The Wheel of Mission

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Mary Ellen Manz, M.M.

S.WanzagJEncaladavows2From Maryknoll Magazine: When Susan Wanzagi took her first vows as a Maryknoll Sister last August, her vocation journey came full circle—back to her baptism in Tanzania. Presiding at the Mass for Sister Wanzagi’s profession was the very same priest who baptized her 30 years earlier: Father Edward Dougherty, superior general of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers for the last six years.

 

While neither remembers the exact celebration of the sacrament, their entwining paths seem like, … well, providence.

Recently in Africa for a meeting of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers serving there, Father Dougherty learned that two young Tanzanians had expressed interest in joining the Maryknoll Sisters. “The missioners were excited, exclaiming that ‘two of our girls’ from Musoma are going to be Maryknoll missioners,” says Father Dougherty, who served in the Musoma Diocese of Tanzania from 1976 to 1986.

A short time later, when he was visiting Chicago, he met another future Maryknoll Sister from Tanzania, Susan Wanzagi, who comes from the Zanaki parish where he had served. She was in her canonical year—the last stage of preparation before taking her first vows as a Sister.

Dougherty2_TanzaniaAs they greeted each other, Sister Wanzagi surprised Father Dougherty with the news that he had baptized her when she was 4 years old!

Both had to admit they didn’t remember each other. Father Dougherty says he and the four other Maryknoll missioners then working in Zanaki spent most of their time visiting mission stations in the African bush, where they ministered to thousands of people.

“It was my first parish after ordination. I loved that mission,” says Father Dougherty. “It was huge, taking in at least 50 villages. That area was later divided into four or five parishes.”

It was Sister Wanzagi’s mother, Joyce, who had remembered him.

Sister Wanzagi says she owes her faith and vocation to her mother’s desire to provide her nine children with a solid religious upbringing. Peter Wanzagi, the new Sister’s late father, was a Catholic and her mother was a member of the Anglican Church. But Maryknoll Sisters had taught both of Sister Wanzagi’s parents and her mother decided to become a Catholic so the family could worship together. Susan’s mother was received into the Catholic Church and four of her children were baptized in the Zanaki parish in 1984.

SWanzagiJEncaladavowsYears later, when Susan announced to her family that she wanted to be a Maryknoll Sister, her mother told her of her baptism in the Maryknoll parish by none other than Father Edward Dougherty.

“When I was young, I felt that I would like to be a religious Sister,” Sister Wanzagi says. “But then I was busy studying in schools away from home and the thought left me for a while.” One day in 1999, Maryknoll Sister Connie Krautkremer visited Susan’s high school and spoke about the missionary work of the Maryknoll Sisters. She invited the students to think about their own lives and what God might be calling them to do. “It was then that I decided to be a Maryknoll Sister,” Sister Wanzagi says.

After finishing secondary school, she went to the University of Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, earned a bachelor’s degree in education and taught high school while she discerned her calling.

On Jan. 6, 2012—the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Maryknoll Sisters—Susan was welcomed by the Sisters in Tanzania to begin her journey with the congregation by experiencing its prayer life and various ministries, sharing in the household duties and getting to know the Sisters and herself a little better. As she learned about the history and missions of the Maryknoll Sisters throughout the world, she says, “I was very moved to see the suffering of people and it helped to make my choice to be a Maryknoll Sister very strong.”

On Aug. 10 of this year, the spiritual relationship begun 30 years ago at baptism marked a milestone as Father Dougherty presided over the eucharistic celebration at which Susan Wanzagi pronounced her vows in the Maryknoll Sisters Chapel at Maryknoll, N.Y.

“It’s really exciting the way things develop,” Father Dougherty says, alluding to how the Holy Spirit has worked not only in Sister Susan’s life but also in the entire Wanzagi family. Sister Susan’s brother John is a priest for the Musoma Diocese and studying in Rome, and her sister Felista is following in Susan’s footsteps. Felista is in her first year of orientation with the Maryknoll Sisters in Tanzania.

“Mission is continuing through Susan, her brother and her sister and so many others where we served in mission years ago,” Father Dougherty says. “Truly, what goes around comes around and we are privileged to be a part of it.”

