by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM Ireland 21.11.2023
It often happens that the first step in exercising solidarity is exploring the lack of self-esteem among people who are marginalized. In one women’s group in Brazil the participants were asked to draw something that expresses “who am I?” Elizabeth complained that she couldn’t draw. “You don’t have to be an artist”, it was explained, “just any rough picture that helps you say who you are, or how is your life just now.” She drew a cockroach.
The discussion began. Why did she choose that? Her reply came softly at first until she was secure enough to express the real anger she was feeling. “What do you do when you see a cockroach?”, she asked. “You step on it and try to kill it. This is what has been happening to me all my life.”
Starting from this low point, it takes a lot of patience to help women to accept their true worth, to realise their potential and begin to explore their talents. This was the reality of my work with women in prostitution in the city of Salvador. Many were trapped in prostitution by illiteracy and poverty and traumatized by violence since childhood.
The health of these women was my special concern. As well as the sexually transmitted diseases you would expect, most also suffer from stress-related illnesses – hypertension, gastritis, cardiac problems. Many suffered from the violent behaviour of their clients or home partners but they were reluctant to go to the police to complain, as their complaints were not treated seriously.
Once we set up a literacy class for the women. This gives women a better chance of integrating with the wider society. Lucia was one woman who taught me this. She was 46 years old and came to Salvador as a teenager from another State. She worked all day in brothel near the port. Lucia told me how excited she was when she managed to join up her letters and how much she enjoyed the literacy class. The previous year, she bought a long-distance bus ticket to go to visit her mother, but missed the bus because she could not read the name of the destination written up on the front. “I will never miss my bus again,” she said happily.
by Sr. Jo Anne Kelly MMM Ireland 19.11.2023
I read a reflection about the Gospel reading of last Sunday- the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. The writer told about organizing and leading pilgrimages for more or less the same group of people over many years. Every single year the same three or four people were never ready when the coach was due to leave or return.
It reminded me of a time I was working with a group of young women. Three mornings a week they attended classes, with other young women and men in an Institute on the other side of the city from where we lived. It was a very big crowded city. These were treasured classes and nobody wanted to miss them. I was doing the driving. The time to leave was 8.30am to be sure we’d get across in time. Every single morning one girl would come running minutes late, the same girl every day. When we got home one day. I told them from now on I would leave on time with whoever was already in the car. The next day I did so and the same girl got left behind.
She went back to her room collected her pocket money, which was very little at the time, and walked out to the busy road where mini buses were passing. She was not very familiar with the city but she found a bus going to the city centre. There she stepped down into a crowded market area, with traders’ stalls both sides of the road, young men pushing wheelbarrows selling their wares, crowds of people jostling each other, lots of noise and loud music, and rows of buses filling up ready to go off in all directions, their drivers shouting out their destinations, almost impossible to be heard over all the din. . She eventually found a bus going in the direction she wanted and had quite a walk from the main road in to the Institute. She arrived as the last class of the morning was beginning. She told us all this on the way home. I admired her effort and we had lots of fun about it. She also learnt it is good to be alert and ready when there’s something good being offered.
For us there is always something good being offered. Pope Francis once said. “God conceals Himself in the most common and ordinary situations in life and we need to be constantly aware of this reality. There is a danger of not recognizing His coming. He quotes St. Augustine ‘I fear He will pass and I will not recognize him.’ But the l Lord is coming, marking the foundation of our Hope” Perhaps Hope is the one thing we all need in our world today. By our tardiness, or failing to be awake and alert we can miss the gift.
by Nadia Ramoutar MMM Communications Coordinator Ireland 17.11.2023
One of the joys of my work in the Communications Department for the MMMs, is that I am always overwhelmed listening to the MMM Sisters stories of what they have done and what they have seen over the years. Even our young MMM Sisters have incredible experience in healing people and empowering people in desperate situations. They work in some of the poorest and most neglected places in the world. After a life of service, many of our MMM Sisters return to our Motherhouse in Drogheda, but their hearts and minds are still very much on the mission. They never really leave.
Last year we held a Christmas Craft Fair in Drogheda in our auditorium and invited the community for the first time in 15 years. The Day was a massive success with us raising over €6,500 for a maternal health and baby clinic near a slum in Malawi. There was a buzzing of joy all day long as people gathered and purchased handmade crafts and artisan items. It was a lot of work but it was also exciting to put the “fun” back in Fundraiser. Our MMM Sisters of all ages were vibrant and overflowing with energy and Christmas cheer.
What was even more wonderful for me was to see the MMM Sisters in the weeks leading up the Craft Fair busy knitting, crocheting, making cards, ornaments and Christmas items for the Craft Fair. We are doing the same thing this year and we will have two craft making sessions to get things ready for the big day. Many of our MMM Sisters have been crocheting and knitting all year long to create exquisite handmade items for the Craft Fair.
It is so great to see all the tireless effort and hope being sewn into every item.
We are blessed to have so many caring women who will do anything at all they can to still raise money and awareness for the Sisters still at work in the field. It is such a circle of love and giving that lift my heart and helps remind me of the light and goodness still in the world. As we watch the TV news or look on social media there is so much destruction and it weighs on the heart. Seeing the Sisters busy making beautiful items creates a true feeling of Christmas.
If it is possible for you to join us, our Craft Fair will be 25th November 2023 at the Auditorium in Drogheda. We would love to see you there. If you can’t make it, keep us and the Sisters in your prayers as we make Christmas magic for the whole community to share with the world and people in most need.
by Sr. M. Elizabeth Ireland/Nigeria 15.11.2023
Editor’s Note: This story comes from one of our early MMM Magazines. One wonders what the scientific reason for this would be nowadays, or if we would be killing snakes at all, now that we are protecting bio-diversity!
There was great excitement outside our house one day. A thin green snake, about six feet long, had been killed on our doorstep and one of the dispensary boys said that it was the mother of a family that had its nest in the mound a few yards away from our door. We asked him what we should do about it and he advised us to send for one Aliya who had medicine which made snakes unable to hurt him, and that he and his and his father and his father’s father before him all had this wonderful power of immunity to snake bite due to this medicine.
Although I felt very sceptical, still I sent for Aliya who soon arrived accompanied by several other boys. He instructed them to dig into the mound. They did so rather timorously until they came across the snake’s burrow. Then they all jumped back, and Aliya came forward. Nonchalantly he pulled out a snake about three feet long. The creature stayed absolutely stiff as though it were a stick. All the boys stood at a respectful distance.
Then he threw the snake on the ground and at once it began to wriggle and the boys ran for their lives. Then he bent down and touched it and immediately it became as stiff as before. He played with it for a few minutes, throwing it down and picking it up, handling it any way, holding it by the head or tail and finally he dispatched it, cutting off its head. He them put in his arm and drew out other snakes one by one, dealing with them in the same way and killing five snakes in all.
It was an extraordinary performance to watch and if I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. Such is the power of “native medicine”.
by Sr. Ann Flynn MMM USA 13.11.2023
Recently I was asked for the story of my vocation which I guess you could say started when I arrived into a family in the heart of the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. My 4-year-old sister, Marge, and 2-year-old brother, Bob, had already arrived …and I was the last of the clan. When I was 3, someone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up and I announced: “I’m going to be a nurse.”
This surprised everyone because I didn’t know any nurses and had never been in a hospital. Soon I was 5 and we had to leave the beautiful lake and all that goes with ‘small town America’. This move brought us first to Baltimore, and then on to Buffalo, which would be my home for the next twenty years. Life was good! Lots of empty lots to play in and school was full of fun and friends.
Then in August 1945 all that changed. The doctor came to the house (imagine that!) and confirmed my parents’ worst fears: Polio. I was only 9 years old, but I knew this was not good. My Grandfather and Dad built a ‘Kenny Packer’ with a big pot in which to boil water so my mother could soak the pieces of wool to make hot packs which she wrapped around me from early morning until late at night. It was a very lonely time for my mother. Everyone was afraid to visit because at that time, no one knew what polio was or how it was contracted. Only our neighbour, Mrs. Bury would come down every evening and visit. On one such occasion she asked, “Why don’t you ask God to make you better?” I knew He made the world and all the lovely creatures, flowers, and the stars. “Why would He want to do that” was my question and her reply, “Because He loves you”.
That precious piece of knowledge gave me a new lease on life, and I uttered my first ‘formal’ prayer. I remember it still: “If you’d like to make me better, I wouldn’t mind”. The years rolled on and I followed the dream of my three-year-old self. Just as I was finishing my nurse’s training, someone casually (God is very clever!) said to me, “I have found a place for you, they do medical mission work. NOT ME! I thought to myself. Mrs. Bury was a missionary to me and my family and the thought of doing the same wove in and out of my thoughts. No internet, no smart phone, and no Google—I had to find people who did this work by looking in a huge tome of a book. And there I found the Medical Missionaries of Mary.
These are simply the bones of my story…so many people and places and events have brought it to life.
by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM Ireland 11.11.2023
The most poignant line in the story of the Annunciation is the last line. The angel told Mary the great news that she was to bear a child. This child would be the saviour of his people. The angel calmed her fears by telling her that God would be with her and then the the story ends abruptly with “and the angel left her”.
What an anti-climax! There she was, pregnant, confused, and now seemingly abandoned. I think this line talks to me a lot because it reflects so many times in my life when I didn’t see a clear path forward. I tried to discern what action to take, but often the answer was slow in coming, or it seems like events came along and “took the decision from me”. Am I alone in this? I don’t think so, and I think that is why we hear Mary’s story with the “left high and dry” part at the end, and we instinctively understand it. It is so often our own story we are hearing.
Many years ago, I was finishing one assignment in Ireland and left free to return to Brazil. But should I go? My mother was widowed, elderly, not in great health and I had no siblings living in Ireland. What should I do? Recently I was looking back at this period of my life, and I realised that I was a bit like Mary, bewildered and confused. It took me months to decide, and I talked it over with many people. What pushed me to take the decision to return to Brazil in the end? I can’t remember, but I think I just took the best decision I could take at the time, knowing that neither decision was perfect. At times we just are called to muddle along.
God does not ask us to do the impossible, but as Mother Mary Martin said, “With God, all things are possible”. The secret is to believe that God is with us, whether we feel his presence or not. When we truly rely on God’s strength, wisdom, and care, we can relax and just do the best we can. That is all that is asked of us. I am sure Mary took up the months of her pregnancy still with many questions – but she didn’t feel sorry for herself and become wrapped up in her own difficulties. She saw her cousin, Elizabeth’s need and went in haste to help her.
Today I don’t ask for clarity, just for the comfort of knowing that I am not alone. I can look outwards because God is with me.
by Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer MMM USA 09.11.2023
What a thrill? Now our mornings were spent in the hospital instead of the classroom. We had the choice of choosing what hospital we would like to attend. The three of us, Martha, Maura, and Margaret, also known as The Three MMMS, agreed to go to St Vincent’s Hospital. At that time, it was located at the corner of Stephens Green and Leeson Street.
I will always remember my first day in the ward. Our tutor had told us how to feel the pulse and then we were to find one on an assigned patient who was agreeable to this. I was delighted to hear my sweet elderly lady tell me “Don’t worry dear, the Doctor had a tough time finding it himself. She had a very weak irregular pulse which I eventually found with her help. I am eternally grateful to her for all the encouragement she gave me.
We were also assigned in threes to a consultant. The two men assigned with me were most helpful, Maurice Fitzgerald who later became the Professor of Medicine in UCD and Seamus Healy who later became a successful Doctor. It was our job to collect the blood specimens and I had an exceedingly grim time getting into a vein and drawing blood. The lads always came to my rescue. This went on for some time and I became worried that I was not cut out to become a Doctor and dutifully told Mother Mary about my plight. Mother Mary listened attentively and brushed my worry aside telling me to pray, Dear, as if Dear had not already prayed. Well, lo and behold Dear prayed and got in the vein the first go. All seemed to get better after that.
In the afternoons we had our classes in Pathology, Histology, Social and Preventive Medicine, and Pharmacology. After 5pm in the evenings we could visit the patients in our Consultant’s ward.
As I mentioned before, our Consultant was Mr. Duff. He jokingly remarked I am not the “Holy Man”, implying he was not the Frank Duff who started the Legion of Mary. Yet he was a very gentle and good doctor and treated his patients as well as us medical students with profound respect. We watched him operate, an excellent genito-urinary specialist, and sometimes he let us assist him.
We were with him for three months from March to June 1962 and then we switched to a medical Consultant, Dr. Muldowney, who was a renal specialist. Our time here was divided into periods of six weeks in the hospital and six weeks’ vacation. We knew we would have an examination in September, so the vacation time was spent studying. I took my vacation period first. For three weeks, I had the joy of being with my mother and father, grandfather, family friend and my younger brother, Albert, who came from New York to visit me. We toured Dublin and later went to Glendalough and Cork. Mother Mary told me to wear lay clothes in Dublin but to wear the habit in Cork and Kerry. On the way to Cork we stopped in Tipperary and a storekeeper told me there is one of you in the town. I went to see Sr. Bernadine who was taking care of her extremely ill sister. I was glad to see her. She showed me pictures of her Final Profession in Uganda. Little did I know at the time that one day I would be assigned there.
We visited Blarney Castle. I told Mother Mary I did not kiss the stone because I had my habit on. She was pleased. I can still see my 82-year-old grandfather waiting for us to descend the rocky stairs. He was glad we had an enjoyable time up there, kissing the stone, but he conserved his energy for the trip to Kerry. I stayed with the Mercy Sisters and my family stayed in the main hotel. My mother told me all the older girls wanted my brother Albert, aged fourteen, to teach them how to do the Twist.
Finally, the sad day to say goodbye arrived and we all hugged each other with gratitude for having the chance to be with each other again. I still had another three weeks to study, and it felt good to be studying again after such an exhilarating time with my family.
The end of September loomed forth too hastily and we found ourselves in the throes of the examination hall. Our Professor of Pharmacology had a reputation of being hard on nuns, so we were afraid of failing like many of those who went before us. The night before the pharmacology exam I had a very pleasant dream of a Grimms’ fairy tale princess walking through silver speckled woods. It put me in a good mood and, thanks be to God, I had no difficulty with the exam. In fact, most of the questions I could answer were from what the consultants taught me in the hospital and on the wards. I used to listen to the nurses give out the medicines. They knew exactly what each person was getting. They were well trained by the Irish Sisters of Charity who ran the hospital at that time.
Thank God this period of classes was completed. The rotation of consultants and new classes proceeded but that is another story.
by Nadia Ramoutar MMM Communications Coordinator Ireland 07.11.2023
Listening to the news and hearing what is going on in the world can be hard – even for people with great faith. It almost seems as if humans are on a track to continue to destroy one another and our environment. I am not usually so sceptical but recently, I read an article about how three teenage boys were arrested in Florida for making a hit list of who they were going to shoot and kill. They shared this list on social media to terrify other children. One of the teens targeted on the list had the courage and sense to tell an adult about this. The boys were arrested and taken to an adult prison, not a juvenile prison.
When we reflect on this story we realise that so many families are destroyed by this situation. The three boys families immediately, but then the families of the children who were listed as targets. Most likely the teachers, friends and family of all the children involved are devastated. I was horrified reading this not knowing any of the children involved and my compassion went immediately to all of them. What a nightmare.
Technology is frequently being abused by people who want to torment others. What a shame. I am saddened that we cannot do more to encourage a new generation of young people more than we are now. We can blame the media and people often do, but the truth is that we are all really failing young people when we don’t give them the right guidance or even monitor their behaviour. I have to say that it seems as if we really need to look at ways we can reach young people and get them more engaged, but we don’t seem to know how to do it.
When I was young so much of my childhood revolved around the church and how I spent my week. Table tennis, girl guides, youth club and even dances on the weekend. I think that we have to find ways to get young people engaged in their communities again. A recent study concluded that young males between 16 and 25 years old since Covid 19 have struggled to get back outside away from screens. They have severe disconnection from the natural world which is also harming them.
It is alarming to think that angry young men operate solely on screens and are disconnected from their communities and even from themselves. We need to work to get them involved in positive ways. Angry, lonely and scared young men are not something society anywhere can afford to breed. We know the damage that is done already as they are recruited for the dark side.
