by MMM Medical Students 1969 Ireland 01.11.2023
After some time studying textbooks, we, students, almost feel that we could publish one ourselves. Not for us the dull, technical language of the usual textbooks. Instead, we would show more consideration towards our fellow students and try to make them, and our study hours, less tedious and more relaxing. We could even look forward to the hours that have to be spent pouring over our books. Take, for example, Anatomy. We would style it as follows: –
Mr. Muscle : Hello, Mr. Bone, my name is Muscle. Where do you fit into this fascinating planet called the body?
Mr. Bone : Oh! Mr. Muscle, I belong to the upper limb, my name is Humerus, although people do call me “the funny bone”, that is because a nerve runs just behind me and when it gets a knock it gives people a funny sensation. It usually gets knocked up against me and then people think that I am the cause of it. My domain stretches from the shoulder down to the elbow.
Mr. Muscle: Oh, then you know quite a few of my type?
Mr. Bone: Yes, I have some of your friends around me. It is hard to believe, there must be at least five of your closest friends keeping me company, and a few more down by the elbow which I don’t know quite so well.
Mr. Muscle: How do you get on with them? You differ so much.
Mr. Bone: I must say they are very good neighbours, and we work very well together. You see, I am a very popular bone, and they all cling to me at some point or other.
Mr. Muscle: With all those admirers, surely there must be some jealousy among them?
Mr. Bone: Well, let’s say some are complementary to others. When we are working together I get pulled around quite a lot; however, this works out all right and I always get back to my rightful position where I can relax. You see, when the muscles in front are working, those behind are relaxed and vice versa. So you see we are all good friends and only for them I would not be able to move at all.
Mr. Muscle: I must say you are a handsome fellow.
Mr. Bone: Yes, indeed, as you can see, though I have a smooth bald head and I must always wear a hat of cartilage. It is a bit embarrassing to be bald, especially if I am not very old. Unlike you, Mr. Muscle, I have a long, hard body. However, inside it all, I am even softer than you are yourself. So, you see, even though I show great strength, I can be broken. You know, in the beginning I was smooth and sleek the whole way down. But now, since I have grown up, my muscle friends like me so much that they pull me this way and that, and, a result, I have humps and bumps all in the wrong places! Like the ones your friends Deltoid and Coraco have left on me. Luckily enough, they are both on opposite sides although they are not quite at the same level. But most people would not notice the asymmetry unless I told them. Still, people laugh at me and say “No figure”!
Mr. Muscle : I must say you keep your shape very well, though I just cannot. Every time I move, I change my appearance.
Mr. Bone: Oh, yes! I do all right and I have a unique ending. It is quite a pretty shape really, although some rude people have likened it to a pulley (trochlea). Can’t blame them, I suppose!
Mr. Muscle: You have plenty of muscles close to you. How about your own family? Have you any of them close at hand?
Mr. Bone: Oh yes! My closest relatives are Scapula, Radius and Ulna. Scapula is that broad fellow around the corner….er…er….I mean the shoulder. Radius and Ulna are both down below me, separating me from the wrist and the hand. So there, Mr. Muscle, that is my story. Bet yours is not so interesting! Gosh, I think I better move now as I feel your friends pulling me. ‘Bye for now, hope to see you soon again.
by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM Ireland 30.11.2023
Tomorrow is Halloween. For most young people today, it is all about witches and pumpkins and I would guess few know the origins of the celebration at all! It is the evening before All Hallows Day, and thus it gets its name. But today I want to talk about All Hallows, or as we say nowadays, All Saints Day. I love this day because we get to celebrate the many good people, we knew who have now gone to their eternal reward. They will never be canonised, but we have all met them and been inspired by them.
One of my Saints is Sr. Margaret Doyle. She was one of the first MMMs that I met when I joined in 1967. At that time, Sr. Margaret worked in the kitchen of the Nursing Home in Clonmel where many MMM began their formation Programme. Sr. Margaret was born in Clonegall, Co. Carlow in 1921 and died in 2012. She only had primary education and before joining Mother Mary’s new Congregation in 1950 she worked as a priest’s housekeeper. Clonmel was her first assignment as a professed Sister, and she worked with many young people as we came and went during our short six-month period of initial formation. She must have had to deal with many young women, homesick and struggling to discern their path in life. My memory of her at that time was a woman of infinite patience. I was not very adept at kitchen work, but she never lost her temper, just quietly gave you a hand and showed you how to do things.
