Category: Missionary Vocation

The second part of the XIX century saw a massive emigration of poor people from the countries of Europe to America and Australia. Millions left their homeland and faced the unknown in search of land and livelihood. Scattered over immense territories, they suffered isolation and the lack of facilities essential for their lives and the healthy development of their children. On their wake, went an army of religious men and women: they built schools and hospitals in the remotest areas and were often the only hope of the pioneers. Some years ago, I was in Denver, Colorado, guest of a large school of the Loreto Sisters. I remember praying the rosary in the cemetery where rows of dozens of white tombstones spoke of the sacrifice of the many consecrated young women of the frontier, courageous companions of the millions of poor Catholics who tamed the Far West.  Convicts were the first to settle Australia. They were followed by hundreds of thousands of poor people coming from different nations. Convicts didn’t seem particularly impressed with the champions of Christianity. When Governor King ordered that they attend Church on Sundays, they responded by burning the church to the ground. Similarly, many convicts had tattooed onto their backs images of crucifixes or angels holding cups of blood. This gave the impression that when they were being flogged, Christ Himself was being flogged. The convicts were obviously good judges of character as some of Church personnel had acted in a manner that ran contrary to Christianity’s message. However, not all Christian missionaries were bad people. One shining light was Sr. Mary MacKillop. Like Jesus Himself, Mary was a troublemaker. She worked tirelessly for the poor since her early youth when she realized the plight of the immigrant children who were abandoned without education. For them, she became the Founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph at the early age of 24 and paid for her single-minded commitment to the most isolated of them with the opposition of the Church authorities. Mary MacKillop was considered to be a woman ahead of her time for many reasons. First, in Australia, she wanted her Sisters to be under the government of a Sister superior-general who would be free to send them wherever there was a need. She wanted her Sisters to live as the poor did, in small communities of two or three members, and in houses that were poor like those of the people. She encouraged the Sisters to live in isolated places where Mass and the Sacraments may have been available to them infrequently. She saw all persons as being equal before God, regardless of social status, religion, race or age. Finally, she had a vision for the whole of Australia when it was still a country of individual colonies.    Early life history Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne – a city that by then was only seven years of existence – of immigrant parents from Scotland. Living arrangements were primitive. Mary’s parents had

The life of Leonard Cheshire followed a classic pattern of Christian hagiography: birth into a well-to-do family; a dashing, turbulent and spiritually thoughtless youth; an unexpected encounter with God, followed by conversion, suffering, voluntary poverty and dedication to prayer and good works. To describe holiness convincingly is quite difficult, but for Leonard Cheshire and his wife Sue Ryder there is no other word that accounts for their exceptional dedication to the most unfortunate, inspired by their Catholic faith. Especially Leonard, a modest, reserved but totally self-assured Englishman, who deserved to be called by Nehru, the father of independent India, “the greatest man since Gandhi.” Leonard Cheshire was born at Chester, England, on September 7, 1917. His background was cultivated and secure. His father was professor of law at Oxford; his mother came from a military family. Anglicanism was in their blood but not taken very seriously. The family was close, affectionate and supportive. Young Leonard went to Oxford where he took a second-class degree in law and acquired a reputation for dare-devil exploits, disregard for authority and a self-assurance bordering on arrogance. He joined the University Air Squadron, learned to fly and found that he enjoyed it. In early 1939, with war clearly looming, he applied for a permanent commission in the RAF (Royal Air Force). When war broke out, between June 1940 and August 1941, he carried out more than 100 bombing missions, encountering hazards and deaths on an almost unimaginable scale.  