We must have faith in what we have not seen and know that there are ways that we can build new paths to reconnect young people to their greater good.
by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM Ireland 05.11.2023
Nobody knew her age. She was tall and thin and looked in her early twenties, but looking back now, I think she was probably more, close to thirty. Gabi was part of the flotsam and jettison that bob up and down amidst all the port cities of the world. She was a nobody, came from nowhere and left this world unnoticed. This is her story.
I first met Gabi when I went to work at a Centre run by the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer. They are a Congregation of Sisters, started in Spain, but now international. Their main work is with women in prostitution. Gabi was one of these girls, coming into the Centre for a toilet break, a cup of coffee, a shower, sometimes just to sit and chat. She had a large, generous smile, despite the poor condition of her rotting teeth. She had been coming to the Centre on and off for about five years before I met her. She was an intelligent young woman and the Sisters had offered her training courses, hoping that she could take direction for her own life, but she couldn’t concentrate because of her drug use. She was addicted to crack cocaine.
Her early home life was nomadic. She and her mother moved from city to city, drifting from the life of prostitution to another, always hoping that things would get better. Gabi’s mother was also a drug user. Gabi told me she used to hold her mother’s arm to steady it while the mother injected the drug. Then, in the city of Salvador, the mother fell ill, too ill to travel any more. Gabi nursed her until she died. There was never an official diagnosis, but the was probably a mixture of tuberculosis and AIDS. After her death Gabi was homeless. She lived between a homeless shelter and the street. She told me she preferred the street as it was safer than theft and death threats in the shelter.
Gabi always wanted to be a mother. Several times she told us she was pregnant, but no baby ever came along. By this time, she had hitched up with a partner, Milton. He was also a drug user and was abusive to her. One day she turned up with a knife wound in her arm where he had stabbed her.
Finally, she did become pregnant and miraculously carried the baby to term. She gave birth to a baby girl and called her Ana Clara. Gabi knew she had no conditions to raise her child and voluntarily gave her up for adoption straight from the Maternity hospital. Afterwards she used to say, “But I am a mother, aren’t I?” And I would reassure her that indeed she had a beautiful baby girl.
I would love to say this story had a happy ending, but that would not be true. Gabi died on December 31st, twenty minutes before a New Year, stabbed by her partner, Milton, as she slept rough on a shop doorstep. Milton refused to identify the body and she was buried in a pauper’s grave.
Why am I telling you this story? Because I feel Gabi is one of the hundreds of people who continue to bear Christ’s suffering in this world. Is it right? Is it fair? No, but that is the way it is. I feel I was privileged to walk with Gabi during her passion and I know that she is now safe and secure in God’s eternal love. May she rest in peace.
by Sr. Jo Anne Kelly MMM Ireland 03.11.2023
The five cherry trees in our garden are beautiful just now. With the mild weather in this part of Ireland they have held on to most of their leaves and are now ablaze with autumn colours. As I came in from my morning walk I asked those I met to tell me what colours they see in those trees. What a variety of answers I got- yellow, red, green, orange, peach, amber, gold, rust, russet, and brown. Someone else said “The leaves are like flames of fire turned upside down”.
Each colour is unique and all these different colours together add to the magnificent beauty of the whole. In His great Love, God made us all with a wonderful variety of gifts, colours, cultures, beliefs and so much else. Yet today, in places, our world is torn apart because of our differences.
Pope Francis before the Synod said “The only future worth building includes everyone. The world, as we find it, calls for equality, solidarity and tenderness. Let us help each other, all together.”
Pope John XX111 once said “If we are followers of Jesus our primary mission is to help people come to know the Love of Jesus Christ. The church exists for no other reason. Open windows and let the fresh air in”. And how do we let the fresh air in?
I am reminded of the lovely hymn we sing called “Colours of Day”. The chorus of this hymn tells us –
“So light up the fire and let the flame burn,
Open the door, let Jesus return
Take seeds of His Spirit, let the fruit grow
Tell the people of Jesus, let His love show”
So let us light up the fire however and wherever we can!
