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A Christmas Prayer for all our friends and benefactors May the celebration of Christ’s birth and the wonder of his presence light up your hearts and lives. May this Christmas bring love, joy and peace to you and your families, and may the New Year bring many blessings to you all.
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Advocate Winter 2017 Volume 57 No 3 ST JOSEPH’S ADVOCATE Published by: Editor: Printed in Ireland by:
Mill Hill Missionaries Fr. Jim O’Connell Modern Printers, Kilkenny
CONTENTS 2 Mill Hill in India
Editorial
10
News - East Africa
4
A Day to Remember
13
Jubilees
8
Obituaries
16
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grateful Thanks to all our Contributors
Front Cover Photo: Art by Petrus Van Schendel showing Joseph and Mary - Museum of St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Used with permission. Back Cover:
Our new Address
Photo Credits:
F. Eppink, S. Odhiambo, M. Ochwo, D. Harney. D. Foley, M. Gannon.
MISSION OFFERINGS All Postal Orders and Cheques to be sent direct to us at St. Joseph’s Advocate, Mill Hill Missionaries, 50 Orwell Park, Rathgar, Dublin D06 C535. Bank Giros to be sent directly to our Bank account. Details of the a/c availble from our office: 01-412 7707 St. Joseph’s Advocate Mill Hill Missionaries 50 Orwell Park Rathgar, Dublin D06 C535 Tel: (01) 412 7707
Email: organisingmhm@gmail.com www.millhillmissionaries.co.uk
St Mary’s Parish 25 Marquis Street Belfast BT1 1JJ. Tel: 04890 320482
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In my youth, darkness and light were very much part of our experience of daily and nightly life. I was around fourteen years of age when electricity reached our part of rural Kerry in the late nineteen fifties. Even now I have very clear memories of it. It was such a change to have light in each room in the house. Gone were the candles and Tilley lamps and lanterns. My clearest memory is around the changes it brought to the farmyard and farm buildings. When we went about our work in the winter evenings, we were often pottering around in the darkness, with the light of a lantern, feeding the cattle and milking the few cows that still had to be milked at that time of year.
‘The people who walked in darkness…’ All of a sudden everything changed with the coming of electricity. We had light everywhere, not only in our home, but also in the buildings that housed the cows, the pigs, the horses, and we had the ‘yard lamps’ that lit up the whole area around the farmyard and home. In our world, we could say we had moved ‘from darkness to light’; we got a taste of the experience that is central to the celebration of Christmas when we are invited to a much deeper and more profound journey from ‘darkness to light’. The first reading on Christmas Night begins: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who lived in a land of deep shadow a light has shone.” (Isaiah 9:1) Jesus himself said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) And when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple, the elderly Simeon recognised the Infant as “a light to enlighten the nations.” (Luke 2:31)
St. Joseph the torchbearer On the front cover (and above) we have a photograph of a beautiful work of art by the Dutch painter Petrus Van Schendel. It features Mary and Joseph in an atmosphere that is deep and expectant. Joseph is no longer the one in the shadows or background – as he is often portrayed. As you can see, he is carrying a torch (a live, lighting flame) in front of him that lights up the darkness. He is walking beside Mary, 2
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slightly in front of her. He is staring intently ahead, pushing forward with his left arm stretched out as if clearing the way. He and Mary are young and strong and healthylooking. Mary is holding a cloth in her hands and looking at it. You can see that she has other things on her mind. Perhaps she is planning ahead, thinking of the birth of her child. It is clear she has complete trust in Joseph, staying close to him and letting him lead her forward to the right place. Joseph is the torchbearer, carrying the flame that lights up the way in the darkness. Mary is carrying the True Light, the Child Jesus, who will lead people out of darkness into his own wonderful light.
Our Torchbearer Looking at the photograph we see Joseph as the torchbearer for Mary; we can also look on Joseph as our torchbearer. He can lead us to Jesus the True Light. When we are trying to find our way in the darkness that weighs heavily upon us at times, we are encouraged to turn to St. Joseph for help and guidance. Pope Benedict XVI put it this way: “If discouragement overwhelms you, think of the faith of Joseph. If anxiety has its grip on you, think of the hope of Joseph. If exasperation or hatred seizes you, think of the love of Joseph, who was the first man to set eyes on the human face of God in the person of the infant conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Let us praise and thank Christ for having drawn so close to us, and for giving us Joseph as an example and model of love.” St. Joseph, the torchbearer, is with us when we are struggling to cope with suffering and sickness, or when we are heartbroken with grief or weighed down with distress and loneliness. As he was for Mary and her Child, St. Joseph is our torchbearer. In times of darkness and perplexity he points us along the heavenly way to Christ, the Light of the world. When we celebrate Christmas, we ask St. Joseph to help us experience Christ with us as our light and life, our hope and help.