In March 1943, he became the youngest group captain in the Service and in September that year was given command of the celebrated “Dambuster” squadron which specialized in low-level bombing. Cheshire was nearing the end of his fourth tour of duty in July 1944, when he was awarded the “Victoria Cross,” the highest British war decoration.  His citation read: “In four years of fighting against the bitterest opposition, he maintained a standard of outstanding personal achievement, his successful operations being the result of careful planning, brilliant execution and supreme contempt for danger. Cheshire displayed the courage and determination of an exceptional leader.”  Following a staff job in India, he was nominated by Churchill in 1945 to be one of the two British observers at the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. This experience affected him deeply and convinced him that no government could ever again face the risk of nuclear attack, and that nuclear deterrence, therefore, opened up the possibility of world peace. To the end of his life, he believed in world peace as an attainable goal and nuclear deterrence as a necessary condition of achieving it. On his return from the mission, he left the RAF and went home to his house: Le Court in Hampshire.    The peacetime hero The end of the war found him with no clear idea of what to do next. But the business of war, the horrors he had undergone and helped to inflict, the comradeship and discovery of his own gift for leadership had matured and deepened

Zilda Arns, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of the International Pastoral da Criança (Child Pastoral), was killed on Tuesday, January 12, in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti. She was at Port-au-Prince studying the implementation of her program in that island. Only moments before her death, she had spoken to the Assembly of the Religious in these terms: “I want to manifest my great joy to be here with you all, at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in order to take part in the Assembly of the Religious. As sister of two Franciscans and three Religious Sisters, I feel most happy among you…”  And, after explaining with enthusiasm about her healing mission, she had concluded: “The results of our voluntary work, with the mystique of the love of God and neighbor, are in harmony with Mother Earth and all our sister creatures, flowers and fruits, rivers, lakes, seas, woods and animals. All this shows us that the organized society can be protagonist of its own transformation. In this spirit, strengthening the ties that unite our community, we can find solutions to the grave social problems that affect our poor families. Like the sparrows that care for their small ones by building a nest high on trees or on the mountains, far from predators and closer to God, we must care for our children like a sacred treasure, promote the respect of their rights and protect them.”   Education rather than charity One of 13 children, Zilda Arns was born to devout German-speaking parents in rural southern Brazil on August 25, 1934. Two of her earliest memories were of seeing her father go door-to-door on his horse to help contain a smallpox epidemic and watching her mother arrange for a sick neighbor to be taken to the nearest hospital on the back of a cart, a journey of three hours. It was in her childhood that Zilda Arns had the inspiration for her future: “My mom studied homemade medicine in German books. She saw people and knew who needed to go to the hospital and who could be treated at home.” Another characteristic of the family was discipline. “We had to wake up very early to milk the cow,” she said. According to her, this discipline was providential: “I have no difficulties starting very early and facing 15 hours of work.” In Zilda Arns’s days, there was always work to be done.  Those selfless acts inspired her to contemplate life as a doctor, even though most of her siblings became priests or teachers. Having studied Medicine, she graduated from university in 1959, working in local hospitals tending to infants; she was then given charge of a string of clinics in the impoverished outskirts of the southern city of Curitiba. Zilda Arns quickly saw that many common ailments were preventable, and began teaching mothers basic pre- and post-natal care, as well as useful tasks such as sewing and cooking. It turned out to be the perfect preparation for work that would make her famous. 