Responding to a Real Need in Korea

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Margaret Kollmer, M.M.

Kollmer_KoreaI became acutely aware of the need for more anesthesia providers in Korea as I was working at Maryknoll Hospital in Busan (previously Pusan). In many small hospitals, the medical doctor first gave the anesthetic, then operated, with no one watching the patient. This led to many unnecessary deaths which affected me deeply. Soon a kernel of an idea was beginning to take form–why not extend myself by teaching others to do anesthesia.

This is what I did. In 1970, with the support of our hospital administrator, the first class of nurses began. These men and women are still active in anesthesia, and have done exemplary work in the field over the years. I am so proud of them. As the students completed their study, they easily found placements in local hospitals which recognized their excellence in administering safe “watchful care” anesthesia.

 

By 1974, as we grew, the need became apparent to form an association of nurse anesthetists for updating, ongoing study, sharing of experiences and fellowship with each other. This was begun and the Korean Association of Nurse Anesthetists (KANA) was born. Our first meeting had 27 members. This past year, the group numbered over 600 members.

Kollmer2_KoreaThe next step was to have the program recognized as a certified program with the National Ministry in Korea. By the late 1970s, the program received approval as a certified program for nurse anesthetists, recognized by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. This was a moment of sheer joy for us all. I realized, in implementing the above and know now for sure, that it could not have accomplished this without the support, dedication and enthusiasm of the courageous men and women whom I had taught over the years.

While attending international anesthesia meetings, I learned from others that Korea was not unique in its professional challenges. Many other countries are confronted with similar difficulties and challenges.  By supporting each other over country boundaries, we can succeed as one across the world.  So remembering this, I look forward with much hope to the future of Nurse Anesthesia (NA), not only in Korea but around the world and that it be recognized for the remarkable service it is giving to all people.

As I reflect on those early years of our growth, what was so quickly noticeable was: initiating the NA program was a response to a real, felt need in Korean society in the field of anesthesia. The development of the KANA responded to a need for stability and organization: united together, we could effectively face the obstacles in our professional development and delivery of anesthesia. The KANA succeeded because of its devoted and committed members. In the formative years we received much support and assistance from members of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA), namely John Garde, Ron Caulk and Sandra Maree Ouellette, who came to Korea as  guest speakers several times at our annual meetings. We coordinated our meetings with those of the AANA and the IFNA, of which Korea is one of the Charter members.

In September 2014, I was pleased, honored and humbled to accept the prestigious Hermi Lohnert Award–and very special thanks to the International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists (IFNA) board for selecting me, to the AANA for arranging this ceremony (held in Orlando, FL, on September 13, 2014), and to those who nominated me and supported my nomination. Also an enormous salute to Marianne Reisen of Switzerland, the other nominee for this year’s award. And thank you to my friends and colleagues in the field who have inspired me nationally and internationally, to ensure the relevance of nurse anesthesia in this changing world.

Lastly, I feel this award could rightly be given to the nurse anesthetists of Korea, for without them, nothing would have been developed over the years. I had the kernel of the idea, they were the leaven which made it increase and expand beyond our dreams or expectations!  Over the years, I  watched the development of the nurse anesthetists in Korea, and the advancements they have made personally and professionally in so many ways.  The people of Korea have been beneficiaries of excellent anesthesia care, and I realize how fortunate I am to leave this legacy to the nurse anesthetists of Korea, confident that they will continue to initiate timely advances in promoting the continued success of the profession on the Korean peninsula.

In closing, our Maryknoll Sisters foundress, Mary Josephine Rogers, left us a great legacy, and much wisdom. I quote her here, for it also applies to the work in Korea:

    “There is nothing more astonishing than life, just as it is,
Nothing more miraculous than growth and change and development,
Just as revealed to us.
And as happens so often when we stop to regard God’s work,
There is nothing to do but wonder and thank God,
Realizing how little we planned,
And yet how much has been done.”

                                                                              –Mother Mary Josephine Rogers, MM (1936)

I am extremely grateful for having been in anesthesia and having been assigned to Korea, where my life blossomed thanks to God’s grace and the many wonderful, faithful, creative and talented people with whom I met over the years.

Thank you.

Holding All God’s People in our Hearts

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Sister Mary Ellen Kempken, MM

As we celebrate World Mission Day 2014, I recall the words of Dan Schutte’s song, Here I Am, Lord. In that song we hear God tell us: “I have heard my people cry… I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright.” Then God asks,  “Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?”  In the refrain  we are given the chance to answer by responding,  “Here I am, Lord…I will go Lord, if you lead me.  I will hold your people in my heart.”

In these days the news is filled with the suffering of people facing the Ebola crisis in West Africa, with the terror and cry of people living amidst violence in the Middle East, with the concerns of people experiencing drought, floods or huge storms nearing their homelands. All these people look to someone to make their darkness bright.  World Mission Day reminds us that we are all called and sent to share God’s light with our brothers and sisters throughout the whole world. They are looking for some Good News. If we are disciples of Jesus, then we do have Good News to share and we are all in effect, missionary disciples no matter where we are.

As a missioner in Bolivia, I remember one day watching families affected by the flooding of the Beni River in the northern Amazon region of the country.  I realized that Jesus addressed not only learned scribes but crowds of people just like these families.  It occurred to me, watching the mothers and children, that God knows each of us and that the Good News God would want us to have would never be a complicated message. The crowds in Galilee in the time of Jesus and ordinary people in Bolivia, in Tanzania, in Taiwan or in the Bronx today could begin to find hope by hearing from Jesus the Good News that they are loved by God.

The Good News is that God is Love and God holds each person like a loving parent. Each of us is made in God’s image and likeness and is therefore made to love and hold all people in our hearts, too.  Jesus even pointed out who especially needs that love: the hungry and homeless, the ill and imprisoned, the prodigal son and the lost sheep. He said: Be merciful. Forgive. Rejoice. Just love.  Not easy but not complicated.  God is Love.  Our life is all about love. And those families along the Beni River and many others throughout the world today should be able to find hope in that Good News: people can and will reach out to help one another through times of crisis.

As Pope Francis says in his message for World Mission Day 2014,  ”the disciples were given an experience of God’s love, but also the possibility of sharing that love.”

This is not new. This is the core of our Christian belief.  Teresa of Avila used the image of each of us being the hands and feet of Christ.  And that was because love isn’t just a nice sentiment.  It requires doing something. Each of us has so many gifts to share. And these many gifts can be a sign of God’s love for the person receiving the gift we share.

Some of us will share the gift of our prayers.  And we know that prayer can bring about wonderful things.  Some of us will share our gifts by directly reaching out and listening to, speaking with, and touching the persons who are suffering. Others will share the gift of themselves as they take the time to learn what others need and to network with other people and with those in the situation, advocating for the changes that must happen if our world is to be able to meet the needs we are seeing.

On this World Mission Day, I invite everyone to listen to God’s questions for today: “Who will bear my light to those suffering from violence, fear, illness, hunger, homelessness, isolation or rejection?  Whom shall I send?”

May we all help one another to answer:  “Here I am, Lord.  I will go.  I will hold your people in my heart.”

These Kids Are in Good Hands

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Bernice Kita, MM

Kita_GuatemalaFor the last several years, Maryknoll Sisters in the Guatemala towns of Lemoa and Chajul have hosted a group of freshly-graduated high school girls from Colegio Monte María in Guatemala City. They come as rural missionaries during school vacation in the month of November, when it’s summer in Guatemala. Each group quickly develops its own unique communal personality – no two groups are alike!

Those assigned to Chajul, a distant mountain town, are brought by their parents in vehicles filled with teaching materials, toys for children, enough food for a month, and their favorite pillows. These Monte Maria graduates, now college students in Guatemala City, volunteered in a spirit of adventure and service to help Ixil-speaking children in Chajul learn how to speak and read Spanish.