During my time there, Sr. Margaret was assigned to a different community in Ireland, still to do catering work, but she found the change difficult. I remember coming across her quietly crying as she was churning milk. She explained to me that changing was difficult after fifteen years in one place, but this was missionary life and change was to be expected. Margaret went on to work in maternity hospitals in Drogheda and Waterford, in our students’ house in Dublin, Rosemount. In Rosemount she was the community leader from 1983 – 1987. At that time, it was a large community, including the postulants, novices, students, and other Sisters working in Dublin. She proved to be a wise and caring leader with a listening heart. She had a special concern for the poor, knew the neighbours, and many people in need received a regular hot dinner.
For so many of us Margaret exemplified the hidden life, pondering the Word of God in her heart. She provided an understanding and listening ear to everyone, and those who were in community with her always headed for the kitchen for a chat with her when they came home. She was interested in our lives as we moved on and was someone we went to visit when we returned on leave. She is definitely an MMM saint!
by Sr. Rita Kelly MMM Ireland 28.10.2023
It is strange how some sentences “jump out” from an article and stay with one. I do not remember the article where I read the sentence “Preserving the Past, Empowering the future.” (I have looked it up on Google, but with no result). Pondering about the sentence I realize that I am in the privileged position of doing both.
Firstly, in “Preserving the Past” I am in the process, with MMM Communication Department, of collecting Mother Mary Martin stories from the local people in Drogheda. Acknowledging that there are many books written on Mother Mary Martin. But the aim of this project is to explore the legacy of Mother Mary Martin in her relationships with the local people. Stories that embody the spirituality of the Healing Charism; how her character is mirrored in the stories and the effect of her presence in the social and religious history of Drogheda.
At the Christmas Crafts Fair last year, I met some local people who, on seeing photographs of Mother Mary Martin on display, triggered memories and wished to tell their stories. I was impressed with the stories and mentioned this to our Congregational leader. After some thought, the project to collect the Memories of Mother Mary Martin unfolded.
After some research with the support of MMM Communications Department, by meeting and networking with another of local groups such as the Old Drogheda Society, I now have the opportunity to meet, interview, and record the stories.
“Empowering the Future”, in February 2023 an MMM community was started on a new housing estate, called Newtown Wood, on the Termonfeckin Road, Drogheda. The vision for the new community is to be a faith based intercultural presence in a rapid changing multi-cultural Ireland. At present, there are 180 houses recently built houses with the number increasing. Our neighbours are from many countries such as Pakistan, India, Africa, Philippines, Ireland, England, and Eastern Europe.
I joined the community in September. The tenants are mainly young couples with children, the New Irish. The common denominator for us all is that we are settling into a new community, getting to know each other. Recently, I attended a residential committee, there were the usual concerns, parking spaces, safety for the children playing and proper lightening. But there was a desire to create an environment of supporting and helping each other.
There is a WhatsApp group for the residents, queries and advice is shared about the best package for Wifi, the ways to control the heating in the houses as winter approaches. Plans are suggested for Christmas, such as a community party, party for the children, a Santa Claus. One of the MMM has started a Youth Group. Slowing but surely a new community is being formed.
I was interviewing three people recently to collect Mother Mary Martin stories. Two of the interviewees knew Mother Mary as children, they remember her as a friendly woman, and a good neighbour.
There is a connection between Preserving the Past, and Empowering the future, the values we share in being friendly, and a good neighbour, despite the changing society we live in.
by Sr. Sheila Devane, MMM Ireland 26.10.2023
As a little girl I asked a lot of questions. All children do. I wanted to know so much about so many different things. No sooner had I got an answer than I was ready when another question and then another popped into my small head! Why did I not have grandparents living in the town of Boyle when other children there did? And why did my two sets of grandparents live in different places? How did my parents meet when one came from Kerry and the other from Donegal and these places are so far apart on the map? Why was mammy’s name sometimes spelled Friel and at other times O’Friel? And why did she change her name and daddy did not? Why did we have twins who were not born on the exact same day? And why were they not even born in the same town? Were they still real twins? ‘Why’ became one of my favourite words.
As I got older, I learned about questions not to ask and then about questions that one could ask but not to everyone. Later on, I learned which parent to ask and when was the best time to do so especially if either money or permission to stay out late was involved. It was all so complicated, but I was managing well and getting a lot of information though not always enough! There were always so many more things that I would have liked to know. At one time I was interested in how old people were, but this was really hard to find out especially when they were big people or adults; no one seemed to think this was a good or polite question from a child even though everyone asked me as a little girl what age I was! It didn’t seem fair.
In nurse training when a new patient was being admitted there was so much to ask and a lot of trouble if you missed out on some vital question; the ward sister would be so furious if there was missing information on a chart. It was even more serious in midwifery where the questions seemed to be a matter of life and death sometimes. In clinical psychology questions are central: open questions, closed questions, rhetorical questions and a group called Socratic questions among others loomed large in our training and in our everyday work. How to use these, when to use them, how to manage responses and how to handle the client’s own questions are all part and parcel of our skill set.
Then there are the awkward, or is it the crazy questions I find myself being asked these days: “Are all the nuns like you?” “Will this Pope allow nuns to marry?!” “Does the Vatican pay for your holidays?” “Will you retire from being a nun?”
I thought I had met, or had asked myself, most types of question until the Covid pandemic came along. It brought so much change and its own big, medium and small questions every day. Let me tell you about one really funny experience at that time.
We were most fortunate in Ireland as the vaccination campaign was superbly handled. By Spring 2020 the mass vaccinating sessions had begun, and people were prioritized by seniority of age and medical vulnerability. Large, wide, physical spaces were used to facilitate social distancing whilst also catering for big numbers in attendance at any one time. The uptake was impressively high, thank goodness. I was called to a vaccination centre in April in the classrooms of the Royal College of Surgeons’ Medical School situated in Beaumont Hospital on the North side of Dublin. This was a session for people aged 74-79 years and for a much smaller number of people over 60 years with immune compromised conditions – so altogether an elderly cohort. I joined two other MMMs and a member of our staff and we went along together following the instructions and clear signage.
Eventually after what felt like a long trail, I arrived at the injection booth where two delightful, recently retired female nurses were on duty. They had followed the government call to action and volunteered to return from recent retirement to assist in this campaign. So, the questions began-every question was asked twice and fed into the computer; they took the questioning in turn and had a well-practiced protocol written out in front of them on the desk. So, I answered about every illness & infirmity I ever had. I answered my name, address, date of birth, what title I used to which I replied “Sister” and so much more once, then twice, later it was checked and recorded with both ensuring the accuracy of what was said. And the last question came from two solemn faces: “Now we have one more final question – a question we must ask ,and one we ask every woman: ‘do you think you could be pregnant?’
In the post-vaccination room later where we were observed for 15 minutes and offered bottled water and biscuits there was great hilarity and howling laughter. Some of the women (all pretty elderly) spoke of answering the last question with: “awaiting a scan”, “could be”; “with twins”; “possibly”; “I hope”; “on the pill twice a day”; “overdue”; “he’s dead over 40 years-thank God”; “give over”; “now you’re serious”; “IVF or is it IFA it’s called?”; “immaculate conception”; “full term”; and “definitely yes!”
Note: This is not a complete list of the answers
So much for questions, right questions, relevant questions, awkward questions, inappropriate questions, open questions and for rules & regulations! Most of all hurrah for the great fun and marvellous enjoyment provided by those witty Dublin women after many months of being in lockdown. They hadn’t lost their ability to give the quick one liner (answer) nor to find a reply to the most outlandish of questions. The palpable delight and sheer excitement of seeing one another in person and being together with time to joke were hard to beat! A party and a half in fifteen minutes! Thank you Covid!
by Sr. Marian Scena USA/Tanzania 24.10.2023
In early February 2016 our palliative care volunteer, Sammy, arrived with a man who he thought needed care. Sammy had gone to his shamba(farm) in a rural part of another District about 40km from town. There he met Njiku (not his real name) who was complaining of severe pain in his left chest and shoulder, and he was unable to sleep due to the pain. He also had a mass and large wound on his left chest.
When we asked him about his health, he told us that he had had an amputation of the end of his index finger in 2011. No pathology tests were carried out. He was well until February 2015 when he noticed a large lump in his left armpit. He went to another hospital and the swelling was biopsied and showed metastatic malignant melanoma, a type of skin cancer which had resulted from the problem in his little finger in 2011. There was no possibility of him going to the cancer hospital in Dar es Salaam. So, we needed to treat his severe pain and the large ulcer or sore he had on his chest. We got oral morphine and gave it to him, and he experienced great relief after 15 minutes. Njiku was married with five children, and he had a small farm, but wasn’t able to work on it due to his pain.
Usually, our patients come from our own municipal area, but, on occasion, if a patient or a relative can come for the medications we agree to accept them into our Palliative Care Programme, especially if they have severe pain and need morphine. We started to treat Njiku’s pain following the “WHO 3-step Ladder” for pain control, but he needed morphine to get relief of his pain. Luckily, his relief of pain was so complete that he was even able to go to his shamba to work for a short time each day!
