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Christmas in the Madagascar Bush
For most of us, Christmas is a word that is loaded with
Santa Claus, called "Dadabe Noely", speaks with the younger Malagasy childrentremendous meaning. No doubt our minds are flooded with all sorts of wonderful images and memories. All our senses are jammed with a myriad of sights, sounds, smells and messages. Many of these are shaped and formed as much by our culture as by scripture. For example, the first time I spent Christmas alone in the bush country of Madagascar, I suffered from a massive dose of cultural shock. Since Christmas is in the rainy season I had to go on foot and canoe rather than take the Jeep. It was hot, humid and very muddy – no snow! Mosquitoes and other “little nasties” did not readily put me into a Christmas mood.
I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day in a small, isolated village. I slept on the mud floor in the sacristy of our tiny dilapidated doorless church. This was a predominately pagan village with only a handful of Catholics.
The people insisted that we have a Midnight Mass. But, as it their custom, they began singing Christmas carols around 9:00 PM. The children had made a crib made out of local clay. There was Mary and Joseph and naturally Jesus. These figures were surrounded not only by an ox, donkey and a few cows but also by a myriad of ombies (malgasy cattle) – a sign of wealth, riches and royalty.
October is Mission Awareness Month
Recently I was reading about St. Paul’s missionary experiences in his second letter to the Christians at Corinth (11:18, 21-30). Wow! Now there was a wonderfully inspiring Mission Newsletter for the folks back home.
Paul’s Challenges in Ministry
(from left) Timothy, Titus and BarnabusHe was imprisoned, lashed five times and beaten with rods three times. Once he was stoned and on three occasions he was shipwrecked. And on top of all this he traveled thousands of miles on foot always under the threat of robbers, the Roman authorities, the pagans, Jewish leaders and he even experienced difficulties and tensions with some of his own fellow believers. He knew hunger, thirst, heat and cold. And during all these hardships while he was establishing new churches, he was expected to earn his keep by making tents. It is no wonder that we hold St. Paul in such high esteem. Truly he was a great missionary.Supporters in Paul’s Ministry
Fr. Bernie Baris Moves to Holy Mountain
BREWSTER, Mass. — As a seminarian at La Salette Seminary in East Brewster, Father Bernard Baris, M.S., remembered singing in the choir for the first official Mass celebrated at Our Lady of the Cape Parish on Christmas Eve in 1962.
Fr. Baris standing at the actual site of the La Salette Apparition in France (photo: Kenneth J. Souza, Anchor Staff)“Father Joseph A. Nolin, who was the founder of the parish, didn’t have a choir… so he asked some of the seminarians to come and sing for the midnight Mass,” Father Baris told The Anchor. “I came from the seminary here along with some of my other classmates — including Father André Patenaude (‘Father Pat’) — to sing for that first Mass. Standing up in that choir loft inside a church that wasn’t even finished yet, I never thought I’d someday return here to become pastor.”In 1997, Father Baris was indeed named pastor of Our Lady of the Cape Parish, a place he’s called home for the past 17 years.
Moving to the Holy Mountain in France
Now at age 71, when many priests are beginning to think about retirement, Father Baris is preparing to enter a whole new phase of his ministry by becoming the director of the International Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in France, built on the original site in the French Alps where the Blessed Mother appeared to Maximin Giraud and Melanie Calvat on Sept. 19, 1846.
Conference for La Salettes on the Holy Mountain
The recent Conference held at the holy mountain of La Salette went very well. Being in the company of La Salette friends from the Philippines and acquaintances from other countries give me an opportunity to rekindle a wonderful feeling of La Salette fraternity.
Fr. Yves Simoens, S.J., the French Biblical scholar from Rome’s Gregorian University.The program began enriching presentations on La Salette Spirituality and the Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Gospel of Joy), by Pope Francis. They were for me an impetus for renewal of my religious commitment, deepening of my faith and gave me a renewed sense for my ministry. Also we had time for group sharing and rituals of recognizing our blessings. This included an opportunity to bless others – for me an emotional and moving moment and a celebration of fraternal reconciliation.
We heard a full-day exposition of the Gospel of John by the French Biblical scholar, Yves Simoens, S.J., from Rome’s Gregorian University. It is packed with insights.
Just being here at the holy mountain of La Salette itself is a great blessing and a privilege. I can feel the powerful and graceful presence of God here. We have time for personal prayer and meditation as well as spending some quiet time, surrounded by these breathlessly majestic mountains.
La Salette Feast in Madagascar
Cluster of Baobob trees, also called the upside-down tree, can reach almost 100 feet tall with a trunk from 47 to 155 feet in circumference. Several years ago, during a return visit to Madagascar, a highlight of the long trip for me from Antsirabe in the high plateau to Morondava on the coast was getting to see some Baobab trees. We stopped to see a particularly majestic one right at the edge of the road. When I saw the hollow trunk, I remembered a picture from a grammar school geography text with the comment that these trees sometimes offered shelter to the natives of the land. It must have been the same tree (almost)!
Along the way there were also many mangroves, along with cultivated plots of banana trees and tapioca root, with the terraced rice and wheat fields dominating the countryside. Some fields had pineapples growing. In deserted areas there were fields full of ant hills, like hundreds of teepees, two to three feet high, red earth against the pale brown of tough wild grass.