Last year, I had signed up 30 first-graders, 30 second-graders and 20 sixth-graders for remedial classes in Spanish and math. The volunteer mentors quickly organized themselves into a teaching team covering five days a week for four weeks. In addition, a few went with our priest to a distant village where they sloshed through mud, ate unfamiliar food, and witnessed the hard life of the people in the rugged countryside. All of them caught a variety of colds from their students. One sprained a ligament in her knee after too much mountain climbing. One had a few spontaneous and scary nosebleeds. And all took turns cleaning toilets, sweeping and mopping floors, washing dishes and cooking supper. In return for their volunteer service, the volunteers eagerly learned from their pupils how to speak a few words of Ixil and set themselves to learn to weave from some of their older students.

Before leaving Chajul, the group sat around my kitchen table talking about their experiences and a few shed tears. They had never seen such poverty, much less experienced it firsthand. They admitted to being deeply touched and permanently changed in those few weeks. Comparing their privileged lives in the capital with the lives of the children of Chajul, they wondered aloud how they could help them once they returned home.

In my kitchen that evening was born a project: to contribute during the next year to the education of six of the children. With very little free time left, these determined young women made arrangements with the children, the parents, the schools, and the banks to make their plan a reality. Several months later, the project was continuing as planned, and the Monte Maria graduates, now college students, were keeping in touch with their protegées in the countryside.

The volunteers from Guatemala City added a whole new dimension to my ministry with their one-month mission to Chajul. Each year, they had collected so much learning materials from other Monte Maria students that, when each year’s new group of volunteers arrived, they brought children’s books, loads of paper, games, paints, and lots of other materials. Each year I had to add more shelves to store everything they left.

This year in June, two of the Monte Maria graduates who served last November wanted to come back for a week during their vacation and plunged right in where they had left off.

An Archbishop Says ‘Thank You’

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Marjorie Ann Bush, MM

bisp_china2_At ten a.m. on September 16, 2014, Francis Lu Xinping, Archbishop of Nanjing Archdiocese in China, and seven companions arrived at the Maryknoll Sisters Center.  Archbishop Francis was on a ten-day visit to the United States.  His journey included Dayton University in Ohio, Caritas in Washington, D.C., and Maryknoll in New York.  In an earlier letter, Archbishop Francis stated that the purpose of his visit was to personally thank the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation and Maryknoll Society for the many services we had generously given to the Archdiocese of Nanjing.

It was a thrilling experience to once again meet Archbishop Francis Lu, Sister Maria Zheng  and Fr. Anthony Guo,  all of whom I worked closely with during the four and a half years that I lived in Nanjing. During that time, Sister Maria Zheng and Father Thomas Goa were granted scholarships through Maryknoll Society’s China Project  to study in the United States.  Also during that time, Father Larry Lewis volunteered to give a retreat to the clergy in Nanjing Archdiocese.

With the gracious assistance of Sister Betty Ann Maheu, we welcomed Archbishop Francis and his entourage with refreshments in Molly’s Suite.  After introductions and a presentation of gifts by Archbishop Francis to the Community, Sister Betty Ann gave the group a tour of the Heritage Museum, especially stressing our beginnings in China.  We prayed together for world peace in the Main Chapel, after which we wended our way to Maryknoll Sisters’ Residential Chapel on the fourth floor where Archbishop Francis, Father Anthony Guo and Father Joseph Gu concelebrated the Eucharist in Chinese.  After Mass both Archbishop Francis and the Sisters in wheelchairs could not get enough of each other. While shaking his hand, they all wanted to tell him where and how long they were in mission, especially the old China hands.

Finally, we were able to enter the elevator and descend to the first-floor main dining room, where Sister Betty Ann and Laura had lovingly decorated two tables with white tablecloths, flowers, place marks and gifts.  The group was in awe of the size and beauty of the dining room with its side views of flowering shrubs both in the courtyard and street side.  It was probably a first for the seven men to pick up their plates and food on the serving line, but for the three women it was not too unusual.  During the meal, the Maryknoll Fathers Superior General Edward Dougherty and Father Timothy Kilkelly, director of the Maryknoll China Project, joined the group for dinner.  There was a small reunion, as a few of the Sisters in the dining room recognized Sister Maria Zheng from the time she was at the Center studying English.

