The Importance of Storytelling

by Nadia Ramoutar     MMM Communications Coordinator             17.10.2022

Not a week goes by that I don’t feel honoured to read the stories of our MMM Sisters at work in the missions.  Today, I have reviewed a large amount of stories about girls and women who are sex trafficked and traded.  It is hard to keep reading sometimes.   But, I know I am fortunate that my work as the Communications Coordinator brings me in to direct contact with how our MMM Sisters are spending their time making the world a better place for so many people.  For busy Sisters at work in the Mission report writing is part of their life and has to be fitted in between caring for other people.  I know this can’t be easy as they are tired and their time is in demand for other important work. I realise my ability to know these stories is a blessing.

When we receive reports of what is happening in the Missions, I often find myself in a state of mixed emotions:
Gratitude to the Sisters for their efforts and for taking their time to share the stories.  Overwhelmed, for some of the harsh conditions the Sisters are working in and for challenges facing the people who they seek to empower.  Admiration for the courage the Sisters show in the face of adversity coming to them in many forms often all at once.  Concern for how there is so much to be done for so many by so few.

Stress comes over me as I try to find ways to tell the Sisters stories to the Western world, far removed from such a harsh conditions.
Guilt hits me as I think of my lifestyle and how much I have already.  Anger often rises in me as I think of the children growing in such hardship because of the geography of their birth.  Anxiety hits me as I realise how much work we need to do within a budget and schedule.  Relief then reaches me as I realise I do not have to do this alone – I am part of a team here in my office, here in this Congregation and here in the world.

The swirling of emotions that comes from working with Missions probably explains why more people don’t do it because it is not for the faint hearted. One of the important traits I see in the MMM Sisters, over and over again, is resilience.

I lean into this awe I have for what does actually get done by the MMM Sisters and I think of how important it is for us to keep telling stories about the work. It is all about the work of sharing how important it is for us to care about people in the world who are most vulnerable.

We honour people by telling their stories and giving them an audience in the world through print media and digital media. People have the right to be heard and for others to know them even if they will never meet in person. A writer and poet I greatly admire who overcame great adversity in her life, Maya Angelou, once said: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”

We have the honour of sharing the stories of girls and women who would never be known.  Those who have been sex trafficked or traded, those who have painful childbirths that cause them to lose their baby and have massive wounds, those who are starving and have no clean water for their families, and those who are struggling with unknown illnesses in need of care and a kind word from a compassionate person.  Our MMM Sisters are hearing these stories day after day and do what they can to elevate the physical, mental and spiritual pain that other people carry.  We are committed to do whatever we can to support them.  Thank you, for supporting us on this journey.  I am reminded of the phrase, “there is no them, only us.”

by Sr. Eilis Weber MMM          Ireland           15.10.2022

Why do you stay in Religious Life? What gives you hope?

Those two questions perplexed me, as I remembered my teenage hopes and dreams and how the idea of becoming a religious frequently passed through my head. Initially, I ignored it, as I had more important “ambitions” in my mind.   I became a nurse, acquired my own car and a transistor radio — all luxury items in those days — then realized that I had reached the pinnacle of worldly possessions but suddenly felt empty.  The nagging reminders of religious life persisted, becoming more insistent, until I decided at age 26 to give it a try to get it out of my system (and then to get on with my real life!).

In my missionary order’s formative years, we learned we were following Christ in his healing mission by focusing on the health of needy people. We were called “to go in haste,” as Mary did at the Visitation (Luke 1:39-56), and to care for people in places where the needs were greatest. All of this was grounded in our ever-developing relationship with our God of endless love and mercy.

I have done this to the best of my ability for the greater part of 55 years, called and challenged to work in a war-torn country, tending to huge numbers of wounded soldiers and civilians in our hospital, training girls and boys to be nurses and laboratory technicians, all where it was our privilege to bring hope and courage to a people suffering war fatigue and despair.

In all of this, the Lord has been present to us, strengthening us and guiding us in all our interactions.
Now in the autumn of my life, my community and I are to be a healing presence, a powerhouse of prayer, far removed from a war situation. We reach out to the many suffering people with whom we come in contact: refugees, people experiencing homelessness, asylum-seekers, victims of violence.

For us, hospitality is a priority, touching those affected and welcoming them, both physically and by telephone. We are actually in the process of setting up an intercultural initiative to help in the inclusion of people of different backgrounds.