Njiku was able to come to MMM Faraja Centre to collect his morphine and our volunteer visited him at his home in the village and even accompanied him on the bus to town when he needed more medications. We continued to treat Njiku from a distance and phoned his neighbour (as he himself didn’t have a phone) to assess his condition. On 21 May 2016 we received word that Njiku had died during the night. We were very happy that, although it wasn’t easy to treat him at a distance, we had greatly improved his quality of life and he felt cared for by our Palliative Care team.
I have visited our national Marian shrine in Knock Co. Mayo, Ireland, quite regularly ever since I was a very small child living in Boyle Co. Roscommon. I thought I had seen every part of this beautiful place and had “met” all those associated with it: Our Lady of Knock, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, and the Lamb of God. More recently I had started to visit the graveyard where many of the witnesses who died in or around Knock are now buried in marked graves.by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM Ireland 20.10.2023
Did you know that Earth and Heart are the same word with the letters mixed up a different way? I discovered this fact the other day when I was playing a word game and I thought,” How appropriate!” Isn’t it right that heart is at the centre of the issue when we come to the care of our common home and address the issues that will affect us all around climate. We need the scientific knowledge to be able to measure, know the appropriate actions to take, but if we do not put our heart into it, the head knowledge alone will bring us nowhere.
Personally, I am not in favour of climate activists who disrupt public events and damage property, but I do understand their passion. Without that dogged, dedicated commitment to a cause, no change will happen. This is a lesson we often learn from young people who are dreaming a dream and not burdened with the ennui of mid-life. It is also a lesson we have learnt over and over again from the lives of the saints. Saint Frances stripped off his clothes to convince his family that he was going to embrace Lady Poverty, St. Therese of Liseaux went to Rome to plead with the Holy Father to be allowed to enter her contemplative community when she was only sixteen. Our own Founder, Mother Mary Martin certainly had a passionate commitment to the medical care of mothers and babies from her time in Nigeria as a lay missionary.
I suppose the question for me today is where do I put my heart? There is a tendency in a lot of us to drift along, potter through life in a familiar regime. But as missionaries we are constantly being called to look outwards, bringing hope and light to the dark areas of our world. Like today’s young people we must keep alive our passion for a better world. This means putting our heart into the earth’s cry for help.
Help me, God, to be passionate today!
by Sr. Prisca Ovat MMM Nigeria/Kenya 18.10.2023
History has it that the first tea seeds were introduced by the expatriates over a century ago in Kiambu County, Kenya. From then on, 19 tea-growing counties emerged, due to the tropical volcanic red soils and evenly distributed rainfalls suitable for tea survival. As a matter of economy, tea is among the principal foreign exchange earners in Kenya, with both direct and indirect support to better living. But what do we know about the safety regulations, practice, and respect of human rights within the tea factories?
As a member of the African Faith and Justice Network, the working conditions of the employees at the Kenya tea factories was discussed as a matter of concern and urgency. The AFJN is a network of many religious and laypersons. One key question was asked: is tea really worth a woman’s dignity? We sought many ways to lend our voice in this unfortunate menace that strips a woman of her self-worth, amidst all other injustices meted on the female gender. This great exposé came to light in February 2023 a documentary made by the BBC Africa Eye which had remained under cover inside the tea factory with a hidden camera for 18 months and from then on, the subject gained global attention. In this documentary, it was unearthed that over seventy women had over the years been abused by their frontline managers, while others contracted varied forms of sexually transmitted diseases.
For some adventurous reasons, I found myself prying into life in the tea plantation. Life is as hard as could never had been imagined. Farmers are paid monthly. Some tribes are unjustly treated as managers are more inclined to looking favourably in the way of their own tribe’s people (a common inequality in the distribution of goods and employment peculiar to certain African countries). Additionally, the grounds men and women sweat it out in the rain and the sun, while the farm owners receive the payments on their behalf at Ksh 50 (USD 0.34) per kg leaving the workers with just 5 shillings (USD 0.034). Sometimes the money is held for as long as they desire before its final release to the workers and after several trips to the employers for their money which can mean several incidences of abuse.
However, in July this year, a Scottish court ruled that victims may proceed to sue the companies in question. Justice shall finally take its course, at least for the living. Topics as these are daily trending on social media and read over the news (sex for grades in institutions of learning, sex for jobs, even when they are rightly qualified for it). It is a difficult fashion to break away from because when evil is normalised in a culture, impunity begins to wear the face of innocence.