After the meal, just as we were beginning to say our goodbyes and turn the group over to Father Tim for a tour of the Maryknoll Society Seminary, Archbishop Francis asked to see the statues of Mother Mary!  Since they had already seen the beautiful statue of Our Lady of Maryknoll in the front foyer, I had to think which other statues had he in mind.  Then, I remember he probably wanted to see the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.  Almost every Catholic Church in China has a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes outside the Church.  Immediately on arriving at the grotto, Archbishop Francis gathered the group around him to pray.

Next we moved to the Maryknoll Sisters Cemetery.  Everyone was enthralled with the grounds and the graves, reading the tombstones!  Finally one member of the group asked why one grave was still open.  I told them we were preparing to bury Sister Helen Gleason, who just died.  She would be in the same grave as Sister Marge Kulage, who recently passed away at 107 years of age.  They were utterly astounded, since earlier I had told them their host, Sister Betty Ann, was 91 years old.  After praying to Our Lady of the Thorn Crowned Head at Mother Mary Joseph’s grave, the group was ready to head over to the Seminary.  I said goodbye to Archbishop Francis Lu, Sister Maria Zheng  and Father Anthony Guo and the other members of the group, thanking them for coming to express their gratitude for Maryknoll’s service to China, especially Nanjing Archdiocese.   We then turned the group over to Father Timothy Kilkelly who would give them a tour of the Seminary.

Saving Lives in Myanmar

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Mary Grenough, MM

MyanmarBoyThe other day, I heard a new “horror story.” A woman in the northeast of the country (Chin State, near the India border) was hemorrhaging and needed a blood transfusion. Fourteen men in her village offered to be donors. Their blood was screened and 12 of the 14 were positive for HIV. The next needed task will be to get a group to go to that village, check the blood of the wives and partners of these positive men – and that of their children. Then to get those who are HIV-positive to get check-ups and treatment.

Most of the people in that village are migrant workers and it seems they went to a jade mine where they picked up the habit of shooting drugs and using the same needle. They came back addicted and still do not use clean syringes and needles There are only four places in the country for drug rehabitation, and it is a big problem here – plus alcoholism.

It’s a common story in Myanmar, where villages are separated from medical care by mountain ranges and long distances – and poverty. My life here interacts with the people – mostly those from the villages and different ethnic groups – whom I have met during almost eight years of presence here. My three main areas of mission have been trying to improve awareness, prevention and care for people with HIV/AIDS, improving education about and access to basic health care for pregnant women and others, and assisting students to continue their education beyond village-level possibilities. These activities keep me busy and very fulfilled. We are often called on to act quickly in emergency situations, too.

SavingLives2_0For example, during a single week in May, we received two requests for emergency help. The first was for a mother in her first pregnancy who had been in labor for more than 24 hours and couldn’t deliver her baby. She had traveled for hours from their village to reach the nearest government hospital. With our help, she had a caesarian section and safely had her 8½-pound baby.

In the same hospital and almost at the same time, another mother having her first baby arrived – having had to borrow $250 to hire a riverboat to bring her to the hospital. She, too, had been in labor for more than 24 hours. She had a caesarian section and delivered twins weighing more than seven pounds each.

Without an immediate donation from a very generous supporter, these surgeries ($100 for the doctor and about $100 for anesthesia, supplies, and medicine) would not have been done. Those mothers, and probably their babies, would most likely have died, leaving two young widowed husbands feeling great guilt over the death of their wives and babies.

Neither of these mothers had any prenatal care – or even basic education. They had never traveled very far outside their village before this. I do have a dream connected with this and which I think could start a much-needed program here. It would be to hire a community organizer and a nurse midwife who would start a community-based healthy family program in a very poor industrial zone of Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

The program would involve developing people’s basic understanding of health, including human sexuality, identifying the women who are pregnant, and helping them to access needed services for good pre-natal and post-natal care – including testing for anemia, HIV, hepatitis, malaria and more, and getting treatment for these diseases which afflict so many here.

