largely impoverished region.
It is a privilege to be able to share in the work of missionaries. Having spent some time living and working in Kenya three facts remain strongly relevant to the work of the Church in some of the poorest places in the world. (Coincidentally Fr Michael was in Haiti this past weekend working on the school that he and his father have established.)
One, effective aide needs to be a partnership with the local people, enabling them to be the decisive partners in their own future. This takes a long term commitment. While there is undoubtedly a role at times of crisis for emergency assistance, what has the power to bring about lasting and respectful change is the day to day commitment to a shared future over many years. It takes time and ongoing relationships to know what is truly needed and for it to be effective.
Two, many missionaries find it less difficult to raise funds for schools, clinics and development projects. What is more difficult is to get funding for the missionaries themselves, without whom the long term relationship of those projects is jeopardized. Given the paucity of resources in many missionary lands, the missionaries themselves would not survive without the support of more developed countries. This is where we can be and essential partner in their work.
Three, in many of the poorest places in our world, in the absence of government assistance, the Church is the only resource to which people can turn for the most basic needs. Needs we often can take for granted. As Fr Magnus shared, the water many of the people of Bomadi have access to is full of parasites and washing can threaten a person’s sight and livelihood. As Sr Regina shared, the people that the Maranatha Mission assist can have cataract surgery and other basic treatments that are relatively routine for the developed world.
The most practical application of the Gospel is the work of Charity. When God comes into the world in the person of Jesus Christ he does not use his power to remove people from the human condition but to enter into it fully, even unto our mortality. Jesus uses his power to love: to heal, to forgive, to restore people to community, and affirm their dignity. Jesus’ ministry is essentially one of solidarity. And it is that solidarity that heals. The frightening equation many poor people live with is: I have nothing so I must be nothing. I have little of value so I must be worthless. It is not true. No person born into our shared world is worthless. Every child is a priceless gift of God’s co-creative love.
The work of missionaries may never be our vocations, (though we hope some of us are generous enough to heed that calling) but we can share in their work of reminding others, especially the most forgotten and impoverished, that they are precious and their lives are worthy of respect and support.
If you didn’t get a chance to support the work of Sr Regina and Fr Magnus you can go on to the PushPay website of both parishes and do so through the Summer Mission Appeal tab or drop an envelope in the next collection. As always, thank you for your generosity. Together, and little by little, we can make a better word for all.
Fr. Mark Lane, c.o. and Fr. Michael Callaghan, c.o.