My friend, Peter Loceng, is a stout young man, a teacher by profession with a degree from Birmingham University in England, happily married with children. He belongs to the Karimojon tribe of north-western Uganda and he is completely blind. In the early 1980s, Peter was an adolescent growing up in the savannah of Kotido, North Karamoja, when an accident made him completely blind. His family brought him to the school for the blind that a Comboni sister, Sr. Lucia Careddu, had opened in Kangole, South Karamoja, as an addition to her large Kangole Girls’ Primary School.  Blindness became a blessing in disguise for Peter. Since he was very good in school and passed his High School Certificate with flying colors, Sr. Lucia took him to the bishop who took a liking at the bulky, blind but smart and cheerful young man. The bishop found some benefactors for Peter and sent him to study in England. When he came back from Birmingham with his degree, Bishop Paul Kalanda asked me to keep him as a teacher in Nadiket Seminary. Sr. Lucia was very proud of him: she was like a mother to him and his success was a single but meaningful reward for her life of utter dedication.   An unusual sunstroke Lucia was born on November 16, 1923 at Sant’Antonio di Gallura, Sardinia, Italy. The second of eight children, she grew up serene, went to school, joined the lay apostolate of the Catholic Action. Her parents were very loving and ready to sacrifice everything so that their children could pursue their education. They were very proud of Lucia, their clever and vivacious daughter, who was very committed to her education and became soon a school teacher as it was her cherished dream. One day, Lucia finds a copy of the biography of the great missionary, Daniel Comboni, and falls in love, at first sight, with his “Plan for the Regeneration of Africa.” “I want to be a missionary for Africa” she thinks, but when she discloses her project to her parents she finds them very much against it. “If you want to be a nun, it’s OK, but a missionary to Africa? No, never! Why risk your life in those wild regions?” they exclaim! Lucia, as the good daughter of her parents, shares their stubbornness: she doesn’t give up her dream, but decides to run away from home. “Lucia got a sunstroke” whispered the inhabitants of Sant’Antonio di Gallura when, on May 16, 1948, it was discovered that Lucia has really disappeared from home and sailed to the “continent,” as they used to call Italy’s mainland. It was really a “sunstroke,” but it was the “Sun of God’s love” that urged her to abandon her home. In Verona, on September 29, 1950, she takes the First Vows and immediately afterwards, boards a ship and, after one month, reaches the coast of Africa. With the means available at that time, she travels towards the heart of the Black Continent in order

On June 3, 1963, Pentecost Day, the long agony of Pope John XXIII, the pope of Vatican II, came to an end at 19.45 hours. Ten days before, on Ascension Day, he had spoken to the pilgrims in Saint Peter’s square for the last time, as if sensing the coming death: “With our desire, we run after the Lord who goes up to heaven….” Immediately, the public appearances were suspended, the pope was ill. The whole world followed the pope’s terminal illness with trepidation… The end was approaching, but his mind remained lucid to the last minute. Pope John’s death marked the climax of his pontificate and multiplied the consensus for a pope who had put in motion a phenomenon of unusual proportions as the Second Vatican Council. His death was experienced as belonging to the whole of humanity. It was a final witness of poverty, consistent with a lifestyle pursued with utter commitment. He had written many years before, in his last will: “Born poor, but from honorable and humble people, I am particularly happy to die poor. I thank God for this grace of poverty that I vowed in my youth, spiritual poverty as a priest of the Sacred Heart, and real poverty… In the hour of saying farewell, or better, good-bye, I remind all of what is dearest in life: the blessed Jesus and His Church, the Gospel of the Our Father, truth and goodness, benevolent, resourceful, patient, undefeated and victorious goodness.”   A historical choice A trait of great significance in Pope John was the kind of peaceful strength by which he always expressed his convictions. Only during his rule as a pope, this strength appeared in all its disconcerting splendor. It was with this certainty, only ninety days after his election on January 25, 1959, that Pope John announced his intention of calling an ecumenical council. He made the announcement to the cardinals gathered in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, on the concluding day of the Week of Prayers for Christian Unity. He repeatedly stated that he wanted a new Pentecost to again bring the gifts of the Holy Spirit on the Church, renew her youth and respond to the “signs of the time,” opening her anew to her universal mission. The Second Vatican Council has marked the history of the modern Church. It took place between 1962 and 1965. Blessed John’s successor, Pope Paul VI, had the task of bringing the Council to its conclusion. The discussion among the Council Fathers was intense and articulate, the arguing vivacious, under the unusual attention of the interested world media. The Council documents are solid contributions to the Church’s doctrine and tradition. The whole Church turned a glance of empathy towards the “joys and sorrows” of humanity, conscious of belonging herself to the scene of this world. A renewed vision of the Church as the pilgrim people of God brought in evidence the colorful reality of the local churches already present all over the

