Maryknoll Sisters

Almost one hundred years ago, January 6, 1912 to be exact, three young women traveled from New York City by train to Hawthorne, NY, where they were met by Fr. James Anthony Walsh, one of Maryknoll’s founders, who dubbed them “the three wise women.” They had come to assist the fledgling mission movement that would become Maryknoll.

“We were strangers to each other and differed in age, training and disposition,” wrote one of them. “but we had been brought together and were henceforth to be united by the common desire of serving the cause of the foreign missions.”

This desire to serve the cause of mission is, I believe, the strongest link of continuity between the past, present and future. Women from many lands continue to make the journey to Maryknoll in order to become missioners: in the words of our Constitutions, they come “to participate in the mission presence and activity of the universal Church so that God’s Reign of peace, justice and love may be proclaimed and witnessed to throughout the world.” In other words, to be those reflections of God’s love in the world.

The willingness to leave home and country and cross borders of every kind continues to distinguish us. Today we are nearly 500 women from 22 different nations working on five continents. Just last month we assigned four of our newest members to mission: two young women from the Philippines will be going to Bolivia, and two others will be sent to Brazil – one from East Timor and one from Korea. I believe that the call to universal mission will continue to be at the heart of who we are.

The international background and origins of our newest members, however, represents a change in the face of mission. Our multicultural identity offers a rich mosaic of a globalized planet where national borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant. (As I traveled to Chicago from New York yesterday, this struck me as I heard announcements in Mandarin in the Detroit airport and saw that all the signs at LaGuardia Airport are written in Spanish as well as English.) This is a sign of the new world in which we live. The diversity of our members reflects this reality and is a clear witness to the fact that we are “planetary citizens” and that the Gospel is for all people of all times.

Few of our members under the age of sixty come from North America. Women from Tanzania are working in Brazil, Bolivia, Kenya and the United States. Koreans are working in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Guatemala and Bolivia. Women from the Philippines are in East Timor, China, Japan, Tanzania and the United States and so on. This reality changes both the way we do mission and the way we are perceived.

There’s also the example of Maryknoll’s response to Asian immigrants in the United States at the time of the Second World War when  Maryknoll priests, Brothers and Sisters joined the thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry who were interned in camps in the American West and ministered to them there. I spoke recently to several of our Japanese Sisters who were interned in these camps with their families. Each said how much it meant to them that Maryknoll did not abandon them. Like the Sudanese priest who was influenced by the witness of a Maryknoll Sister, they told me that this solidarity influenced them to join Maryknoll.

Solidarity with those suffering injustice would become a hallmark of Maryknoll over the years but with the Second Vatican Council our response began to change. We realized that we needed not only to minister to the poor, homeless and hungry but to ask the question WHY. Why are so many forced to live in utter squalor while a few enjoy the wealth of a nation? This led us to analyze the root causes of problems and to take action for justice; to advocate with and for the victims against the policies, structures and systems that oppress them.

I believe that action for justice will always be high on our list of priorities and that this action will be carried out together with people of all faiths and with none. Complex, global issues will require a global response. And yes, we will aspire to be prophets and mystics; to be contemplatives in action in keeping with our Dominican heritage. