Maryknoll Sisters

One of the chief tasks of our time must be to build a global community in which people can live together. This task, says Sister Janice McLaughlin, is more critical than ever in the aftermath of 9/11.

It’s my great pleasure and privilege to welcome you to this interfaith prayer service in this Annunciation Chapel on the feast of the Annunciation. It’s most fitting that this service is being celebrated as an integral part of the centennial events for Maryknoll missioners. It’s fitting, I say, because Maryknoll’s mission is to cross borders – spiritual and religious as well as geographic – and to build bridges of friendship, mutual respect and understanding with the people we encounter around the world.

In fact, we the missioners are transformed by these encounters as much as those to whom we are sent. Our faith is enlarged, deepened and enriched through a mutual sharing of beliefs and religious practices – as we will be doing today.

The Shona people of Zimbabwe, with whom I’ve worked for almost 30 years, have many names for God. My favorite is Chipindikure – the One Who Turns Things Upside Down – Chipindikure. I have been turned upside down countless times by encounters with traditional healers in Zimbabwe with whom I worked in a project to protect the environment; I was transformed by participating in an ecumenical prayer group in Nairobi, Kenya (my first mission experience), which met monthly to reflect on scripture and apply its message to our daily lives.

Last year in South Sudan I was transformed as I witnessed the genuine efforts of Muslims and Christians to live and work together after almost forty years of war. There I met Fatima, a Muslim woman from the North, working at a Catholic radio station in the South. She told me that her goal is to promote unity in this deeply divided nation and heal the wounds of war. There are many like her, risking their lives to build bridges across religious and ethnic divides.

Every Maryknoll missioner – priest, Brother, lay missioner, affiliate or Sister – has similar experiences of being turned upside down by this dialog of life with people of many faiths and of none.

We are aware, however, that it was not always this way. Maryknoll was founded during an age of competition for converts. It was only with the advent of the Second Vatican Council that this changed but we know that there are still many places where competition is the norm and where outright hostility and even violence characterizes the relations between people of different faiths.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council which opened the windows of the Catholic Church to the world and to other faiths. It is the fourth anniversary of the Charter for Compassion. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. This prophetic document transcends religious, ideological and national differences. Initiated by Karen Armstrong, religious historian and author, it was created by leaders of many religious traditions in 2008. 

I bring this to our attention today because the Charter offers concrete ideas for building bridges between people of different faiths. It calls on each of us to adopt compassion as a guiding principle in our lives and to refrain from inflicting pain on others. It is based on the conviction that one of the chief tasks of our time must be to build a global community in which people and nations can live together in harmony and mutual respect. This task is more critical than ever in the aftermath of 9/11.

The Charter calls on elders to pass on to the next generation an appreciation of cultural and religious diversity.  It concludes with a call to cultivate empathy with the suffering of all human beings – even those regarded as enemies.

May this interfaith prayer service inspire each of us to put this Charter into practice in our daily lives.  May it lead to deeper understanding among us and encourage us to work together to heal a broken and divided world. Let us continue to cross borders and build bridges of mutual respect and understanding. Let us join hands and hearts to make our dream of a peaceful, caring and compassionate world come true!

 – Sister Janice McLaughlin, MM

I call your name.

What has your experience been when your name is called? For me, no matter what the tone used, hearing my name awakens me to a particular sense of being. I experience a consciousness that I can either choose to engage or deny. To call someone’s name is usually an expression of validation. It says, I know that you are here. I know that you are present to me. Hearing my name called is an experience of relationship, a connection.

Seeing one’s name is also an experience of validation. The story of Zainabu is always a heartening one for me to share because it is a deep understanding of how small things that I could take for granted means a lot to someone else. Zainabu, was a young Orma woman (a nomadic tribe in the northeast of Kenya) who was in one of the literacy classes that I taught in our village. Their tradition has it that ethnically, they are cousins to the Somalis but socially, the Orma were servants to the Somalis. After a couple of months of Zainabu struggling with recognizing, reading and writing combinations of vowels and consonants, I believed she was at a point where she’d be able to write her name. When I asked her to do this, she immediately responded with much hesitation. I reminded Zainabu how hard she’s been working on learning, and that she’ll be able to write her name.

Together, we worked on her writing the syllables of her name. When she finished, she became very quiet, just staring at what she had written. I saw her lips barely moving as she read it over and over again. Then with a face all lit up with awe and gladness, she exclaimed: “My name has a face! I’ve always heard it, but I didn’t know it has a face. So, this is how Zainabu looks like!” What a leap in consciousness and sense of freedom did Zainabu experience with this newly acquired skill!

In today’s gospel reading, Mary Magdalen recognized the risen Christ when he called her name. This is a powerful story of a relationship where the call of her name freed Mary not only from her grief and loss but she also heard the new meaning of her life: “I have seen the Lord.” This she joyfully shared with the other disciples.

How do I call others to freedom and new meaning in Life? How do I listen and witness to the risen Christ?

— Sister Rebecca G. Macugay, MM

This morning at prayers up in our Cloister Hill home, Anastasia and I were recalling with grateful hearts, the Holy Thursdays we used to celebrate at our parish of St. Mary in Bura-Tana, Kenya. The celebration would be done in the evening when the farmer parishioners would have had time to rest from the hot day of toil in the cotton fields. There was no electricity, so some parishioners would lend their gas lanterns for the evening Eucharistic celebration.

The ritual of washing of the feet was such a sacred time and the whole parish prepared for it. The parish was in a part of Kenya that is savannah. Dry, dusty and yes, water was scarce. But, on Holy Thursdays, parishioners would generously and graciously bring with them their plastic water cans filled with water that will be poured into an old oil drum placed next to the simple wooden altar. Some will bring their well used and threadbare towels or khanga (rectangular cotton cloth with colorful designs and a proverb or wise saying on one of its borders) and basins for the ritual of washing.

Everyone served and was served….adults, youth, and children. Everyone’s feet got washed. There was so much movement in that small place of worship with people filling the pitchers with water from the drum, dirty water in the basin thrown out of the window!, wet cloths and towels being collected and replaced, children being taught to do it well. And the washing of feet was caringly and mindfully done. One whose feet were washed can not be but glad and grateful. Bare feet that trudged on the dusty field and road the whole day were refreshed and given relief. What a wonderful opportunity to put into action the good news of loving cleansing that we just listened to in the Gospel!

Growing up, we called this day Maundy Thursday. Maundy from the Middle English and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”), the statement by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet (Jn 13:34).

What loving cleansing do I offer today? How am I called to share refreshment and relief to my brothers and sisters today? How can I mindfully be always of the “new commandment”?

Sister Rebecca G. Macugay, MM