Sometime in April 1980, a convoy of cars was traveling through the savanna north of Gulu, in Northern Uganda, heading towards Alelelele, the lepers’ village situated within the territory of Lacor Parish. By that time, I had assumed the position of acting parish priest, and I was happy to accompany that expedition of friends from Italy in my capacity as guide and translator. The group was headed by an enormous Italian lay man.  As soon as we arrived at the lepers’ village, two camp stoves were unloaded and put quickly into operation, while the lepers and the local population stood around with gaping mouths, staring at the size of the leader of the Wajungu (White people) who were now busy cooking rice on top of a generous splashing of olive oil, tomato sauce, onion, garlic and saffron powder, in two huge pots.  When the rice was cooked, an appetizing aroma spread around to the incredible delight of the populace and Big Victor tied an immense apron around his gigantic stomach, got hold of an oversized ladle and started distributing paper plates full of the most delicious Italian risotto to the lepers, the children and whoever wanted to eat. The occasion was then marked by speeches, songs and dances. In the end, the lepers withdrew to their huts, wrapped in their soft new blankets, still overwhelmed by wonder and disbelief.  That was the first time I met Vittorione (Big Victor), an Italian hotelier turned missionary. I was impressed by his enthusiasm and down–to-earth approach to the poverty and need of the African people. “Whoever is hungry, is hungry now. Whoever is thirsty, is thirsty now. Whoever suffers, suffers now. The poor cannot wait,” was his simple philosophy. With his 450 lbs bulk, his baby complexion and rumbling voice, he was an impressive figure: people in Italy could easily identify with his generous approach and flooded him with every type of goods and the poor of Uganda saw him as a Father Christmas figure, always ready to share the most unexpected and delicious surprises. He was, however, a man of deep spirituality and heroic self-forgetfulness.   Africa Mission Travel Agency Vittorio Pastori was born at Varese, in Northern Italy, on April 15, 1926. He grew up in his adolescence to become extraordinarily obese, but this did not make him lose his natural creativity and zest for life. In the early 50s, Vittorio opened a restaurant in his city, a flourishing commercial activity which kept him busy for the next 15 years. The responsibility for what soon became the most renown place in the whole town revealed the managerial gifts of the owner and his capacity as an accomplished businessman.  A turning point in Vittorio’s life was when he met a priest, Msgr. Enrico Manfredini, parish priest of San Vittore, who entrusted him with increasing administrative tasks. When, in 1969, Msgr Manfredini became bishop of Piacenza, he invited Vittorio to follow him to the new place and take responsibility for the financial administration

The snow had fallen heavily on the village of Les Noes, deep into the mountains of La Forez, in the Pyrenees, that winter of the year 1809. It was a development which was very much welcomed by the bunch of deserters who had taken refuge there from the forced recruitment of Napoleon’s army. The thick snow would isolate the area and stop the gendarmes from coming to look for them. The previous year, the great Napoleon had invaded Spain and imposed as king his brother Joseph Bonaparte. The rebellion of the Spanish population had been unexpectedly fierce and the subsequent repression of the French Army harsh and cruel. On March 3, 1808, the defenders of Madrid were executed by firing squad, an episode made immortal by the famous painting by Goya.  Among the deserters, because of a series of strange circumstances, there was also an eager student for the priesthood, John Mary Vianney. Towards the end of the year 1808, the pressure of the Spanish campaign had caused the abolition of the exemption regarding the ecclesiastical students and John Mary Vianney found himself drafted into Napoleon’s Army. Two days before he had to report at Lyons, he became ill and was hospitalized, during which time his draft left without him. Once released from the hospital, on 5 January 1809, he was sent to Roanne for another draft. The morning of departure, John Mary went to church to pray, and on his return to the barracks, found that his comrades had already left.  