by Sr. Renee Duignan MMM 1943 – 2023                                 Ireland                         03.09.2025

I remember how my father used to take off his hat while working in the fields to say the Angelus when the bell would ring out over the countryside. I remember the smell of freshly baked bread my mother made every other day. I am grateful to all my family for supporting me in my decision to leave home when not quite 18 years old. I felt trusted and would try to live up to that trust throughout my life.

In 1961 I arrived in New York and worked in a bank for three years. It was for me an exciting time, learning about other cultures and other ways of being. During that time, I met the St. Patrick Fathers and did some volunteer work helping to raise funds for the missions. Though I loved to dance at the weekends, I felt a restlessness in me that could be named, the beginning of a call to something different. A deep awareness of all I had received in my own life motivated me to respond to God’s call to share with those most in need. I was deeply impressed with Martin Luther King whom I had listened to at a rally in New York City and Pope John XXIII who spoke of the great needs of the church in Latin America. Both men influenced my decision to enter the Medical Missionaries of Mary in Boston in 1964.

I was to learn there the joys and demands of our MMM missionary vocation which resonated deep within me. After my first profession, I returned to Ireland and continued my formation doing nursing and midwifery. MMM in Drogheda in those days was full of life and many were in preparation for life on the missions. We all awaited eagerly for the day we would hear about our assignment and mine was to Malawi in Africa where I spent ten wonderful years. We lived in a dictatorship which was particularly difficult for the local people.

My first assignment was to Nkata Bay, to a health clinic, a maternity unit and dispensary with no doctor. It was challenging and many times we had to use all our skills (some we never knew we had) and pray our way through some of the cases. I later worked in our hospital in Mzuzu together with a great community of MMMs, the local people and many volunteers from different countries. It was a rich experience of hospitality, especially being with, and learning from, the Malawian people. In 1985, I was called to be a member of our Leadership Team based in Ireland. I served in that role for twelve years. It was a privilege which brought me in contact with all our Sisters at home and abroad seeing first hand our healing charism unfolding in different countries and cultures despite wars and difficult situations. It was interesting too to experience the changes that came about with the introduction of Primary Health Care and how we as MMM’s responded so enthusiastically thus making health care more widely available.

The next step on my journey brought me to Mexico spending six months learning the Spanish language and beginning to learn something of the Latin American culture. There were four of us on this journey, three MMMs and a laywomen. It was a special time of discernment when we were called again to take another step on this journey and go to Honduras in 1998 in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Marcala in the Southwest of the country was our mission of choice. We worked with the social wing of the Catholic Church which afforded us an entry into the communities of indigenous Lenca people living mostly in the mountainous area of the region. I ministered there for five years; our work was mostly in health education and, at the request of the local people, learning to make natural medicines using the plants of the area. Together we found ways to improve the lifestyle of these people. As they learned from us, I learned much from them and came to appreciate this new culture. Our manner of being with them brought us close to understanding their joys and struggles.

In 2004 we founded a second community in Choloma in the North of Honduras. Choloma is a totally different reality, most of the people are migrants who have come to find work in the factories. It is one of the most violent areas of the world, many people living in extreme poverty, lacking employment and caught up in the drug scene, many young people losing their lives in the process. The breakdown in family life is a contributing factor to much domestic violence. We constructed a centre for integrated health care, Casa Visitación and from this centre our priority is health and human rights education, as well as some curative and complimentary therapies.

I have heard it said that mission is friendship, and I can now truly say that is the reality of my life now, it nourishes my spirit to experience the depth of faith among those around me who radiate joy in spite of the many struggles that is their daily reality. As I celebrate 50 years of religious life in MMM with the wonderful memories of this adventure, I give thanks to God, to my family, to my MMM Sisters, friends, our benefactors and many companions along the way who have accompanied me on this journey.

First published in Summer 2017.