Recently, a couple who attended the funeral of one of our deceased sisters sent us a thank you for the warm welcome they had received and described our community as an “Isle of Tranquility.”

With the Lord’s help, I hope to continue to contribute at this level to our suffering neighbours.

First Published: Global Sisters Report, Sept 2022

by Sr. Cecily Bourdillon MMM              Ireland            13.10.2022

I was privileged to first meet Mother Mary Martin, Foundress of the Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM), in my home country, Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. One day I received a phone call. The caller was an MMM who said that Mother Mary Martin was at the airport and would like to see me. Mother Mary was travelling to South Africa with Sr. Anne Moran and Sr. Maura O’Donogue and had a stop at Salisbury on the way. On the balcony of the small airport, my family and I sat and drank coffee with Mother Mary and chatted.

My father had met Mother Mary many years before, in 1939, two years after the founding of MMM. When on leave from his post as District Commissioner in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, -he had been asked to look for Sisters to come and do medical work. On a visit to Ireland, he had been introduced to Mother Mary. She had no Sisters to send at that time, but promised to in the future, if the Bishops requested. Many years later, when I shared with my father my desire to be a missionary, he wrote to Mother Mary.

On the return flight from South Africa back to Ireland, Mother Mary and Sr. Maura spent a few days in Salisbury and we welcomed them to our farm. As always, Mother Mary showed care and interest in all around her. Mother Mary invited me to Drogheda, to “come and see”.

I arrived in Drogheda on 1st May 1960 and was received as a postulant. We were blessed and privileged to live under the same roof as Mother Mary in the Motherhouse in Drogheda. Although often away, when she was at home Mother Mary prayed with us in the Oratory. Often, when I was cleaning the corridors, Mother Mary passed by on one of her many visits to the hospital and she would stop and ask how I was. She gave me words of encouragement.

When I studied at University in Dublin (UCD), I was one of about thirty MMM students living at Rosemount in Booterstown. We wore secular clothes and rode bicycles in keeping with the regulations of the Archdiocese. Mother Mary would often call in and speak with us.

Mother Mary loved driving and she was our driver when we returned to Drogheda after a holiday in Killybegs, Co. Donegal. It was a long journey and we chatted and prayed between the silences.

In 1962, Mother Mary received the First Vows of our group of seven. MMM was celebrating its Silver Jubilee. Mother Mary was in our midst at the celebrations which included the production of a play called The Pageant, words about Mission from Scripture and set to beautiful music by Mr. Patrick Murray and enacted by MMM sisters under the direction of the famous Irish, South African born, actor Cyril Cusack. Sisters Monica Clarke and Maura Ramsbottom also had important roles in this production.

It was a joy to welcome my parents to Drogheda when they came from Rhodesia for my Final Profession in 1968. By this time Mother Mary Martin’s health was deteriorating and she needed nursing care. We no longer had her in our midst but my father asked if he might speak with her which he did. He was obviously deeply moved by the encounter – his third – after many years.

I was assigned to Nigeria in 1969 and from then on relied on the postal services coming from Ireland to bring us news of Mother Mary. We shared in the pain of her last days from a distance. On 25th January 1975, God called Mother Mary Martin home after her long illness. We came to know of the deep mourning of the people of Drogheda who loved Mother Mary Martin. They had supported her and MMM so generously. They had honoured her with the Freedom of the Town of Drogheda and now revered her and paid tribute to her as they laid her to rest.

Thank you, Mother Mary Martin, for your fidelity to God’s call which brought about the founding of MMM – and for inviting me.

I give praise and thanks to God for my 60 years in the MMM family with my most wonderful, loving, caring MMM sisters.

by Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer  MMM             U.S.A.                  11.10.2022

At last, I found you! These were the words of greeting as Sister Madeleine Le Blanc met me in South Station in Boston. I had not known my mother had phoned Winchester to tell them I had left on an earlier train, so I had gone to the counter to buy a sandwich. I was happy to be found and then whisked off to the beautiful novitiate grounds and large house which was the MMM novitiate in the USA. I loved all I saw and was grateful for the peace enveloping me. It is good to be here. At that time there were eight novices and four postulants who were to be received into the novitiate on March 17th. I do not remember much of the first day except two more postulants arrived in the evening. Both were originally from Ireland, and I thought it would be good to get to know them and hear their stories. Eileen Ashe had left Ireland at aged fifteen and had worked as a nannie for a Jewish family. She loved the children very much but felt called to religious life, two years later. Her older sister had known Sr. Damien Driscoll and when they both visited one day, Eileen told Sr. Damien that she wanted to join the Columban Sisters. Sr. Damien said “Why don’t you come here? So, she did and there she was. The second young woman, Margaret, was older and came at 19 years. She was excellent in all she did and was continually praised by the novice mistress, Sr. Margaret O’Conor. Little did we know that her boyfriend continued to call every day wanting to know when Margaret would leave. She gave it a good try and left seven months before Profession.