He was threatened with arrest, but the recruiting captain believed his story and sent him after the troops. At nightfall, he met a young man who volunteered to guide him back to his group, but instead led him deep into the mountains where deserters had gathered. John Mary lived there for fourteen months, hidden in the cow-shed attached to the farmhouse of a widow with four children. He assumed the name Jerome Vincent, and under that name, he opened a school for the village children. An imperial decree, proclaimed in March 1810, granted amnesty to all deserters and enabled Vianney to go back legally to Ecully, where he resumed his studies for the priesthood.   A faith strengthened by persecution John Baptist Mary Vianney was born on May 8, 1786, in the French town of Dardilly and was baptized the same day. His parents, Matthew and Mary Beluze, had six children, of whom John was the third. The Vianneys were Catholics who practiced their faith and helped the poor. Among others, they gave hospitality to Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, the patron saint of tramps, who passed through Dardilly on his pilgrimage to Rome. By 1790, the French Revolution forced many loyal priests to hide from the government in order to carry out the sacraments in their parish.  The Vianneys continued attending Mass, even though it was illegal. In order to attend Mass, the Vianneys travelled to distant farms where they would pray in secret. Since priests would risk

On a Saturday, sometime in June 1997, I was driving from London to Liverpool for a mission appeal. After four hours of peaceful progress through the English countryside, I was getting to the street where the parish was supposed to be, in the outskirts of the city. The time of the anticipated Mass was approaching. Driving the whole length of the street, I realized that there was no church in sight. I was puzzled, then I understood that there must be another street of the same name in the inner city. I, therefore, took the thoroughfare to the center of Liverpool. It was less than half an hour to the Mass and I started to panic. “Please, Saint Joseph” I prayed, “Help me to arrive on time!” As I was driving, I saw a sign with a word I seemed to recognize, I branched to the right, I stopped to question a pedestrian, I was in the right direction… Eventually, I entered the church with five minutes to spare. “Dear father,” the parish priest said rather resentfully, “You do cut it thin, don’t you?” Of course, he didn’t know that I was there only due to a special grace from Saint Joseph!  On the following month, July 20 1997, coming back from a priestly ordination in Spain, I was flying from Valencia to Barcelona, where I had my connecting flight to Venice. The plane was late. We had not landed yet and it was already time for the Venice plane to take off. I was already imagining missing that plane with all the inconvenience that goes with it. “Dear Saint Joseph” I cried, “Don’t let me miss the plane!” As God wanted, we landed, I ran to the departure gate of my flight (It was deserted!) only to be addressed by the hostess at the counter: “Are you Mr. Carraro?” “Yes?” “Please get in quickly. We are taking off.” Even that time, thanks to Saint Joseph, I made it! These are only two examples of numberless others… Behaving thus, I was only continuing the tradition of devotion to Saint Joseph that was proper of Saint Daniel Comboni. It is a spontaneous, affectionate link with this saint whom we perceive to be so helpful in the practical, day-to-day facts of life. Daniel Comboni considered Saint Joseph an asset for his mission, especially in financial matters. He mentions him not less than 150 times in his writings and likes to address him with the affectionate name of Beppo (vernacular form for Joseph). He wrote: “Saint Joseph is one of the most precious treasures of the Church and of Africa and he is my real administrator and bursar. In dealing with Saint Joseph, one is dealing with a gentleman; and Beppo is such a gentleman that he first thinks of the spirit and our souls, and then of the money… So, courage. No obstacle frightens us. Many great napoleons and pounds sterling are hidden in Saint Joseph’s beard; he will give them to

