by Sr. Jo Anne Kelly, MMM                                                  Ireland                                                    08.10.2025

Our house has been alive these days, as delegates for Our General Chapter arrived on journeys from all over our MMM world.

It reminds me of some of my own journeys. Towards the end of my first tour in Nigeria I was recuperating from illness in one of our communities and I got cut off from my own community when the Civil War began. Nobody knew what the future would bring. One of our Sisters was going home on leave so it was decided I should go with her and get well at home.

We set off early. After numerous delays of stopping and searching we reached the local airport to find all flights had been cancelled. We managed to get seats in a very crowded taxi to start our journey to Lagos. It was hazardous, stopping and checking every few miles. By nightfall we reached Benin and were warmly welcomed in a community of sisters there. Things were normal there so far and the Sisters were going out to some function. They gave us food and beds, told us to feel at home and went off.

Half an hour later we heard a car come in. Then we heard knocking on the front door and people talking. We looked down from the verandah. It was another car from the East, another MMM sister, a doctor, a young Irish nurse who was very ill and a priest whom I will call Hugh Walsh. It was not our house and we had no keys. We couldn’t do anything so they decided to go to the parish house and would check with us in the morning.

Next morning Fr. Hugh and the doctor arrived in a taxi, bound for Lagos. The nurse had been admitted in hospital and our Sister stayed with her so she could bring her home later when she was well enough to travel. We set off. Our journey to Lagos that day was another hazardous experience, more check points every few miles. The men at the check points were young and inexperienced, showing their new-found authority and were not easy to deal with. We were on the road all day and were so blessed to have Fr. Hugh. He sat in the front seat, was respectful and courteous throughout but spoke with authority and they listened to him. That made it so much easier for us.

In Lagos the doctor went his own way and we three got a flight home two days later. I never saw Fr. Hugh again but I remember his patience and strength.

Thirty eight years later I had a very different journey, this time in America on mission appeals. Sr. Anna and I arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on a Friday. A hurricane was forecast for the weekend. We got a warm welcome with Sisters who had a Nursing Home for their old and retired sisters. They were busy preparing for the hurricane. Everything movable outside had to be brought in, everything else secured and cars carefully parked. The storm was due to hit Mobil at midday on Sunday. We did go out for the Saturday Evening Mass but the wind was already very strong, people were boarding up their windows and preparing. Few came to Mass and we were so relieved to get back to the house safely.

On Sunday we all had an early lunch. Not knowing how long anything would take or what would happen we were given a snack and a torchlight, and all went to our rooms to wait out the storm. I couldn’t see much from my room, and I was curious. I ventured out and got to the sitting room. There I found old Sr. Brigid, watching television. She said “I always watch the hurricane coming in.” I started to watch too and I was literally fascinated. The sea was in turmoil, waves going miles into the sky and this ball of light moving inwards. I cannot explain such a spectacle. Brigid talked about the ’Eye of the Storm’. We sat there, just enthralled by what was happening.

Brigid and I got talking. She told me she was Irish, left home when she was 17 years old when nuns came searching for vocations. Now she was 95yrs old. She said “Those days when you went on mission you stayed on mission. There was no going home. I trained as a teacher, and all my life enjoyed teaching and working with young people”. She told me a lot about what she did and then she said, “And you, what do you do in Ireland?” I explained to her, that I actually worked in Nigeria. At that, she literally spun round to me and said. “Would you have known my baby brother, he was a priest in Nigeria?” Well, her baby brother was Fr. Hugh Walsh. I couldn’t believe it! I told her my story about Hugh.

Brigid was the eldest of a large family, Hugh was the youngest and was not born when she left home. She never saw Hugh until he was a priest and visited her in America after his ordination. After that he visited when he could. She was so thrilled to meet someone who knew him.
One never knows what any journey will bring and today all our delegates have set off on their journey to spend time listening to the Spirit of God and planning what God wants for the future of our Congregation. May it be a plan to make the world a better place, bring us some surprises and make God’s Tender Healing Love known to all with whom we come in contact.