CROSSING FRONTIERS SPIRITUALITY OF JOSEPH DEPIRO AS LIVED BY THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF SAINT PAUL FR MARK GRIMA MSSP
For us, the members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, 2010 marked an important step in the journey. It was the centenary celebration of the year when our Founder, Joseph DePiro, painstakingly gathered the first two members around him in the very small living quarters at Imdina. During our festivities, we were very conscious that the fruits, which we were reaping one hundred years later, were the dream of a generous man who listened to God’s call giving his all to become part of the divine plan for humanity. We were also aware that the Missionary Society of Saint Paul, as we know it today, was the collective heritage of many men and women who were inspired by our Founder and carried on the flame ignited by him.
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The man who quietly crossed frontiers I would like to share a powerful image that remained with me during this time about this holy man. It is an image that emerged from the historical studies of documents and the events of his life. It is also shaped by the legacy that he left in those who carried on his dream both within the Missionary Society he founded and those who sustained it in various ways. It is the image of a man who quietly crossed frontiers.
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GOD’S CALL TO BECOME AN ORDAINED MINISTER WAS NOT AN ACHIEVEMENT BUT AN INSTRUMENT OF HUMBLE SERVICE.
Crossing frontiers for Joseph DePiro came at a very high cost. It meant his reputation, his personal achievements and his life. His death, at the relatively young age of 56, is just one indication.
Hailing from a noble and influential family, the seventh of nine siblings, he was quite a simple young man, sociable and determined in his ways. If
Crossing frontiers required a wisdom which very few people possess. Joseph DePiro did it in a particular way which is noteworthy. He kept on bringing whatever he possessed and making it available for those who had no access even to the basics of life. He used his position in the Church hierarchy to promote peace in politically turbulent times. He used his position to promote the foundation of the first and only male Maltese missionary and religious congregation for the love of the Word of God. The material means he inherited from his family became available for the dispossessed who always seemed to be at his heels.
priesthood was his call, then he was going to follow that call even if he had to wait. But priesthood was not yet another status to add to those he had inherited. Priesthood was to become his being, the soul through which he reached out to others. God’s call to become an ordained minister was not an achievement but an instrument of humble service. In the multitude of activities and responsibilities which accumulated throughout his life, he ministered faithfully as a simple priest, with no pretension or hidden motivation. He went beyond his comfort-zones and dared to cross frontiers even when not supported. He was • born a noble man in a loving family, but he loved the orphans so much. • an established priest in his country, but he longed to become a missionary. • a man of great financial means, but he lived in tattered clothes like the ordinary man in the street, many a time forced to beg on behalf of the poor. • a man of modest intelligence, but he entered the Maltese political arena with its many intricacies and implications. • a man of feeble health, but he became anything for the needy.
There was a manner in which DePiro crossed all these frontiers: quietly. There was no pomp about his giving, about his patient suffering, about his sacrifices and about the opposition he encountered. He used to repeat ‘Il bene non fa chiasso e il chiasso non fa bene’ (Literally translated this means: “The good does no noise, and noise does no good.”). Humility was the order of the day and the virtue which made his life an authentic one. If crossing frontiers was his lifestyle, this was very much based on the one true model: that of the incarnation. It is about God, quietly crossing the 2
frontier between heaven and earth, giving us everything, as if that was the most natural thing to do and trusting us that we will make the most of it. Joseph DePiro’s intimate relationship with Christ transformed him into another incarnation of God for us.
left in the hands of leaders outside of its charism and our Founder started to fade away into the distant past – as if humbly letting go and trusting others. Yet, his spirit remained very much alive in his missionary brothers.
When, in 1933, Joseph DePiro crossed his final frontier at the age of 56, that from this life to the next, he was sure that he was to carry his Missionary Society with him. He was convinced that it would
There was already a small flame burning in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) where the first MSSP member, sent by our Founder himself, was ministering since 1927. Characteristic of DePiro, he was very prompt to cross the frontiers of mission even when back home he lacked the numbers. This turned out to be fundamental to the struggling missionary congregation in Malta. The missionary presence of Bro Joseph Caruana, after the death of Joseph DePiro, was a great help to keep this missionary
flourish after his death. I am sure that the small community he left behind felt that this poor noble man was once again interceding for them in front of the Heavenly Father. His death reflected his life. He died quietly during a liturgical service. The small missionary congregation he founded, besides the reminiscent resistance regarding its existence, was too shocked to take the reins in its hands. He was everything for the first members and they seemed to have lost their soul. For decades, our Society was
Since from 1933 to 1948 the Society was administered by non-MSSP members, very little energy was left to invest in mission. It was in 1948, after the first Superior General was chosen from among the members, that the community immediately started to once again look beyond Malta. The missionary ventures entered into by the Society since then were varied in nature but were
The missionary community he left behind
community focused on its charism.
3 JOSEPH DE PIRO WITH THE FIRST MSSP MEMBERS
animated by the same ideal – that of sharing the Good News from our smallness, particularly with those on the periphery of society. Our members were always ready to leave their homeland and generously insert themselves in the culture wherever they were called. Like our Founder, they put a lot of energy into their ministry and ensured that it was brought to fruition.
