by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM Ireland 31.12.2025
Recently I was on retreat in a lovely country estate which had its own woods and even a lake with two swans swimming peacefully up and down. I had a great rest, and I will leave it up to God to tell you about how much praying was done! Certainly, I felt I slept a lot!
But I had a lovely experience one day I was out walking. I like to walk in the early morning, before sunrise. It was cloudy so there was no moon to shed its light on the road. I was walking along, staring ahead into the gloom. I could see that there was a bend coming up soon in the road, but because of the poor light, I could not make out if the road would bend to the right or the left. I wondered about that, unsure of whether to proceed or not. But I plodded on and when I reached the bend it curved gently to the left – you could hardly call it a bend at all!
I thought about that road – yes, it is just like life. We are called to journey along and our life will take unexpected and unforeseen turns. But in the end of the day, all we are called to do is to plod on and the God will guide us round the ‘bend’ when we come across them.
One day we will reach the end of life’s journey, but as God has been my faithful guide and companion on the journey, I am sure he will be just ahead of me on the path as I touch the gates of heaven.
by Sr. Anna Finnegan, MMM Ireland 27.12.2025
After reading Jo W. Doyle’s Blog on 6/12/25. I was reminded of one Christmas Nativity Play in Irele, Nigeria, in 1991.
In preparation for the Nativity Play we gathered the little children from around the parish and the hospital compound to practice the carols and to act out the story of the birth of Jesus.
I found a big doll, which I painted black and every time we came to gather to practice all of the children wanted to hold it, so as a result the colour on the doll wore off!
When the day came to celebrate Christmas, that morning the gardener made a lovely shelter from sticks. The children got together to decorate it with yellow and purple bougainville. Inside the shelter, the crib for Jesus was a big basket, lined with straw.
We had separate patches on the compound for Mary, kneeling on a mat, and Joseph resting with his lantern and staff, near by. Then the three Kings who were further up at the top end of the Compound waiting with Stella, who was a little daughter of one our kitchen staff. She held a large star on a long stick and was to lead the Kings down to the Crib. Then the Shepherds were beyond the shelter. there were about twenty of them, as we wanted all the children to be included. At one stage, while waiting for their parents and Staff to arrive, some of the children were getting impatient. One little boy came over and said, “The Shepherds are fighting !!” So, we re arranged them so that some Shepherds could go to the back and rest, and the other ten would keep clattering their sticks. as they said they needed to keep rats away from Jesus s Crib…
We had a throng of Angels with little crowns on their heads, and they were to begin singing in their Yoruba language after the Angel Gabriel would come to Joseph with the message to take Mary as his wife.
Just before beginning I had asked Shola, one of our caring staff, if she would slip her newly-born baby into the crib. She had delivered her child in our Maternity, just six weeks before then. She was very happy and she did it so discreetly, without anyone knowing about it
One of the nursing staff began with the reading of the birth of Jesus as the Angel Gabriel came to Joseph, but he did not respond as he was in a deep sleep with the heat of the day. There was a long pause…. Then someone summoned Gabriel to go back and give him a good shaking. It was funny as poor Joseph jumped up and ran over to Mary forgetting his stick and lantern and hardly knew what to do, but it was not long until he got help.
Then the throng of Angels arrived at the Crib, still singing and dancing. Suddenly the baby made a little whimper and there was pandemonium! The Angels started shouting and jumping around. They could not believe what they were seeing. Then all the children came running out from all over the Compound to see what was happening. Had Jesus come to life?? There was a great confusion and wonder. Everyone was happy and surprised.
We all rejoiced and celebrated together. That Jesus was alive ….and is with us.
by Jo Wardhaugh Doyle Ireland 24.12.2025
The starry night of the Incarnation, the unseen miracle, the 25th of December, the birth of Jesus, and the day Santa arrives, is full of noise, light, song, cheer, food, celebration of family and friends; But back in the day it happened with no fanfare or noise. Incarnation, like Resurrection happened in darkness.
So, I have to ask the question. Why is the darkness so important before light can be revealed.
I do love the story of the birth of Christ in Luke’s gospel. It was all so ordinary. People moving to their home constituency for the census, no room for outsiders, Joseph and Mary just unknown unseen people, not exceptional or remembered; but Mary knew something had happened nine months previous when she had said Yes, her Fiat. She had been touched. There was no certitude or intellectual discussion. She had just said yes, with no verification of what that meant. She held these words that had been spoken to her in her heart for the rest of her life, letting them unfold into a living light of love and loss, joy, and grief. She let these words unfold into love of her son. Born in darkness, with joy, born like an amazing miracle. She looked and gazed upon him like any mother wrapped in silence. This child, this cherished child was hers. Her life changed forever with a deep awning of love. She pondered all these things in her heart and wondered did every mother feel this way?