It would also include developing better community awareness and responsibility, providing needed education to parents, children, youth and spouses and partners concerning human sexuality, gender awareness and equality, and responsible relationships. We would also want to assure that the newborn babies get adequate nutrition, immunizations, and more, at least until they are two years old. As the program develops, I would hope that some of the mothers or others could be helped to develop income-generating programs and even to start small savings cooperatives.

When our staff accompanies sick people to consult in the hospitals or with the doctors, they are shown attention and respect. On their own, they wouldn’t dare to approach the doctors or hospitals – first because they have no money and, if they borrow, the interest rate is 20 percent a month.

That Paing Oo is an orphan who lives with his grandfather. He was born with a prominent cleft lip and cleft palate, and the grandfather, having no money, just felt sorry for him. He didn’t know what else to do. When the community health volunteer knew about him, he was referred, and with minimal costs for the surgery, his lip has already been repaired and he is beginning speech therapy. Surgery for his cleft palate will be done after six months.

Before his surgery, he could not be understood when he tried to speak. After his lip healed, he smiled broadly and kept saying, “I’m happy now!”

When he returned home to his 78-year-old grandfather, who was unable to leave the house – but in whose care the boy is – the grandfather and boy hugged each other repeatedly, and the grandfather said, “Now I can die in peace.”

In Iraq, We Worked for Peace

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Rosemarie Milazzo, MM

This summer, I attended a meeting of a New York group called Religion and Peace in Stony Point, NY. I met a young Iraqi mother who told me that all her life, her country has been at war. Now, her children are born into more violence and war.

I was in northern Iraq last year as part of a peace team made up of mostly Christians from all different denominations. Our group, whose newest member is a Muslim, is called Christian Peacemaker Teams. During our mission in Iraq, I attended a dance festival in Erbil, a city in northern Iraq where thousands of Christians have fled attacks by extremist Islamic forces.

Last year, there was peace in Erbil. Many ethnic groups performed dances reflecting their cultural traditions.  The Yazidi danced beautifully. They were stunning in their presentation. They danced with passion, with gentle rhythms, huge smiles, radiantly garbed in their traditional clothing.

As part of our peace-building mission in northern Iraq, we monitored Kurdish national elections to ensure fairness for all. We also served with Islamic women who advocated for an end to abusive practices they suffered in their society.

Later in the year, we had the opportunity to visit the northern Iraqi village of Duhok. That’s where many Iraqis who are members of the minority Yazidi have fled. In recent days and weeks, the Yazidi have been trapped by Islamic extremists who have overrun their homes, persecuting the Yazidi where they have lived for thousands of years.

Last year, they warmly welcomed us to their homes and we were fortunate that they were baptizing two babies that day. We were invited to share the celebration. Following the baptism, we were taken all around the village by Yazidi elder women. They have such endearing respect for the earth that we all walked barefoot.  No shoes were seen in the whole village.

There were many smiles and songs that day.

Now, there is no more dancing in that village. Military forces have entered and ravished the homes, temples, ritual centers and have killed many of the men and taken the women.  Some have taken shelter in the mountains in Sanjir, where the hostile heat and lack of water and food offer no hospitality. It seems that many of the people have already died and many are suffering without help.

There is no more dancing for the Yazidi people now.

My Health Care Ministry

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Mary Lee Englerth, MM

“The Greatest Gift Is Compassion”

This past year has been a busy year and also a challenging one. We were able to extend access to health care into five new counties located in northwestern Pennsylvania near Erie County.  We now have five sites serving the migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families in 30 counties in Pennsylvania and a few camps we visit in Maryland. This is an increase of 11 counties during these past 4 years. We have also been able to establish working contracts with additional federally qualified health centers – one in Erie and one in Lancaster, giving us a total of 12 clinics that provide health care to our migrant and seasonal workers. Besides clinic visits, the staff in these various sites during the picking season, also attends patients in the migrant camps 3 evenings a week during the months of June through mid-November.

Last year, over 2,600 patients were seen during the farm season–with over 3,550 visits. These include clinic visits seeing patients who work at orchards, produce farms, vineyards, dairy farms, poultry farms, nurseries, packing houses, mushroom farms, and Christmas tree farms.