Here I would like to highlight one reality which also motivated both our Founder, and consequently the superiors, to work with Maltese migrants. Ministering in the Island of Malta after World War II, meant working with the poor. In particular, those who were left with nothing to lose were forced to migrate to foreign countries with not even language as a backup. Seeing the need to accompany these Maltese faithful into foreign lands, the superiors recognised that helping them to keep their faith was part of the missionary dimension of the Church. After electing the first Superior General in 1948, the first missionaries were sent to Australia, later on to Canada in 1959, and then to the United States in 1978.
The missionary spirit today Since the time of our Founder, there has always been a sense of belonging to the missionary dimension of the Church. The superiors of the Congregation were very keen to respond to the needs of the Church putting, at her own disposal, whatever resources were available for the evangelization of peoples. The first step towards this vison, after the death of our Founder, was the ministry with Maltese migrants. Joseph DePiro always saw this activity as a stepping-stone for the MSSP into foreign territory outside the Island of Malta. In the eyes of his superiors,the choice of Maltese migrants was not very much in direct line with the evangelization of peoples. But DePiro hoped that, through this ministry, members of the Missionary Society would start ministering in foreign countries and eventually move on into countries which were not of a Christian background (known as ‘ad gentes’ countries). In the meantime our members have always taken seriously the ministry of missionary animation within the local Church.
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It was in 1968 that, as MSSP, we opened our first community in Peru. At that stage, Peru was quite a poor country, but with a Christian tradition. As our missionaries were to discover later themselves, the spiritual and the social had to go very much hand in hand. Accompanying the faithful in Peru meant giving them the very basics of faith. Many professed the Christian faith but very little possibilities were available for those who lived outside the cities. In fact, our missionaries, up to this very day, work in a number of parishes either far from the city or on the periphery where most of the very poor congregate in the hope of bettering their lives. Though once again not an ‘ad gentes’ mission, this country in South America needed a lot of missionaries to give the poor Christian faithful an opportunity to grow in faith. Much effort is being invested in the formation of Christian communities
ONE THING, THAT CHARACTERIZED OUR FOUNDER, WAS HIS ABILITY TO SEE AN ARISING NEED AND TO RESPOND TO IT WITHOUT TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON COUNTING THE COST. 4
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AUSTRALIA
which consequently are prepared to help and support each other in the various realities of their lives.
providence. Apart from being a Gospel value, our Founder highlighted it strongly with his generous life and, in our Original Constitutions, he insisted that “once they [the missionaries], with the Lord’s help, complete their mission, they are to leave the field of evangelization as soon as possible.” In 1999, it was decided to send missionaries to Asia – to the Philippines. This was a joint venture between our established missions and was a response to the Church’s call to look towards the east for fresh efforts in evangelization. Since the Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country in Asia, the mission was perceived as a stepping-stone into other oriental countries when possibilities would arise in the future. This is still a young mission but is very dear to us because it offers us new challenges which, with the Church as a whole, we still need to explore and listen to what the Lord calls us to.
A significant step was made in 1982 with the assignment of our missionaries to Pakistan. Initially, an MSSP community was being prepared to go to Indonesia, but as this became increasingly difficult to implement, Pakistan was chosen as the missionary assignment. This was an ‘ad gentes’ mission and, in a way, fulfilled the dream that, as MSSP, we would journey with people where Christianity was a minority. This is clearly not a straight forward mission: direct evangelization is significantly limited in a strong Islamic environment. Thus, similar to what was happening in Peru, our missionaries took on ministries in the periphery of the cities where most of the poor lived and where small Christian communities were being formed.
In the background of all these developments, our communities in Malta remained very much active both in animating the missionary spirit and in supporting our missions with human resources and other material needs. In Malta, we are not involved in parish ministry because we always felt that, as a Missionary Congregation, our main objective was to
By the end of the twentieth century, many of our missions were quite established and we were also receiving vocations from these countries. Though the need for missionaries from within each mission was always great, we were aware that, even from our poverty, we needed to look beyond trusting in God’s 5
direct the faith of the Maltese towards the universal Church and to help people become more conscious of the needs of others. Though our Congregation has always remained proportionally small when it comes to religious members, a lot of lay faithful have been inspired by the missionary spirit of both our Founder and of those who followed his ideal. Today many lay faithful, of all ages and walks of life, are joining our missionaries in this quest for evangelization. Our members in Malta are spearheading this new development from within a quite secularized modern culture.
Today, as MSSP, we are carrying this spirituality as part of the heritage passed on to us by our forefathers. With urgency, we are called to look at the modern world and respond to its needs in a renewed manner. Like our Founder, we cannot just sit back and enjoy our status quo. We cannot build up walls around us to protect what we have achieved thus far. We know well that any comfortable option can only lead us to mere functionality and conformity. In this spirit every ministry, that we are already involved in, needs to be looked at from a fresh perspective which reflects the culture we are living in.