It was a cold night, but the stars were twinkling so brightly it did look like the gods were talking to each other across the heavens; But all Mary and Joseph saw were shepherds coming closer to them, they had shepherded their sheep with them, five Shepherds in all, old and young, who wondered had their water being changed to wine. They wondered had they heard right. They wondered where they drunk. So, they wandered into town, with no certitude either. What on earth would they find with their sheep on that starry night, where they mad; When they fell upon the scene, the older man with the younger woman suckling her child, their donkey and a stray cow curious, like the shepherds as to what was going on. They were told to see their Saviour, a newborn helpless child, with poverty-stricken parents who had no place to stay. A Saviour?
But the stars had twinkled, and that voice had been so convincing with its unconvincing message. A Saviour!
Joseph welcomed them in, bewildered one and all. All of them had been touched with a knowing. It was like a secret knowing, given in darkness to them. The world had been stirring badly; these were dark times. But on this starry night, these eight people knew something unexplainable.
Do you remember the first time you saw a new life being born into this world?
I do. I was a student midwife at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda.
It had been a long, hard labour for the mother, and the pain of the last few pushes, well, everyone’s blood pressure rose! But that moment when the head crowned, the shoulders turned, and this amazing life fell out of the womb.
There it is. There is the light. The new life.
The cry. The declaration I am here! I have arrived.
On my first delivery, I had unpreventable tears roll from my eyes. The mother looked, wondering was everything OK. And I laughed and said everything was perfect. It is hard not to cry at watching this in front of your eyes. From the darkness of the womb to the light of new life.
Is this incarnation? The unremarkable miracle of life; And like the shepherds who went to tell the good news to all around them, we all call on our mobiles to everyone that we know and cry, do not worry anymore, the child is born, everyone is safe, everyone is healthy. All is well. The light is born and hope continues.
And the woman wraps herself in silence, pondering all of these things in her heart.
by Paul Campbell, S.J. USA 20.12.2025
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Isaiah 9:2
I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking about this verse for several weeks.
Those of us who live in the northern hemisphere find ourselves going to work and returning from it in the dark. Then there’s the darkness we encounter in a world where justice, mercy and compassion are sorely lacking. Finally, there’s the darkness within my soul. It comes from my willful ignorance of God’s goodness, my besetting sins, internal emptiness, and a spiritual void that sometimes feels crushing and hopeless.
But Advent isn’t about indulging my “dark night of the soul.” It’s about God’s promise to come among us in a way that finally shows that darkness no longer has the upper hand. Isaiah doesn’t promise a small candle but a “great light,” suggesting a decisive and unmistakable act of God that changes the landscape rather than just making the darkness a bit more tolerable.
Christians have long understood this “great light” as ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, the light of the world, who brings forgiveness, truth, and hope into our human brokenness.
Advent invites to trust that God can and will break into any darkness, so I ask God to let the light of Christ dawn in me in a way I can’t manufacture for myself.
Life is an on-going journey which its destination is achieved after death. Life is meaningless without love and peace.
by Nadia Ramoutar MMM Communications Coordinator Ireland 13.12.2025
This year I got an opportunity to write a Children’s Christmas play. It came about in the unusual way that someone else who was supposed to do it, didn’t do it and a friend of mine was left in a bind. She asked me somewhat desperately to help her back in September. I naively agreed.
Months later, the play is written and the children are almost ready for the main stage. It is a joy to see words that you wrote come out of a young person’s mouth but it also shows how vulnerable we all are. How we can find ourselves repeating from a script someone else wrote for us? What messages are we sending to the world and what messages have we internalised through the noise of culture?
And when it comes to the Christmas holidays, it does feel like things speed up in a less than positive way. It’s as if the world is caught up in a script that says “Buy more, hurry up, rush around, eat more, drink more, and be worried that nothing is enough.” The traffic is heavier, people are short tempered, the shops are full and the true meaning of Christmas seems to somehow have gotten lost in the marketing.
When we step back, we see that the unlikely gift of Jesus to the world is a story that we tell each year over and over. The joy of it illuminates us and brings us comfort. We can feel the hope in the small boys arrival amidst the least privileged of circumstances to a young and nervous mother who has been shunned by the world. It can’t have been an easy moment. Yet it is exactly in that imperfect scenario that the world was forever changed and the impact of that scene continues to impact our hearts and lives today.
So when the time comes for us to celebrate Christmas can we carefully check what script we are reading from? Can we decide to slow things down and say no to the demands of a society out of control? Can we set aside the modern commercialism and pressure of perfectly wrapped parcels and ideal outfits? Can we overlook the food to see the faces of those we love around the table?