There were many consoling, inspiring, uplifting moments on October 26, 2007 in Linz, Austria at the beatification of the anti-war hero Franz Jägerstätter: the resounding applause for his 94-year-old widow Franziska; the reading of the declaration; the unfurling of the 30-foot banner with Franz’s photo and the sight of dozens of bishops and cardinals standing up, looking up – at last! – to Franz. But the most moving was the presentation of his relics. Franziska kissed them, gave them to a cardinal for the cathedral in Linz, then wept. She knew it. Franz no longer belonged to Austria. From now on, he belonged to the world. And his work was just beginning. This celebration, for me, was one of the best events in the institutional Church in recent decades, and one of its most political, daring and hopeful. If the institutional Church now says Franz was right, then Ratzinger was wrong, nearly all the Catholics of Austria and Germany were wrong, and the Church has the potential to wake up and return to the Gospel nonviolence of its ancient history. Franz is still a force of controversy throughout Austria, but he is the closest saint in recent centuries to resemble those daring, early Christians. This is exactly what we need: saints who inspire us to follow the nonviolent Jesus, say “no” to war, resist the culture of war, speak out for peace, work for justice, and combine the full mystical and political dimensions of faith. The witness of Franz Jägerstätter has been at the heart of my own journey. My grandmother gave me a booklet about Franz while I was at Duke University, trying to decide what to do with my life. I was stunned by this story of a young father, husband, and farmer, born on May 20, 1907, who was called into active service by the Nazis in February, 1943, politely refused, was imprisoned in Linz, condemned to death for “undermining military morale,” and beheaded on August 9, 1943. His witness encouraged me to become a Jesuit and an advocate for peace, justice and nonviolence. “Consider two things: from where, to where,” Franz wrote his godson from prison, just a few weeks before his execution. “Then your life will have its true meaning.” I’ve been trying to take his good advice.   A train going to hell In 1985, I read Gordon Zahn’s ground-breaking biography, “In Solitary Witness,” while living in a refugee camp in El Salvador. In the 1990s, I made a pilgrimage to St. Radegund to pray at Franz’ grave and visit Franziska and the Jägerstätters. In 2007, it was a joy and a blessing to embrace her and her family again. On the night before the celebration, nearly a hundred Pax Christi members from Austria, England and the U.S. gathered for a meal and reflections on Franz’s life. The two-hour Mass was broadcast live on national TV in Austria and Germany. Afterwards, our Pax Christi contingent processed through the streets of Linz, stopping first at

Jean Vanier, great modern prophet, turned 80 two years ago among the disabled in Kolkata, India, where he was sent off into “retirement” by a brass band and a parade of nine elephants. “As my life draws closer to the end,” he wrote to his friends, “I discover more and more that those who are poor and weak are a presence of God: they have transformed me.” On that occasion, he published: “Our Life Together,” the story of that transformation. His adventure in love started with a visit to an institution for the mentally disabled in the late 1960s. “Do you love me? Will you be my friend?” they asked him; and he realized instinctively that what they needed was a loving family, a place of belonging – not an institution which saw them, firstly, as ill.  He began with a series of small, family-like homes in the village of Trosly, outside Paris, and began to write and give retreats about his experience. He spent the next 40 years riding the wave which followed, as his reputation grew. The popular retreats, written up as best-selling books (most famous: “Community and Growth” in 1973 and “Becoming Human” in 1998), inspire people to found L’Arche communities of the disabled or Faith and Light communities for people caring for them at home. The central insight of L’Arche is that society can ultimately be healed only by those whom it rejects. The disabled are a part of the “poor” with whom God has chosen to identify Himself, shaming the wise and the strong in their illusory self-sufficiency. Reaching out to them becomes a means of being led – by God to God.   Out Of Security And Career Jean Vanier was born on September 10, 1928, in Geneva, Switzerland, where his father, General Georges Vanier, was on a diplomatic mission. Most of his early schooling was in England where he lived until World War II when his parents sent him and his four brothers and one sister back to Canada. Two years later, the young Jean decided to enter the Royal Naval College in England. Too young to become a soldier, he assisted his mother in her Red Cross work in Paris after the liberation, helping with those returning from the concentration camps. In 1945, Jean received his officer’s commission and began his naval career. Despite the promising perspective that lay in front of him, he was more and more drawn into prayer and reflection on what might be God’s call for him. In 1950, he resigned from the Navy to study philosophy and theology at the Catholic Institute in Paris. It was there where he met Father Thomas Philippe, a Dominican priest and professor who was to become Jean’s spiritual mentor and friend. In 1963, having published his doctoral thesis on Aristotle, Jean returned to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto. Again, he decided against the security of a career and left job and homeland to join Father Thomas Philippe who