The U.S. Bureau of Primary Health Care has many requirements regarding the operation of this program, and due to this, I must travel a good bit around Pennsylvania seeing that all of these requirements are in place. Many times during these trips, though, I do have the opportunity of going out with our local staff to visit the workers in the camps, and I have gotten to know workers from many areas of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Haiti. We have had also an influx of refugees from Bhutan and Nepal recently.

However, the best part of my health care ministry is when I have the time and the opportunity to go out in the evenings to our local Adams County migrant camps with our team of nurses and interpreters to see patients. These men and women are not accustomed to have health care workers come to them and, above all, to have someone actually sit down and listen to them. I believe this is the greatest gift we can give to them – showing compassionate listening, besides providing treatment. Believe me, this gift also is reciprocal.

Recently, I went up to the five northwestern Pennsylvania counties surrounding Erie to conduct health screens on the workers in the dairy farms. We went with a staff member from the local Migrant Education staff. As you know, Erie is in a snow belt. The week we were up there it was very cold, a mixture of rain and snow, and as we were literally sloshing through the mud to get into these places, I really felt at home. It was so much like the paths in Peru and Guatemala. The amazing part for me is that in each of these dairy farms, all of the workers were men and women from Guatemala. Many were from aldeas in which I had worked, so you can imagine the great conversations we all had. I even had to get some of the men to translate for me into Mam for some of the workers. This was the local language of the people where I had worked in Guatemala.

I laughingly asked the women where their beautiful huipils (blouses) and lovely woven cortes (skirts) were. They all laughed and some of the women said that they wear their local dresses in the house. It was strange to see these Guatemalan women dressed in sweatshirts and jeans. They were carrying heavy pails, lifting hay, and leading the cows in from the fields. It was a great week.

Every year in October we have the East Coast Migrant Stream meeting. Each year it is held in a different city along the East Coast. At this meeting, much time is spent on the Affordable Care Act and the need to enroll legal workers in the new health care insurance plans. This is presenting a great challenge to us. Many of our workers are legal residents and now by law they must be enrolled in one of the health care plans. The challenge for us is how to make them aware that they must comply with this new rule, and how and where to go to enter into the enrollment process for their insurance.

We also do many health screens with parents’ groups who have children enrolled in the Migrant Headstart program. We work especially with the women who come together for classes in English as a Second Language. They’re employed in the packing houses during the day. It affords us an opportunity to be able to sit down and also talk with the women, and needless to say they are grateful to have some of us who speak Spanish to answer their many and varied questions.

The Assumption: Mary’s Feast And Ours

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Betty Ann Maheu, MM

Assumption1From Maryknoll Magazine: Every year on August 15 thousands of Catholics in China make their way up the steep hill in the village of Donglu in Hebei Province to the country’s most popular Marian shrine there. They are remembering the day in 1900 during the anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion when the Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel reportedly appeared in the sky as soldiers were attacking the village and attempting to kill its Christian residents. In fear of the apparition, the soldiers fled and the Christians were saved. The victory was reported on August 15, feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is not surprising that years before Pius XII in 1950 proclaimed the dogma of Mary’s Assumption, Chinese Catholics celebrated the feast.

The declaration of the dogma of Mary’s Assumption into heaven did not surprise most Catholics around the world. It was not a matter for debate, but a moment for rejoicing. For the Catholics at Donglu, the declaration was a confirmation of what they already held dear. Mary, their mother, was very much alive in body and soul. Had she not saved them from the swords of the Boxers? Had they not triumphed repeatedly over those who would destroy their shrine and forbid them from celebrating her feast? Yearly they gathered at her shrine to say “thank you.”

Leaders in the Universal Church were aware that the declaration of the dogma was a teachable moment. It was important for the laity everywhere to understand the meaning of Mary’s Assumption. The declaration was a confirmation of a long held belief that Mary had been taken body and soul into heaven, where she shared in the glory of her son’s resurrection. It was the fulfillment and culmination of her immaculate conception, and what her “yes” to the angel Gabriel could mean for everyone. To the faithful pilgrims of Donglu, who would never forget what she had done for them, she well deserved to be assumed into heaven! No privilege the Church accorded to Mary would ever suffice.