[The Artwork (Painting) on the cover of Mary and Joseph is by Petrus Van Schendel, and is in the collection of the Museum of St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Used with permission] Fr. Jim O’Connell, mhm Editor, Advocate 3
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News from Mill Hill Members - East Africa Some of the new generation of Mill Hill Missionaries are living and working in difficult and dangerous areas. They face many daunting challenges. Their commitment is truly inspiring..
1. Kotido, Northern Uganda IN JUNE, Fr. Sylvester Odhiambo, mhm, wrote: “At present the drought situation remains of concern across much of East Africa. However, here in Kotido, Northern Uganda, it is critical. The people are hungry, restless and worried. In our Mission here Fr. Sylvester Odhiambo, mhm. in Panyangara, there are always people, and malnourished children. We people coming to seek food. Unfortunately, we cannot give to all people. We restrict our food distribution to the helpless elderly people, the sickly 4
do what we can and are grateful for the help we are getting from Mill Hill Ireland and the Charity SPICMA (Small Projects in Christian Mission Areas).
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Then in July, Fr. Sylvester wrote: “We have serious security concerns. There have been individuals going round knifing and killing people around Panyangara. On Monday afternoon a young woman was murdered. She was left to die holding her four months old baby. Soon after that the killers went on a rampage knifing and killing people within the area. Over ten people are now dead with several injured. We helped some of the victims to get medical care. Despite the presence of security forces now, the situation remains tense. The
people are terrorised beyond measure. I myself have received a death threat. Please keep us in your prayers.” (Fr. Sylvester is a Mill Hill priest from Kenya who has been working in Panyangara for nine years. The Irish Region of Mill Hill has been helping the Mission financially and continues to do so. It was there that Fr. Declan O’Toole was murdered in 2002. Our Regional, Fr. Philip O’ Halloran, also worked in Panyangara).
2. South Sudan IN JULY, Fr. Michael Ochwo, mhm, wrote: “The Mill Hill Missionaries are returning to troubled South Sudan. The conflict of 2013 was so violent that all our Mill Hill Missionaries who were working in Malakal Diocese had to suddenly leave. Some of the members had horrific experiences. Although a peace agreement was signed between the warring parties, the conflict has continued. Many people have died; others have run as refugees to neighbouring countries like Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. The two Mill Hill Missionaries going to South Sudan are going to work in a parish in Juba; they are not going to Malakal, as security is unpredictable there. The food situation in the country was bad partly due to the long drought and the conflict, but the situation has eased a
Fr. Michael Ochwo, mhm, (right) being welcomed in Juba, South Sudan.
little with the return of the rains. The economy of the country is in a mess. South Sudan has the second largest oil reserves in Africa. The level of oil output has gone down due to the conflict and the slump in international oil prices. I am proud to be one of the pioneer Mill Hillers in the Archdiocese of Juba and when Emmanuel Omollo mhm comes to join me, we shall endeavour to build bridges of reconciliation in a country that has experienced conflict for over five decades. Our prime focus will 5
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be pastoral care, but we shall also be involved in social development activities that this country so badly needs. There are many needs for social development such as schools, health centres, technical institutions, youth work, etc. We shall do whatever we can, based on our Mill Hill
motto: Amare et servire - to love and to serve.� (Fr. Michael Ochwo and Fr. Emmanuel Omollo are Mill Hill priests from Uganda. The Irish Region of Mill Hill will provide some financial help for their work in South Sudan)
3. Witu, Kenya Coast IN JULY, Fr. Cyprian Taah, mhm, wrote: “We were just barely settling down from a recent attack on the Kenyan Police Station about 15km from our Mission here in Witu which left 3 police officers dead and 2 seriously injured, when followed the news of the horrific beheading of 9 people on farmland about 17km from Witu. Some of those killed were members of our Christian community. Since then, most people in Witu and its adjacent villages have been filled with fear and anxiety. With the famine of the last two years caused by drought still fresh in their memories and being enticed by the promising harvest likely to come from their farms by the end of July, our 6
Fr. Cyprian Taah, mhm, in Witu.
people vowed to stay in their farms despite the brutality of the terrorists (Al Shabaab). They would rather die at the hands of the enemy than die of hunger. In the early hours of Tuesday the 11th of July 2017, the Kenya Defence soldiers
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accompanied by local chiefs, summoned the people of the farmlands and asked them to evacuate to Witu. Without further notice men, women and children gathered their belongings and headed for Witu. One would feel sad at the sight of suckling mothers with their little babies out in the cold. The only really safe haven they could think of was our Catholic church at Witu. Before 7:00 pm we had received 91 people including
children. We granted them a place to sleep in our Primary School. We provided them with water, food and other basic necessities. This evening is day one for us receiving them. We will see what tomorrow will bring. (Fr Cyprian Taah and Fr. Tony Emeka are Mill Hill priests from Cameroon who work in Witu parish. The Irish Region of Mill Hill is helping financially).