Thank God we had an easy introduction into the postulancy. Bishop Fulton Sheen was on television that evening and we three postulants joined the others to listen to him. I thought we would never watch television again I was beginning to feel at home

We were gradually introduced to take on some house duties. The novices were soon to go on retreat and to ease the strain another older novice, Sister Andre Brow, took us out to play in the snow. We had fun that week but following the retreat conferences, we joined in with all the other novices in arising early in the morning to shovel a path for the priest to come up our long driveway to celebrate Mass. I always loved these frosty mornings. The evergreen pine branches glistened with snow, and it was noticeably quiet and peaceful. Coming from high school, I was not used to demanding work or getting it done in a certain time. We tried. One of the novices told us to go to the Sister in charge for ‘elbow grease’ to get things done faster. This caused some laughs, but we plodded on.

Three weeks later I was asked to accompany a senior novice, Sr. Balanid Tardif, to Lawrence MA for a vocation exhibit. I was busy memorizing where our Missions were at that time, Angola, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania. ANUT, was the reminder. All I remember of the meeting was that I met Mother Kevina, of the Franciscan Missionaries of Africa. She was their Mother Foundress and I felt very honored to be in her presence. She looked at me very earnestly and said, ‘Many a night I went to bed crying What is the use of it all”? I thought these were strange words to be telling me, but I kept them in my heart and eventually did experience it years later on the Missions. It always brought me to the Heart of Jesus to do for His people what I could not or failed to do.

That summer we wanted to produce a play for our novice mistress feast day. It was to be about the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. All went well until one of us took a fit of laughing and the play ended unexpectedly. We did better the next time and that is how it was. Trying and failing to get things right and then starting all over again.  I loved the house cleaning because it was a mansion and had beautiful rooms sometimes carved in wood. The outdoors was just as beautiful, and the spacious lawns needed constant attention. I loved raking the leaves. We did not have much money despite the grand house we were living in, so we received a lot of food from the government like cornmeal, beans, and sometimes ice cream and day-old pastries, The Sisters made vestments for selling. We had a shop for these and religious articles. Other Sisters mended holes in sheets for a cleaning company.

Altogether it was a happy time. For recreation we would take long walks in the countryside or play softball up on the hill where it was level and used to be a tennis court.
We were learning to pray. We studied the catechism that we had in high school, and I wondered why I never saw the beautiful things written there, Why did God make you? This was the first question in every catechism since the first grade but never did the answer mean so much. God made me to love and serve Him in this life and to be happy with Him in the next. Yes, this is what I wanted to do with my life and bring as many people as I could with me by loving and serving them too as a Medical Missionary of Mary. Soon it was time to write to Mother Mary for permission to be received as novices. It was such a thrill to get her reply. Yes dear, you are getting ready to be a Spouse of Christ. I was incredibly grateful. I will continue with how the novitiate was in my next blog.

by Sr. Celestina Aganyi  MMM       Nigeria/Kenya            07.10.2022
I am a third-year nursing student. As a foreign student, studying at Daystar University, Nairobi, life has been rewarding although not without challenges.
Besides being a peaceful, calm and accommodating people of all tribes, nations and races, my three years’ study experience in the medical sector in Nairobi, Kenya, has been worthwhile with great insights. I love my midwifery experience!

Clinical experience is an essential component of education for the development of competent midwives. Mine was quite memorable as I developed a passion for welcoming and caring for both mothers and babies. I was in Pumwani Hospital between the 3rd of January and the 8th of April 2022 for midwifery and neonatal clinical experience. The Pumwani Maternity Hospital is a pioneer in the provision of maternity care in Sub-Saharan Africa. Working with a team of staff vast with student relationships created more opportunities for learning and growth while at the antenatal, postnatal, neonatal unit and labour ward.

