IMAGE: CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz
By Beth Griffin
MARYKNOLL,
N.Y. (CNS) — One hundred years after receiving Vatican approval to begin
missionary work in China, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers recalled the
“original inspiration and holy stubbornness” of the society’s founders during a
celebratory centennial Mass April 2 in Maryknoll.
Father Raymond J. Finch, Maryknoll
superior general, was the main celebrant of the Mass at
the Queen of Apostles Chapel at the Maryknoll Society Center.
Flags
of many of the 47 countries where Maryknoll missioners have served were
attached to pillars in the chapel as a reminder of the organization’s efforts
to evangelize and strengthen the local church in Asia, Africa and Latin
America.
Maryknoll,
properly known as the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, was
established in 1911 by the bishops of the United States to recruit, train, send
and support American missioners overseas.
Father
Finch recounted the “epic journey to Asia” made by Bishop (then-Father) James E.
Walsh. At the time, mission territories were assigned by the Vatican
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Bishop Walsh had to negotiate
with other mission groups to cede areas of responsibility to Maryknoll before
seeking Vatican approval. The process took seven years and was concluded in
April 1918.
Father
Finch said it is “difficult to fully comprehend the patience, confidence and
stubbornness needed by the first Maryknollers. The temptation is to pass over
the obstacles and challenges and even to make light of incredible difficulties
they faced.”
He
said they dreamed of enabling the U.S. church to participate in the universal
mission of the Catholic Church “to bring the good news to the farthest reaches
of our world.” They pursued that dream in the face of many challenges and
difficulties” including internal disagreements and political, economic, social
and ecclesial issues, he said.
Maryknoll
was established when the church in the United States was expanding to serve the
new waves of poor Catholic immigrants, Father Finch said.
The
first Maryknollers were convinced, as Bishop Walsh often reminded his fellow
prelates, that the only way the Catholic Church at home would meet its own
needs for priests and religious was by being generous in sending them in
mission to places they were needed even more, he said.
The
world, the church and mission have changed over the last hundred years, Father
Finch said.
“Mission
is not just from the ‘Catholic’ world to the ‘pagan’ world,” from the West to
the East, and from the North to the South, he said.
“Today,
mission is from everywhere to everywhere,” and the Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples no longer assigns territories for mission, he said.
Mission is the basic vocation of every Christian, “yet as much as mission has
changed, the essentials remain the same.”
It
is still true that mission is about sharing the faith and the good news and
about looking beyond ourselves and our very real needs to respond to the needs
of others from the person next to us to the person on the other side of the
world, Father Finch said.
Contemporary
Maryknoll missioners work in 20 countries. The prayers of the faithful at the
Mass to celebrate the centennial of the first mission “sending” were offered in
Chinese, Swahili, Tagalog, Spanish, Korean and English to reflect the diversity
of “the field afar.”
The
offertory gifts were selected from the Maryknoll archive and included rosaries,
missals and Bibles that belonged to missioners who served in Asia, Africa,
Latin America and the United States.
The
Maryknoll Choir sang parts of the “Missa ad Gentes” (“Mass to the Peoples”)
composed by Father Jan Michael Joncas for Maryknoll’s 2011 centennial.
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