From the Irish Regional Office We support various projects from the donations that come in from our supporters. This is done by sending a large annual donation to our General Council to distribute to people and projects where the need is greatest. In addition, we receive specified or special donations – whether big or small – and an accompanying letter says for “hungry children” or “Sudan mission” or “Pakistan” or “education of seminarians” or “the poor” or “The Fr. Declan O’Toole Centre” or “Cameroon” or “people in need” or “for the missions” and so on. The donations are often in response to articles in the Advocate. We try to ensure that these specific donations are forwarded as soon as possible. We thank you so much for your generosity. It is a wonderful support for our young missionaries as they are challenged by the unexpected situations that ‘happen’ and test their limits - as you can see from the three news items above. Please keep all our young members in your prayers as we are asking them to keep you in their prayers. 7
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Jubilee Sunday Sunday, July 9: St. Joseph’s House, Dublin.
JUBIlEE SUnDAy was a very happy occasion when two Mill Hill Members celebrated their Diamond (60 years) Jubilees: Fr. Terry lee and Fr. Matt Carpenter. Family, friends and Mill Hill colleagues joined the Jubilarians for the concelebrated Mass, which was followed by refreshments and a meal. The Jubilarians look back with gratitude on 60 years of priestly ministry as Mill Hill Missionaries. Matt spent 33 years in mainland China; 20 years as an English teacher and then he set up an Organisation to help and work with the rural poor in south west China. Terry spent 50 years in the United States in mission promotion work, vocations work, pastoral work and fund raising for the missions.
The Jubilarians in green vestments: Fr. Matt on left and Fr. Terry right. Also in the photo we have, on the left, Fr. Hugh Lee, brother of Fr. Terry, and on the right is Fr. Philip O’Halloran, our Irish Regional Superior. 8
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Fr Terry Lee (left) and Fr. Hugh Lee (right) with family members.
Fr. Matt Carpenter with family and friends and below the generations meet!
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Their leader was an Irish doctor rules of the day, he was not allowed called Fr. David Forbes (photo) to celebrate Mass! whose medical skills enhanced The physical hardships the spiritual work he would these pioneers endured. later do in an area of India where medical services were I’m writing this from the small rudimentary in the extreme. There was an older Belgian priest, John Sabbe, who had previously spent a short time in prison for apparent ‘financial mismanagement’, but who had been rehabilitated and had courageously volunteered to join this first team of Mill Hill Missionaries to set foot on the Indian sub-continent. There was a German, Theodore Diekmann, whose linguistic skills were legendary and ensured that he would become the real ‘anchor’ for the whole group. Finally, there was a young Frenchman named Joseph Grand who almost joined the Paris Foreign Mission Society, but in the end opted to join this new Missionary Society of Mill Hill instead. Fr. Joseph was somewhat accident-prone and managed to blow his arm off with a shotgun which meant, according to the
central Indian town of Pargi. It is now mid-April and yesterday the temperature reached 41C, so I’m very conscious of the physical hardships this group of pioneers would have had to endure as they struggled to begin their missionary outreach in the torrid humidity of India’s East Coast without the modern benefits of fridges, fans and air conditioners.
Within weeks they were immersed in the study of the difficult Telugu language until suddenly called upon to care for the victims, Christian and non-Christian, of a local cholera outbreak. When the epidemic finally subsided, they were each appointed to their various mission stations and the work of evangelization could begin in earnest. Photos: Above:- Fr. David Forbes (1875). Opposite page: Background picture: Baswar, India, Mill Hill Mission today.
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Mill Hill Mission in India continues More than 140 years later that work of bringing what Pope Francis calls ‘The joy of the Gospel’ to the poor continues. Mill Hill Missionaries have two missions – Baswar and Vishnupur - in the north of India and two – Pargi and nellikuduru - in the South. In all our missions, the priority outreach is to those our Founder referred to as ‘poorest and most abandoned’. Though they are no less colourful, in many ways our missionaries in India today are different from the original group. Most of them are Indian themselves and so they are able to present Christ to the people using the rich array of cultural and religious tools from India’s ancient past. The message they carry, however - God’s special love for the poor and the oppressed - is the same one that Fr. David Forbes and his companions brought so many years before. Mill Hill in India honours its missionaries – both past and present. Young Indian Mill Hill priests setting out on their way to remote villages.
Author, Fr. Mark Connolly, mhm, is from Glasgow, and based in Pargi, Central India. 12
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Mill Hill General Superior, Fr. Michael Corcoran with Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua.
by Fr. Fons Eppink, mhm T WAS a day to remember, when in February this year Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua blessed the new chapel at the Mill Hill Formation Centre in Bamenda, Cameroon.
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In his homily, he spoke from the heart as he recalled the celebration in 2016 of the 150 years jubilee of the Mill Hill missionaries world-wide and of 95 years of ground-breaking missionary work in
Cameroon. He expressed his appreciation for all that has been accomplished in that part of Cameroon with the help of God's grace in the span of nearly a century: “When I meet the other bishops of Cameroon I stand tall and hold my head high”, he confides, “not least because of the cordial relationship between the Mill Hill Missionaries and the local diocesan clergy. In other dioceses the situation is often quite different.” He went on to highlight Mill Hill's 13
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charism of loving service in situations of greatest need. It is a real blessing that this charism is now being handed on to young people of the very Church which the Mill Hill missionaries were instrumental in founding.
Bearing abundant fruit The Archbishop recalled that he “was just a young bishop in the 1980s when the idea of accepting candidates for Mill Hill from the local Church in Cameroon was being mooted. We welcomed this proposed new initiative and I am grateful to God - he points at the large group of young Cameroonian Mill Hill students present in the chapel - that it is bearing abundant fruit. The Mill Hill charism is now enlivening the hearts of young men here. They are our contribution to the mission of the universal Church, and with a smile - we hope to profit from this ourselves too!” 14
“When you are down to almost nothing, you can be sure that God is up to something!” The Archbishop also spoke about his own earlier experience of one of his missionary 'ancestors', Fr Kees Schouten mhm: “I was hugely impressed when I was a young curate with him in Mamfe, that every evening after supper he would invite me to join him on a stroll around the Mission compound praying the rosary.” youthful vigour meets timetested experience. In his address, our Mill Hill General Superior, Fr Michael Corcoran, used the following memorable phrase referring to
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the period of searching and discernment of the future of Mill Hill Society in the 1980's when numbers were dwindling: “When you are down to almost nothing, you can be sure that God is up to something!” He went on to say that the missionary involvement of the current international batch of Mill Hill missionaries in Cameroon can be seen as a fruit of that discernment: “Mission is alive. These young men have truly got the ‘smell of the sheep’ even before Pope Francis used that image!” Before the Offertory, Archbishop Esua placed the relic of Uganda Martyr, St Charles lwanga, specially offered for this chapel by the Papal nuncio, in its designated case in the centre of the altar table. This is a chapel with a truly African pedigree! After the Eucharist, celebrations continued in the open space quadrangle of the Formation House.
The Mill Hill students put on a whirlwind show of songs and colourful dance to entertain the guests The two Mill Hill Golden Jubilarians present, Fr Hermann Gufler and visiting Fr Fons Eppink, received a special tribute, together with Fr Dominic nyachoti, a Mill Hill priest from Kenya who has spent 12 years of loving service in Cameroon and is now set to take up a new appointment. He and the two Jubilarians were called forward to be dressed in colourful traditional garb and paraphernalia. Fr Dominic was praised for his dedication to the Kom people, learning their language to a high degree of fluency and studying local customs in depth. He truly deserves the title: 'Bo Chong' - an honorary traditional way of address. A meal concluded this memorable day.
The Mill Hill Students from Cameroon with Fr. Richard (left) and Fr. Nol and Fr. Elvis (right).
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Obituary List Winter 2017 - up to and including 15/8/2017
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on the souls of: Promoter and Boxholder: Johnny Kavanagh Members:
Sr. Ethna McHale, Mary Allen, Patricia Carroll, Bridie Conroy, Bridget Fox, nell Hayes, Betty Hennessy, Joseph Hickey, Patrick Holleran, Michael limb, Sylvia limb, Pat logue, Peggy Meagher,
John Meehan, Bernadette McCafferty, Peter Joseph McCarthy, Breda O’Brien, Martina O’Brien, Mary Reidy, Brendan Stokes.
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. Please Note: We regret that we have fewer pages in the Winter Issue of the Advocate; this is due to changes in the postage rate for sending the Advocate and Calendar together. The other Issues (Spring and Autumn) will not be affected. 16
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• • • • •
It keeps all our friends and supporters in touch with our missionary work. It promotes devotion to St. Joseph - our patron and protector. There are three issues per year plus a Calendar at Christmas. It is sent to all our members. Membership is e10.00 per year, £7.00 for those in the sterling area, $12 for the U.S. Members give generously to help our missionary work and we deeply appreciate their great support.
If you would like to become a member, and receive the Advocate, please contact: Fr. Director, Mill Hill Missionaries, 50 Orwell Park, Rathgar, Dublin D06 C535. I enclose e10 for: (Please tick)
r New Membership r Renewal of Membership (If you have not renewed) Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Address: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................................ Perhaps you might interest a friend in becoming a member. All help is deeply appreciated, and you share in the prayers and good works of our missionaries.
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