By declaring the dogma of Mary’s Assumption, the Church was making an implicit statement: the human body is holy; it is not only for time but for all eternity. The Assumption signifies that Mary was assumed body and soul into God’s wholeness. Mary has already received what is true for all believers. We, too, will live with God forever. We have it on Jesus’ word: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16).

God entered the world of human beings through a human mother, Mary. By virtue of her life-long openness to all that God asked of her, it was inconceivable to the Church Fathers that her body should be corrupted in the grave. They believed that Mary’s body must already have the eternal quality of the complete human being, that is, one who has achieved full stature in Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

It was not just by coincidence that the pope declared the dogma of Mary’s Assumption on the feast of All Saints. On this feast we celebrate the millions of unknown nameless friends of God, among them surely hundreds who once climbed the steep hill to Donglu to celebrate Our Lady’s feast. Like Mary, they too have “reached their full stature in Christ.” The dogma of the Assumption confirms our hope that death does not end in corruption but in a transformed existence, the likes of which we cannot imagine. Paul told us as much: “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered the human heart to know what God has prepared for those who love him” (1Corinthians 2:9).

The feast of the Assumption is a missionary feast, a feast of Christian hope, a hope that heralds good news to the poor and to all who live peaceably in our global village believing in the promise that Mary’s Assumption is for all people, for all eternity.

Leading the Way for Peace

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Steve Lalli

esalmon380x240How many of us can remain true to deeply-held principles when the forces lined up against you include your country, church and family? Sister Elizabeth Salmon saw firsthand what opposing a world war did to her father, Ben.

Ben Salmon was subjected to torture, forced feeding after a hunger strike, hard labor, and prison time for refusing to fight during World War I. Sister Elizabeth has just returned from Austria for the war’s 100th anniversary in August 2014, where she shared how her father’s example can bring peace to today’s global conflicts.

“Long before Mahatma Gandhi, Franz Jagerstatter, Dorothy Day, Dr. King or Thomas Merton,” wrote peace activist John Dear, a columnist at National Catholic Reporter. Ben Salmon “stood and said that because of Jesus, he would not be a soldier. Right here in the United States.”

Salmon was a Catholic conscientious objector from Denver who was arrested and sentenced to death (which was eventually reduced to 25 years of hard labor). Believing that killing is immoral, Salmon, who died in 1932, claimed that no Christian should carry a gun. Because of that stand and a lifetime of Christian acts, a Catholic group is now advocating Sister Elizabeth’s father for beatification.

“Yes, our dad did leave an example of mighty courage and of stick-to-it-ive-ness and, as well, an adherence to the letter of God’s Word in the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou shalt not kill,'” Sister Elizabeth said. “He also stuck to his own principles with no deviation, as chaplains of five or six different prisons found out.”

To take that kind of stand when the nation was at war was considered criminal. The U.S. entered World War I in 1917, and by then the war already had been raging for three years. Ben Salmon’s example as one of the first Catholic conscientious objectors in a time of war stood in contrast to a Church that was late in adopting that stance. “The Germans are my brothers. I will not kill them!” Sister Elizabeth said her father once said.

Pope Francis, who would have a say on Ben Salmon’s possible beatification, heard arguments in favor of the proposal earlier this year, according to Sister Elizabeth. Supporters said they have no idea what the Pope will do but vowed to continue to write to Pope Francis and the Vatican about Ben Salmon’s courage as a soldier in the army of peace.

Later, during World War II, another Catholic, Franz Jagerstatter, would stand by his moral principles, too, and refuse his mandated duty to kill as a soldier in the German Army.

On August 9, 1943, Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian, was put to death by the Nazis for refusing to serve. In 2007, the martyr for nonviolence was beatified by Pope Benedict. This August, Sister Elizabeth also attended Blessed Franz’s death anniversary in Austria.

“I certainly want to be involved in anyway possible for whatever would promote no more wars,” said Sister Elizabeth.