Prayer Partners with a Mission

As members of the Holy Childhood Association, our children are taught that the most important thing they can do for others is pray for them. Whether it be the Hail Mary once a day, every day, that we ask of all our members, the recitation of the World Mission Rosary, focusing on a different area of the mission world with each decade or the silent offering to Jesus of an action or good deed done for others, HCA members are made aware of the need for prayer.

For our members in the second grade, these prayers take on a special meaning as they prepare to receive Jesus for the first time in Holy Communion. Because the Holy Childhood Association gives our children a global view of the church, student members understand that in the 1150 mission dioceses around the world that are supported by the Holy Father’s Mission Societies, their brothers and sisters in Christ are taking the same sacramental journey. It only seemed natural to ask them to pray for each other!

Participating students are given a flyer that features the picture of First Holy Communion children from Pakistan, Uganda or Zambia; the sheet also includes some information about that country – what does the flag and a map of the country look like? Who is their national patron saint? The most important part of the flyer is the prayer itself, asking Jesus to bless all children receiving Him for the first time along with all the teachers and catechists that make this possible, at home and around the world.

The children at St. Jeanne D’Arc School in Lowell were thrilled to pose for a class picture, knowing that through the worldwide connections of the Pontifical Mission Societies, parent organization of the Holy Childhood Association, there will be children in the missions seeing it and praying for them. Through their participation in the program, our children are making it possible for missionaries to teach their own students about what it means to be a member of the universal Catholic family – there is ALWAYS someone ready to be your Prayer Partner, whether they live around the corner or around the world.

For more information on making your First Holy Communion students Prayer Partners with a Mission, please call me at 617-779-3871 or email mheil@propfaithboston.org.
-Maureen Crowley Heil

Helping the Priest to Be “All” in Haiti

With Ash Wednesday past and Lent upon us, sacrifice seems to be in order. Should we give up a favorite snack? Take time to say an extra Rosary? Volunteer at a local charity? The answer, depending on our circumstances, is yes. Our “giving up”, however, takes on a new dimension when it is done to benefit others. This Lent, consider making those “others” the missionaries and local priests of Haiti.

Through emails, we are hearing stories of incredible dedication from these great people; though suffering alongside those they serve, the priests of Haiti are being called to move beyond their own trauma to comfort God’s people. Fr. Lavaud Christophe of Les Cayes writes of the doubling of his parish, from 15,000 to 30,000 people, due to refugees from the devastation in Port-au-Prince. He says that because of the destruction of all local government, “It must be said, the priest is all – (police) officer, mayor…he governs the family problems of all, economic and emotional. The Pastor is the only authority in the area.” Father ends with a plea: “Please friends, brother and sisters in God, help us.”

To that end, we would like to announce the sale of our annual Easter Mass Cards and Spiritual Enrollments. Individual Mass cards can be purchased for $5 each and enrollments of a person, living or deceased in a Novena of Masses are $3. Proceeds from Mass Offerings will be sent to Archbishop Bernadito Auza, Papal Nuncio for Haiti. We will ask the Archbishop to distribute these offerings to priests throughout Haiti so that they may benefit as many people as possible.

While prayerfully considering your participation in this program, think of these facts of life in Haiti received from Bishop Pierre-Andre Dumas, President of Caritas Haiti: over 180,000 are dead, over 200,000 missing; 1,500,000 people are internal refugees. In the capital of Port au Prince, 75% of homes are destroyed; other cities have lost everything as well but have not made the news. There are no more supermarkets, hospitals or government buildings. "But the Haitian people are a people who have dignity, they want to get up," said Bishop Dumas.

By the grace of God, we have the opportunity to sacrifice this Lent and, through their clergy, help Haitians do just that.

For more information on our Easter Mass cards and Enrollments, call 617-542-1776 or email info@propfaithboston.org.

Imagination...with a Mission

The imaginations of children are wonderful things. They can so easily place themselves in a distant time or event and make it come to life. Every year, the children in the Religious Education program at Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Plymouth imagine themselves as participants in major events in the life of a very special Child: Jesus. On the Feast of the Epiphany, Blessed Kateri’s children present a pageant that takes them from Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem to be counted in the census through the Nativity to the arrival of the Magi to worship the newborn King.

This year, the pageant took on new meaning because the Epiphany is also known internationally in our Church as Holy Childhood Day – a day when all members of the Holy Father’s Mission Society for children celebrate their work of solidarity with their brothers and sisters around the world. The children at Blessed Kateri and all members of the Holy Childhood Association (HCA) were greeted by Pope Benedict XVI on that day with these words of encouragement: “Observed on the Solemnity of the Epiphany is the Holy Childhood Day, with the motto of ‘Children Helping Children’. This initiative educates children to be formed in a mentality open to the world and to be in solidarity with their poorest peers. I greet affectionately all little missionaries on the five continents and encourage them always to be witnesses to Jesus and heralds of his Gospel.”

The students at Blessed Kateri also used their imaginations recently when the tremendous earthquake struck Haiti. Last year, as part of their mission visit from HCA, they learned about the small island country and the conditions in which children there lived on a daily basis – clean water was scarce, public education was not free, regular meals were not guaranteed. It was not hard for them to imagine how circumstances had gone from bad to worse in an instant; they had been made witnesses to the realities of life for children in Haiti through membership in the Holy Childhood Association.

Your children are invited to use their imagination as members of the Holy Childhood Association as well. They’ll travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem …to the ends of the earth.

To view these HCA members in their beautiful Epiphany pageant, click here.

The Work Continues - Haiti

A few weeks ago we featured the story of Fr. Lavaud Christophe, a newly ordained priest in Les Cayes, Haiti. Through donations of sacred vessels and vestments to our Propagation of the Faith office, Fr. Christophe was able to start his ministry with altar supplies that he would never have been able to afford. The earthquake hit Haiti just a few days after the story was published.

Last Friday we received news that Fr. Christophe has survived the devastation as did most of his parishioners; the meager parish buildings and most of the local housing described in the story were destroyed. Father tells us, “The poorest of the poor have nothing and they do not expect to get anything soon for they are so far in the remote mountain area of Haiti. God only knows.”

Regardless of the destruction, Fr. Christophe’s work goes on – Mass is being celebrated, babies baptized; the sacramental life of the Church remains.

Father’s story is just one of many we are hearing of the comfort being brought to local communities in Haiti by missionaries in whatever way they can.

Fr. Pepe Rodrigues Silverio, a Claretian missionary told Fides News Agency of carrying out “silent, sacrificial and effective work” as a driver. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Fr. Pepe has put his familiarity with the local roads to good use, transporting doctors and nurses and their equipment across the often blocked and crowded roads from his home country to Port-au-Prince. Driving for hours non-stop, Fr. Pepe refers to himself as a “humanitarian aid taxi driver”.

And so the work continues. Go to our main website (www.propfaithboston.org) for more updates from missionaries in Haiti. And please, keep the people of Haiti in your hearts and prayers.
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The following have been enrolled as Perpetual Members of the Propagation of the Faith:
Barbara Rozyskie, Arthur Lionberger, Rev. Raymond J. Stegmann, Floyd Patterson, Michael Ford, Rev. Gerald D. Perno, Charles Skinner, Rose Di Giacomo, Mario Fainhas, John Fulton Lewis, Rev. Robert Drinan, Damien Nash, Paul Gallo, William Shannon, Judith & John Gregorian, John & Helen Tolczyk, Arthur & Phoebe Gregorian, John & Mary Boyle, John W. Sullivan, Diana C. & Daniel C. Montoya-Fontalvo, Luis Montoya, Miryam I. Fontalvo-Montoya, Isabel &Victor H. Fontalvo, Don, Paula, Sean, Marie, Kathleen & Alex Morgan, Joseph Jordan, Philip J. Matyi, Esther Annastacia & Dante R. Diercole

For more information on how to enroll yourself or your loved ones as Perpetual Members in the Society, please call 617-542-1776 or email: info@propfaithboston.org

A Heart for Haiti, Part Two

When I left for my first mission trip, I heard people refer to it as an “immersion” experience. I didn’t realize how accurate that word was until I landed at the single runway airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and was driven directly into Cite Soleil, the largest slum in the Western Hemisphere. I was thrown into the mix of natural beauty and abject poverty of the island country; the palm trees and the tropical heat surrounded garbage filled streets that were shared by stray animals, children playing and women selling mud pancakes as a “dietary supplement”. They were literally eating dirt mixed with a little oil and salt to fill their bellies.

The Missionaries of Charity Sister’s Nutrition Center was an oasis of calm – a welcome relief for someone in culture shock! Although I gave a piece of myself to many of the children that I met there, one stands out because at first, I tried to avoid him.

He had TB and was malnourished; his skin was flaking off leaving pieces of himself on whoever held him. There were open sores around his mouth and eyes; something had taken a bite out of his right ear. I busied myself with other children trying to avoid the sad sight. But God kept calling me back. “Be my missionary,” I heard Him say. “Show this child who I am.”