A renewed outlook
For this reason the lay people, embracing the MSSP charism at varying levels, are increasingly becoming central in our ministries. We need to
One thing, that characterized our Founder, was his
discover concrete ways of how these brothers and sisters can be MSSP while having a family and going to work. We need to think outside the box and not simply try to fit them in religious structures that suit us as religious but not them as lay faithful. This produces new challenges particularly because a lot of options are possible and no one model is the answer. Also, as religious, we need to adapt and learn how to work with the laity not only as the recipients of our ministry but also as our co-ministers,
ability to see an arising need and to respond to it without too much emphasis on counting the cost. Again and again, he was disheartened by those around him when he took initiatives which required too much commitment or were regarded as lower than his social status. But he always looked at the persons and saw them as God saw them: his redeemed children. This made him put no limits on his endeavors, out of which he expected nothing in return.
PAKISTAN
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are having people who are being forcibly displaced from their homes because of economic, political, religious or conflict reasons. The numbers are on an exponential increase and today we have to acknowledge that we do not really have solutions. Once again we, as missionaries both lay and religious, need to enter more deeply into these realities, not with solutions but with openness to understand what the needs really are. It is only then that we can walk with these displaced people, offering them the life of the Gospel which caters for both the whole human person.
and even to be ministered to by them. In this context, I am encouraged and am very glad with every initiative where MSSP lay persons shoulder the efforts of evangelization with us. With this in mind, I want to view the various missionary ventures which we are undertaking with a fresh perspective. I begin with migrant chaplaincy which we are currently responsible for in Australia and Canada. Most of the people, whom we ministered to earlier, have moved on in life and integrated in society. But the elderly are increasingly finding themselves bereft of moral and spiritual support, most of the time on their own and losing their point of reference. Their children, and consequently younger generations, live in a culture where the spiritual aspect is heavily undermined by secularism, a phenomenon that we as missionaries cannot take lightly: we must use all available means to connect with these people. Together with migrant chaplaincy and missionary animation which we are already doing, we need to be on the forefront of the emerging New Evangelization in these modern and affluent countries.
Another reality that we, as MSSP, learned through our own experience is the importance of working with local communities. Inspired by our Founder, what stands out is the sense of presence we try to instill in our endeavors. A case in point is our mission in Pakistan. Apart from helping the poor Christian minorities, as well as the Muslims near our communities, to socially better their lives, the principal witness is our own life. Our small MSSP community is a proof that when we live the Gospel values we can surmount the divisions of nationalities, castes and religions, and work together in promoting the common good. Our community of presence presents a beacon of hope which quietly, like our Founder, crosses a lot of frontiers carrying the word of God with it into places which are increasingly becoming out of reach.
On the other hand, today migration is on the increase and is becoming a major topic not only of study but also of action within the Church. Everywhere we
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AS MISSIONARIES BOTH LAY AND RELIGIOUS, NEED TO ENTER MORE DEEPLY INTO THESE REALITIES, NOT WITH SOLUTIONS BUT WITH OPENNESS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE NEEDS REALLY ARE.
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In the words of our Founder as found in the Original Constitutions: “To be suitable to preach, the priests of the Society must be convinced of the love of Jesus Christ, and of their duty to spread his pleasing aroma (Cf II Cor 2, 15) always and everywhere. In fact, when Our Lord sent the Apostles to preach to the whole world, he did not only mean the actual preaching, but also the good example that renders the preaching more efficacious. Therefore, each one is to consider, as addressed to him, the words that Our Father St Paul addressed to Titus: ‘In everything
set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us’ (Tit 2, 7-8).”
remain poor by sharing our resources constantly without accumulating them for our own comfort or protection. I used to believe that a missionary cannot preach the Gospel to an empty stomach, until It was brought to my attention that it may not be the case when the missionary’s stomach is also empty. This is a lesson that our Founder Joseph DePiro teaches us so well. Being a missionary is not about what we do or what we possess but rather about who we are for the people and how ready are we to share. In a global society, where the focus is on the “self”, giving freely and disinterestedly becomes very much countercultural, and thus very much Gospel-like.
Other missions, such as those in Peru and Philippines, also need to have a constant fresh outlook as the missionary model changes along with rapid global advancements affecting all levels of life. Once again, inspired by our Founder, these missionary communities, though not very large, are called to look beyond their own securities, launching into other ministries both within their geographical reach and beyond. When our Founder, from his small Joseph DePiro, the man who quietly broke through Society, sent Bro Caruana to the missions, those left frontiers, is inviting us once again to take courage and behind in Malta found a lot of support and inspiration in this missionary gift to another country in Africa. I strongly believe that today the situation is not different. We need to remain generous with our vocation, called to give even from the little we have, and expect nothing in return except that the word of God reaches the hearts of many people.
be different, not for our own sake, but to spread the fire of Jesus whose word is still pressing on us today: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49).
As a Missionary Society, whose fundamental option for the poor is central to our call, we also need to
Fr Mark Grima mssp MSSP Superior General
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