At Pumwani Maternity Hospital, we conducted a minimum of seventy deliveries per twelve hours shift. The bed space was usually insufficient due to the increasing numbers of women coming to deliver. My responsibility as a student midwife was to provide care and wait patiently for the mothers in their different stages of labour, which often takes a natural course and one can only see the hand of God in the creation of new life. Irrespective of the pains and agony experienced by mothers in the first and second stages of labour, the smiles on the faces of the new mothers following the birth of their newborn were often quite consoling. The stress of a midwife following this procedure also vanishes at the delivery of a healthy baby and a healthy mother.

However, my heart sank at the conditions of birth and the aftermath of the women in Pumwani. The alarming poverty and struggle experienced by families to raise these children is often heartbreaking. Besides being a student, I often assume my responsibility as an MMM Religious and use the opportunity to educate these mothers on various ways to attain self-sustainability. I am grateful for the past experience I gained from working with women while on mission in Abaja community, Nigeria.

As I gradually come to the end of my clinical rotation, I feel grateful and equipped to provide loving care to mother and child. Knowing that this is a vital aspect of the MMM Healing Charism, is very exhilarating for me.

Happy Birthday to the MMM Blog!

by Nadia Ramoutar     MMM Communications Coordinator                  Ireland                      05.10.2022

When I was hired to be the Communications Coordinator for the MMMs, my first focus was to re-do the website. This was an extensive project as the MMMs do many things globally and it was almost impossible to capture all of this for our online presence. It was a much bigger job than I hoped.

I was fortunate that MMM Sr Sheila Campbell was also assigned to work in Communications. She is a nurse by training but has held many roles in her 50 years plus as an MMM. She is bright, witty, warm – and very direct. Side-by-side we slowly built the new website and rewrote the content along with a team of tech people. It was like building a house with a fork, slow and not always productive. We did our best and eventually, we had a bright and shiny new website.

A website is never done. It is never finished. It is like a child that has to be nurtured and cared for day in and day out. If there is nothing new on a website it is doomed. In my vast experience with media and communications, I knew that an MMM Blog area would be a vital area to keep people coming to our site. I also had the glorious experience of knowing the MMM Sisters from around the world. I loved hearing their stories and tales of incredible things they did with the casualness of going to the dry cleaners to pick up a suit. Nothing was a big deal and nothing they did was every considered special or important. They are amazing women and I wanted to share their stories with the world.

One day, I went into Sr Sheila’s office and I told her that I wanted her to start writing a blog for the new website.

“That’s fine,” she replied dutifully as she always does. “But what’s a blog?”

In the year since then, Sr Sheila has become a blog expert. She not only knows what a blog is but she is helping other people not just to read our blogs but to also write blogs too. It as if she has taken to blog writing like a fish to water. Now, blog writing is such a part of her life, I can’t imagine her not writing blogs.

Sr Sheila, like most MMMs is far too modest to write this blog so I am doing it for her. I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart for trusting me that Blog writing was her calling. She nurtures and cares for the blogs like a gardener with prize roses. She gives them such loving care. Without fail, we have three new blogs a week on our website. We post the links on social media and we know now that in the past year since we started we have only 100,000 readers or “hits” as Sr Sheila will now say using the lingo!

In her time preparing to become this Blog Guru, Sr Sheila found out that her brother had written blogs as a Jesuit for a long time. So it must be somehow in the blood. She takes great effort to squeeze in Blog writing amidst all the many other things she does each day. I am in awe of her ability to focus in our department where there are always at least four things happening at once.

Sr Sheila and I have actually been invited to give a webinar about blogging. We love it so much that we are excited to share this passion without people and get them blogging.

I have laughed, cried and questioned things while reading our MMM blogs. I have learned about people and places I didn’t know. I have written myself and found great joy in sharing stories about random and relevant things. My sisters eating all our easter eggs as a child has now gone into infamy because of my Easter blog. Maybe you will see it again next year if Sr Sheila gives it another publication. We will see. She has a lot of options with so many great bloggers joining us. I just want to say thank you to the bloggers who joined us this year, thank you to the readers – but most of all thank you to Sr Sheila who now knows exactly what a blog is!

Happy 1st birthday to our Baby Blog site! Thank you for the joy you have brought to thousands and thousands of people around the world.