Finally, I reached out my hands. He immediately lifted his arms to be picked up unlike many of the other children who were so lethargic. He wrapped his arms around my neck, snuggled into me and fell asleep. His heartbeat and deep breathing were a relaxing rhythm and I swayed back and forth, as any mother would.

I came to realize this baby symbolized all of Cite Soleil to me. On the outside, he looked ugly, even gruesome. I wanted to look away. But as I released my fears to God, I found that on the inside was all the sweetness and love that one would expect to find in one of His creations.

So it is with Haiti. By looking past the existing poverty and newly wrought devastation, we find our brothers and sisters in need of someone to show them who God really is: love.

To learn more about how to have a Heart for Haiti and donate to the Pontifical Mission Societies long-term Haitian Solidarity Fund for the recovery of the Church after the intial relief effort, go to http://www.propfaithboston.org/Boston/propfaith.html .

A Heart for Haiti

Regular readers know that I often make references to Haiti. Whether it is as part of a Holy Childhood presentation in a school or parish, highlighting a missionary’s work there or thanking the people of Boston for gifts that have made their way to that beautiful island, Haiti never leaves my radar screen. This is because my very first trip for the Pontifical Mission Societies was to Haiti. My heart never came home.

During that trip, Haiti was much as it was on the day before the earthquake: profoundly poor and struggling. It had a low literacy rate (about 52%) and an even lower per capita income: more than half of Haitians lived on less than $1 a day.

Some people would call a place like that hopeless. The missionaries I met and worked with called it fertile ground.

My host during that life changing time was Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS. His house, now destroyed, was our base as we saw schools, orphanages, clinics and feeding programs. My experiences there were profound. I bandaged and helped stitch up patients in a “Wound Care Clinic” for the homeless of the capital city – really nothing more than a stoop in an alley where people knew they could get some form of medical care. Other than kissing my children’s scraped knees, I had no training. In that dirty alley, I received more than I could ever give: the opportunity to serve Jesus in my brothers and sisters.

In an orphanage, I fed and cleaned babies who died long before any earthquake could claim them, victims of HIV/AIDS, TB or simple, but no less deadly, malnutrition. After a long day of moving from crib to crib in an endless routine of porridge and rags used as diapers, I asked one of the Sisters, “How do you do this every day?” Her beatific smile came quickly with the simple truth: “Only by the grace of God, my dear!”

I praise God that Fr. Tom survived; he already has a plan to begin the recovery process. But he and missionaries like him will need our help long after the earthquake has dropped off the front pages. For that reason, the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA has established a long term Haitian Solidarity Fund.

Visit Haiti online at our website: http://www.propfaithboston.org/Boston/propfaith.html

and please, leave your heart there.

-Maureen Crowley Heil

Wanted for Adoption: YOU!

Our ONE FAMILY IN MISSION
is looking to adopt someone:
YOU!

While out preaching around the Archdiocese to bring the Mission Message to our parishes, we’re very frank: we need your help. The Propagation of the Faith, the Holy Father’s Mission Society, cannot do the work the Pope asks of us without the assistance of all baptized Catholics.

Your help can come to us in many different ways. The first is obvious and one that’s necessary: material support. The churches, schools and clinics that are built and the people of God trained to staff those facilities so that the Gospel can be proclaimed are not without a price. We know you understand that – the people of the Archdiocese of Boston have been very generous over the years in the pews, through our mail appeals, in the purchasing of our Mass Cards and Spiritual Enrollments, and by leaving us a legacy in their will. We thank you for your continued support.

What we find ourselves in need of at this moment is something that money can’t buy – you.

Can you help us with:

· Counting inventory from our closed store
· Data entry
· Answering phones
· Filling parish orders for Spiritual Enrollments and Mass Cards
· General office work
· “Day-of” help for special events

The missions need each of us to give not only of our treasure, but our time and talent as well. We would happily accept any contribution to our Mission Family that you could make. Are you available once a week? Once a month? Quarterly? You would be a welcome addition to our home at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center at 66 Brooks Drive in Braintree, MA.

For more information on how you could help to make a real difference in the lives of those who live in mission dioceses around the world through volunteering for the Propagation of the Faith, go to our website at http://www.propfaithboston.org/. Watch the 5-minute video on the front page of who we are and why we see ourselves as a Faith Family. Then contact us by calling 617-542-1776 or email us at info@propfaithboston.org.

We look forward to you joining our One Family in Mission on a regular basis!