Because the greatest gift of Christmas without a doubt is just that – to be in the presence of love, whether we deserve it or not.
By Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer, MMM USA 10.12.2025
In October 1979, my mother Agatha, retired from school teaching, came to Tanzania to visit with me. We had a very enjoyable time together. Dr. Rijken’s mother-in-law also came, so I could not leave until they returned from Arusha. Mom had a chance to rest for a few days. She knew I was unable to meet her. She told me how glad she had been to see four MMM’s in Amsterdam, waiting for the same plane. She was not alone. She did not have a visa to enter Tanzania. Sr. Theresia Samati obtained a visa for her. She was incredibly grateful.
There was great rejoicing when Mom arrived. I was still working in the hospital until Dr. Rijken returned. Fr. John Mc Donagh took Mom on his village visits to say Mass. She enjoyed meeting the people. The nurses also came to a reception to meet my mother in our house. At first no one came at the appointed time, and I was worried. About a half hour later, they all came, decked out in their best attire. Mom was pleased to meet them.
Mom enjoyed meeting all our visitors. Many people appeared at mealtimes. One was Pastor Hoops. I asked him to come late to the OPD and then join us for dinner. My mother asked him were he a priest or a brother and he said neither, “I am Pastor Hoops. I am not a Catholic, but I like Catholic food.” My mother was extremely impressed.
Sister Doctor Marian Scena arrived around this time. We were glad to see her.
The following week, Mom and I went to Makiungu for a week and enjoyed visiting people there and seeing the sites. She loved meeting Sr. Christina and later shared a letter with me in which Sr. Christina told her about the terrible famine the people experienced in 1984 in the Singida region. The crops had failed from lack of rain and then at the last downfall the crops were flooded. My mother and Aunt Clare Twomey Torre used to send care packages of clothes and some food. Sr. Christina used the boxes of macaroni to thicken the soup for the hungry people. The food was distributed under the direction of the Pallotine Fathers. It was exceedingly difficult for the Sisters to cope with all the medical work and the feeding. The Sisters used to admit whole families to the hospital to care for them. I was not there at the time. I was on Sabbatical in the USA for 2 years and returned in 1985.
But now I am getting away from telling you about the exciting time I shared with my mother. Upon returning from Makiungu, we went to the game parks with Charles, a medical student who had come to Dareda for some medical experience. We enjoyed Lake Manyara where our hotel room overlooked the game park. We searched for lions who rested in tree limbs in the evening. It was delightful to be there with her.
In a few days we traveled to Ngorongoro Crater where we met a German couple and together, we shared the hiring of a land rover to travel down the escarpment to forty square miles of a game reserve. The lions were resting as we drove by. No one wanted to get out of the land rover. It was spectacular to see the wildebeest, hippos, deer, and giraffe. All were busy in their natural habitat. We stayed in a lodge that night and the next day prepared to return to Arusha. On our way to the main road, three soldiers stopped us for a lift. I told them we had a small car and could take only one. My mother was afraid they would harm us, but they understood our position and let us go on. I do not recall being afraid, just worried that the car would break down on the bad roads.
n Arusha, Olivio, a friend of the Sisters, offered to take my mother and me to the local hotel for a roast goat dinner dance. I had asked my mother to bring her evening dress, and she really enjoyed dancing with Olivio. Sr. Veronica Keaney came with us. We all enjoyed the evening. At midnight, Olivio said it was time to leave as he had to take his two children to the game park in the morning. My mother showed no signs of being tired of dancing.
Soon it was time for Mom to leave. She had stayed for three weeks and had put in her will that if she died in Tanzania, she would be buried there. I was extremely grateful that no harm came to her. What would my brothers and sister say? This time I could see Mom off and accompany her to the airport. It was difficult to say goodbye but we both shared a lot of happy memories of our time together.
By Jo Wardhaugh Doyle Ireland 06.12.2025
I once celebrated Christmas on the 7th of July 1990. The sun was blazing, and it was an unexpected moment of surprised joy. I was on a pilgrimage travelling from Rome to Assisi, moving towards Umbria. We had stopped at the Rieti valley for a few days. It was a key area in Franciscan history. One spot we were going to visit was called a village named Greccio. This was where Saint Francis, with the Pope’s blessing, set up the first ever living crib. Francis had travelled from Rome to Greccio and asked for one of the brothers to help him find an ox and ass to be part of the wondrous event of the birth of Christ. Greccio is a beautiful place of pilgrimage and deep spirituality.
A miracle was supposed to have happened there at the Manger, where it was seen that Francis walked up to the lifeless body of the child in the crib and roused the child as from a deep sleep. They said this vision was not unfitting, for the child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many.
