8 minute read
Bringing help and hope
and treatable diseases due to lack of awareness and access to healthcare. Most of the time, they go to traditional quack doctors who take advantage of their situation. Serious health issues of patients that can be dealt with in proper healthcare facilities are being treated through rituals that can worsen the illness and bring false hope to patients.”
Words of gratitude from Fr Edson:
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“As you are aware, we are totally dependent on your donations for our work and since the mission is still rather new, we need to do more programmes for healthcare, faith formation, and literacy programmes. Once again, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the readers of St Joseph’s Advocate for your financial support, prayers and encouragement. Rest assured that with your help, we will continue to serve our unfortunate sisters and brothers in this part of the world. Let us remain united in prayer for each other.”
Comment by Fr Michael Corcoran (Mill Hill Superior General):
“My visits to Sindh over the years have allowed me to see at first hand the great missionary work going on especially amongst the landless peoples. A true sign of hope for the future. It is always good to see the reality on the ground of the help given and be able to say a big thank you to all who support us in mission.”
(At present, there are 12 Mill Hill Missionaries in Pakistan. There is one Irishman among them; Fr Denis Hartnett from Ballyhooly, Co. Cork, is in Tando Adam mission, also in the Sind area. The late Fr Tom Rafferty, who died on May 7, 2021, had spent over 50 years in Pakistan - in a very difficult and dangerous area. You can read his obituary on page 30. Tom wrote last year that he was very grateful for the aid that in all times of disaster came from the generosity of the Irish people: “It has helped us rise again and build back people’s lives.”)
Turn to Mary and Joseph
During his live-streamed general audience March 13, 2020, Pope Francis said:
“I make my own the appeal of the Italian bishops who in this health emergency have promoted a moment of prayer for the whole country. Every family, every person, every religious community is asked to unite spiritually tomorrow (March 19 - Feast of St Joseph) at 9 p.m. for the recitation of the rosary, with the Mysteries of Light. I will accompany you from here.
He continued:
“Mary, Mother of God, Health of the Sick, leads us to the face of Jesus Christ and to his Heart. We turn to her with the prayer of the rosary under the loving gaze of St. Joseph, Custodian of the Holy Family and of our families. And we ask him to guard our families, in a special way, in particular the sick and the persons taking care of the sick: the doctors, the men and women nurses, all the healthcare workers and volunteers. May he guard all who risk their lives in this service.”
The ‘Year of St Joseph’
(8/12/2020 – 8/12/2021)
By Fr Jim O’Connell, mhm
As a reader of St Joseph’s Advocate, you will be familiar with the statue in the photograph. It features each year with the Novena to St Joseph in the Spring Advocate. The statue stands in front of our Mill Hill St Joseph’s House in Dublin. It is a lovely statue that conveys beautifully the great bond between the child Jesus and St Joseph. Joseph is a strong young man and is thoughtful looking as he holds Jesus by the hand. The child Jesus is looking up at Joseph, probably asking a question, perhaps wanting to get something. They seem to be very much at ease with each other. Things are calm and peaceful, as they stand close together, with a sense of presence and feeling between them. We can see that Joseph is looking lovingly at Jesus ‘with a father’s heart.’
‘With a Fathers Heart’ is the title of the Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis about Joseph. It was published on December 8, 2020, when the Pope also announced the ‘Year of St Joseph.’ The Pope notes: “The aim of the Apostolic Letter is to increase our love for this great saint, to encourage us to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and zeal.”
The opening sentence of the Letter is: “With a Father’s Heart - that is how Joseph loved Jesus, whom all four Gospels refer to as ‘the son of Joseph’.” The Pope goes on to write about Saint Joseph under the following headings: a beloved father, a tender and loving father, an obedient father, an accepting father, a father who is creatively courageous, a working father, a father in the shadows. Here, I can only give a few short quotes from what the Pope says about two of these. I will add what he says about St Joseph being close to ordinary human experience.
“Joseph saw Jesus grow daily in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favour. As the Lord had done with Israel, so Joseph did with Jesus, taking him by the hand; he was for him like a father who raises an infant to his cheek, bending down to him and feeding him. In Joseph, Jesus saw the tender love of God. Even through Joseph’s fears, God’s will and his plan were at work. Joseph, then, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that he can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses. He also teaches us that amid the tempests of life, we must never be afraid to let the Lord steer our course. At times, we want to be in complete control, yet God always sees the bigger picture.”
“In his relationship to Jesus, Joseph was the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father; he watched over Jesus and protected him. Being a father entails introducing children to life and reality. Not holding them back, being overprotective or possessive, but rather making them capable of deciding for themselves, enjoying freedom and exploring new possibilities.
The logic of love is always the logic of freedom, and Joseph knew how to love with extraordinary freedom. He never made himself the centre of things. He did not think of himself, but focused instead on the lives of Mary and Jesus. In him, we never see frustration but only trust. His patient silence was the prelude to expressions of trust. Our world today needs fathers.”
So close to our ordinary human experience
In a footnote to the Letter, Pope Francis notes that St Joseph is “so close to our ordinary human experience.” He says he became more aware of this “during the months of pandemic, when we experienced how we are sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked. They do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines, - Doctors, nurses, storekeepers and supermarket workers, cleaning personnel, caregivers, transport workers, men and women working to provide essential services and public safety, volunteers, priests, men and women religious, and so very many others.
How many people daily exercise patience and offer hope, taking care to spread not panic, but shared responsibility? How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday ways, how to accept and deal with a crisis? How many are praying, Joseph and Jesus in the carpentry shop
making sacrifices and interceding for the good of all?”
“Each of us can discover in Joseph – the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.” (Pope Francis)
Please Remember the Missions in your will
I bequeath to St Joseph’s Society for the Missions Inc, (Mill Hill Missionaries), 50 Orwell Park, Rathgar, Dublin D06 C535, the sum of
e..................................................................... free of duty
to be applied for the general purpose of the said Society, and I declare that the receipt of the Rev. Director shall be a sufficient discharge of the same.
Ebukuya School Food Programme
It is time to say a big ‘Thank You’ to our readers who sent in money for the Ebukuya School Food Programme in Western Kenya. There was a great response to the article about the Programme in the Autumn 2020 Advocate; it was written by Sister Anne Moore, fmsj. The school is in Luanda parish which is staffed by Mill Hill priests and the Franciscan Missionaries of St Joseph - Sister Anne’s Congregation
The Food Programme was started 17 years ago to provide food for the pupils at certain times of the year when food is scarce. It costs around 3000 Euros a year to run the Programme. There are close to 1000 pupils in the school.
The School Principal explained: “The majority of the children attending the school arrive each morning not having had a breakfast of any description, while others arrive with nothing more than pieces of sugar cane. The pupils, parents and school staff are all very grateful for the funds for the Food Programme that are generously sent to us from Ireland.”
With the generous donations that we received, the funding for the programme is secure for the coming years. We are also in a position to help the cook Penina, who is a widow with 6 children. She needed money to pay the secondary school fees for her daughter who had done very well in primary school. We were also able to help fund work done on her house. (Fr Jim O’Connell, mhm.)