We each have the duty of care as educators, parents, religious leaders, and counsellors to sanitize our cultures. For we alone can redeem our society for us.
by Sr. Sheila Campbell, MMM Ireland 26.09.2023
Nowadays we are used to jumping on a plane, off on a summer holiday. Business people fly all over the world, working as they travel. Despite our concerns nowadays about “carbon footprints”, air travel is still considered common and normal. But it was not always so!
When Sr. Kevin McDonagh, one of our MMM pioneers set off with another Sister for her missionary work in Nigeria in 1949, flying was a different story. Could we cope with this nowadays?
The journey began in Dublin on Monday, June 6th. The airport was called Collinstown in those days. Mother Mary was standing outside on the tarmac, and they were able to wave to her as they took off. They had a short stop in London and then were Africa-bound.
“Off we sailed again through the clouds, and after a while we noticed what looked like a little mist under the wing. ‘Condensation’, I thought (very cleverly) to myself. But still, it did not dry off when we left the clouds behind us. At about 7pm the Captain came along to tell us the plane had an oil leakage and that we would have to land in Marseilles. We landed at 8.30pm… Customs again, more forms to be filled up and passports to be examined. A shower of mosquitos came along, hungry for Irish blood.”
The next day, Tuesday, the same plane flew them over Sardinia, then Tunis, and landed at Tripoli. At the former RAF base at Castel Benito, a hostess informed them that they would be leaving ‘at twenty-three of the clock’. This gave them an opportunity to go outside and take their first walk under an African moon. That night, Sr. Kevin managed to sleep as they flew southwards over the Sahara Desert to reach Kano, in northern Nigeria. This was early on Wednesday morning. The plane stopped for breakfast and refuelling and eventually arrived in Lagos – to find that their plane for Port Harcourt had already taken off. Nothing would be available until the following Tuesday morning!
After enjoying the hospitality of the Daughters of Charity for almost a week, they turned up at the airport the following Tuesday, but on the same day a tornado also arrived! The heavy rain continued all day Wednesday. But nevertheless, the plane took off.
“Next thing we were told was that there was something wrong with the oil gauge. Instead of landing in Port Harcourt, we ended up in Enugu.” The Holy Rosary Sisters came to the rescue this time, and they stayed overnight with them. On the Thursday, this was the 15th, they travelled by road to Abakaliki, and it was still raining. She finally reached her destination in Anua at the end of June, her first mission assignment of many.
What a journey! I wonder how long it would take by boat?
by Sr. Margaret Garnett MMM (1920 – 1990) England 14.10.2023
First published in 1989. Sr Margaret, a medical doctor, spent all her missionary life in Tanzania.
The Barabaig are a nomadic and pastoral people who live in Tanzania and have many difficulties as more and more land becomes cultivated and there is less pastureland for their herds and flocks.
When I think about the women of the Barabaig tribe I am reminded of the Ideal Wife described in the Book of Provers; even though their environment and culture are very different from those women of Israel. Yet, the words of Proverbs can be applied to her.
The Barabaig woman has neither wool not flax, but she makes her clothes from the hides of goats and decorates them beautifully with beads, using her ‘skilled hands’.
She ‘secures her provisions from afar’. It may take her as much as an hour every morning and every evening to draw water for the needs of her household. It takes the whole day to gather enough firewood for the week’s cooking. Her menfolk travel far with their donkeys to buy maize. ‘She is girt about with strength and sturdy are her arms’ as she grinds the maize between two stones to prepare the family food. ‘She rises while it is still night’ to milk the cows before her sons and daughters take them out to pasture. ‘She is clothed with strength and dignity and laughs at the days to come.’
When expecting a baby, she attends the antenatal clinic at the first sign of pregnancy, for she understands how easy it is to lose a baby in the early months of pregnancy if she gets malaria or if she becomes anaemic. She them becomes a regular attender and, if she knows the Swahili language, she will interpret for her less knowledgeable friends. There are no secrets between the women. They discuss each other’s problems and try to find solutions. ‘She opens her heart in wisdom and on her tongue is kindly counsel.’
When the baby is born custom dictates that she spends a month in the house without going out, but she will break this custom in order to bring her baby to the clinic as soon as possible so that he or she may receive BCG vaccination to prevent tuberculosis. The only time in her life when she may carry a stick is after delivery. If the baby is a boy, she also carries an arrow.
She will bring her each month to the clinic for weighing and vaccination and she will also bring her relatives’ and neighbours’ children if for any reason, their own mother cannot come. Thus, does she ‘extend her arms to the needy.’ As in the world in general, so the Barabaig world is a man’s world. But if the older women, as a group, officially make a decision, the men have to obey!
To such women we can say, ‘Give her a reward of her labours and let her works praise her.’