We travelled to that place of pilgrimage. It was a cave, up upon a hill. The atmosphere was like a Tardis. It felt lost to time. It felt a sacred place. The atmosphere in that cave bypassed all logic and hit the soul. No one went untouched after entering the cave. It was like a womb, carrying life in it, it was full of vibration in its physicality. It was alive, touching the unawaken child within me. Many of us who were on the pilgrimage had left our lives behind and were tired, hardened to life’s circumstances. But there in Greccio, the vulnerability of the cold dark cave, met the reflection within us.
What new life was I seeking?
What desires and passions lay dormant within me?
We sat there, barely breathing. There was a presence, a presence saying to all, and sundry,
“I will come into your stall no matter how messy it is.”
Christmas is just that, it is a presence that will come into our need with a message saying, God has pitched his tent within us, He is with us.
We experienced mass in The Cave.
It was about a journey.
It was the journey from darkness to light, despair to hope, death to life.
I listened to the sermon expressing that our perception of reality must be changed if we are to surrender to that incarnation, to find a new joy in our despair.
In our poverty, what is it that we hoped for?
We were all visibly moved, our brains and logic were left outside that cave entrance. Yes, it was as though we had time travelled on this pilgrimage and we were left with what Saint Bonaventure said about Incarnation.
“Embrace that Divine Manger, press and kiss the boys’ feet. And in your mind’s eye, keep the Shepherds watch.”
Yes, Incarnation can happen every day if we believe that. That was one of the many lessons I learned in July 1990
By Vera Grant AMMM Ireland 03.12.2025
On a course recently called, ‘The Gardened Soul’ I recalled my first real attempt to garden and to nurture the soil without realising that the same was happening to my spirit.
Are you a gardener? she had asked when she came to assess what remained of the garden after the builders had left. She, Sheila was a landscape architect who had been recommended to give some ideas on the possibilities therein. ‘Oh gosh, no!’ I immediately replied, thinking of the birthday present my son, aware of my growing interest in the garden had given me a book, ‘An Idiot’s Guide to Gardening’
I wasn’t really sure what credentials one needed to call oneself a gardener thus in my negative response I was admitting that I knew very little about all that constitutes a garden, the plants, their names, the ideal growing conditions not to mention the soil, acidic or alkaline, clay or otherwise.
I just knew that I wanted something colourful with all year interest but more importantly that it was manageable.
In discussing a possible layout, I mentioned that I would like a woodland path at the rear of the garden. It was to be a secret place hidden by shrubs and bushes so the grandchildren could play ‘hide and go seek’.
Sheila’s reaction of ‘Oh no dear, this garden doesn’t lend itself to that, it just wouldn’t work. I will draw up some plans, and we can take it from there’ made me realise that this partnership wasn’t going to work either.
The idea of having a woodland path was for me, a must and once in my head it wasn’t going to be shifted by an, ‘Oh no dear’.
The proposed plans arrived, paid for, rolled up, bound with cord and relegated to the back shelf in the garage. There they still remain.
Covid arrived and with warm, sunny days and nowhere to go I moved into the garden with string and spade to mark out the territory and the woodland path slowly evolved.
They say where there’s a will, there’s a way and if someone was to ask me now, are you a gardener I would have a very different answer. The joy and fulfilment I have in the garden coupled with the sense of being at one with nature is mirrored in my spiritual journey, it’s a work in progress and always trying to be better.
And for the course which prompted this recollection are the immortal words, ‘The Garden, Gardens You’.
by Sr. Ruth Percival, MMM Ireland 29.11.2025
It was a beautiful sunny Autumn afternoon when I went out into the garden to collect hazel nuts.
The sun was causing some of the trees to look as though they were on fire while others quietly held onto their leaves. Some trees had blood red leaves while others were all yellow. Just one corner of the garden!
Soon I was marvelling at the large size of this year’s hazel nuts, really big, and very difficult to crack as I was to find out later.
And so, I continued my walk under the hazel trees until for no reason, as I often do, I stopped and looked around and looked up into the tree above me and straight into the black beady eyes of a robin. We held each other’s gaze for what seemed ages. I then moved quietly on marvelling at those brief seconds when I got the impression the robin was hoping I would look up and see him.
Next stop was our Chestnut tree and here again I collected some chestnuts from under the blanket of leaves that hid them very well. Edible chestnuts are a real treat to eat when roasted.
As I returned to the house I smiled over at the apple tree, which, in this its second year, gave us two delicious apples, which we shared leaving us looking forward to next year and giving thanks for God’s wonderful abundance and promising that we will continue to protect our fragile earth in any small way we can.