A School for Bematazana
As part of a larger group from Quézac, France, I had an opportunity of taking a trip to Madagascar with La Salette Sisters Elisabeth and Jacqueline. Together we visited their religious communities, and it was during one of those visits that we travelled from the town of Ambararatabe to the village of Bematazana, where we were received an incredible welcome.
While there, we were asked to meet with a group of local residents who were very determined to build a school for the town. The group was comprised of parents, members of the parish council, and local town authorities. This meeting had one clear purpose. They already had a plot of land, and had made 25,000 bricks. But they could proceed no further on their own. They asked us to help them.
Working Hard, Possessing Little
Children in their school room: on right is old schoolhouse; on left is their new oneWhen one considers that the village is small, very poor, and quite a distance from any large town, the steps they had already taken to build a school were enormous.
They had also set aside in the village a house where the sisters could live when they came to run the school. All these measures already set in place manifested their clear determination to provide a school for their children.
Physically Challenged People and the Beautiful Gate
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| Their school teacher reviews lessons with two of her students |
While in Morondava, Madagascar several years ago, I often went to spend time at the Handicap Center, known as “The Beautiful Gate.” This name was taken from the quote in the Acts of the Apostles: “And a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate of the temple called ‘the Beautiful Gate’ every day to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple” (Acts 3:2).
This ministerial outreach to those physically challenged began in 1982. At first the children had to go up to the high plateau – some two days travel in the back of a Land Rover. But today there are doctors and orthopedic therapists who work with them near their homes on the coast and are thereby able to reach out to cities, towns and villages in a radius of some 100 miles. A few hundred children have been helped.
In 2000 this outreach was expanded to reach the lives of the mentally challenged. Today these alone now number over 30. Some can still advance in specialized classes geared to their needs. We bought them a television and VHS player long before there was live television in the city. They could watch and study while viewing specialized video programs.
Read more Physically Challenged People and the Beautiful Gate
Nga Fu Goes to God
Editor: This is a happy incident in the life of a Burma Missionary, Fr. Edward O’Sullivan, M.S. His story was originally published on February, 1947, in our publication, Our Lady’s Missionary, pages 58-59. Unfortunately four years later, he was seriously injured in an automobile accident and died on Nov. 22, 1951. His absolute dedication to his people is typical of our La Salette Missionaries.
The simple history of Nga Fu is one of the most consoling incidents of my stay in Chaungtha, or Pleasant Creek, a village in the Arakan region of southwestern Burma. One of our standbys, a veritable pillar of the Church in that little Chin village, was U Shway U (Old Golden Egg). He was especially good at caring for the sick and preparing the dying for a happy death. Besides, he was father to all our orphans and to the children from the jungle who were boarded in Pleasant Creek at the expense of the mission in order that they might get their schooling and catechism.
God had blessed him with three brothers, U Shway Tu, U Shway Bu, and Nga Fu; or, to give the English equivalents, Old Golden Shovel, Old Golden Pot, and Mr. Hot. The last mentioned was a Baptist whose conversion had long been prayed for.
A Brother in Need
Over 75 Years of La Salette in Brazil
We live in an age which constantly sweeps us up in a sea of change. This has influenced each of us and
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| Fr. Adilson Schio, M.S. |
has even affected the Church herself as she reinterprets some of her own ways of thinking. However we may still find it difficult to understand the implications of these changes.
My native country of Brazil is one of wide diversity: our mix of cultures, religious expressions, our economic outlook, our ecological and political principles are certainly not univocal. In the midst of this wonderful diversity, this coat of many colors, we find frequent opportunities to respond to these changes by living out the challenge of our La Salette charism of reconciliation. We are convinced that there will be no true fullness of life without accepting the challenge of a mission of reconciliation. Our mission always promotes harmony and justice among people.
Becoming at Home with Constant Change
Change is no longer as scary as it was in years past. In fact it is an invitation to greater possibilities. The reality of ongoing change invites us to grow into better, more critical and prophetic missionaries in today’s world.
Reconciliation, understood as prophecy (speaking the truth), and expressed in the pastoral care and various apostolates in our mission in Brazil, is one of the foundations of fundamental importance for our ministry. We try to make of it a new cycle of life for our consecration and mission.
In Brazil we are a missionary group of seventy religious men who explore our charism of reconciliation in all that we do. We seek to make it our pastoral and spiritual strength. Reconciliation is a real need and we will only be able to build it if we make of it an effective, real life experience.
An Important Meeting in Aparecida, Brazil
Reconciliation in Czech Republic
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| Fr. Jarek Boruçki, M.S. |
My name is Fr. Jarek Borucki, La Salette Missionary and native of Poland. We as La Salettes have been called to serve in the nearby Czech Republic which is recovering slowly from several centuries of turbulent history. Since 1996, we have established four La Salette houses in parishes near the north central border area of the Czech Republic.
Committed to parish pastoral ministry, we operate in this country in small groups of La Salettes. Surprisingly and fortunately the apparition of Our Lady of La Salette is well known in the Czech Republic. We have no doubt that we have an important role to play in promoting the spirituality of reconciliation. Yet, in all honesty, it must be said that in 1968, our home country of Poland assumed a shameful role in the suppression of the Prague Spring! But now, even as Polish religious, we seem to be a little better accepted.
In the Czech Republic, because of the long history of persecution of the Catholic Church, the number of Czech practicing Catholics are few. The communities are therefore in great need of priests to renew their faith and lead them. In fact, many Catholic parishes had remained underground for several decades due to the Communist government.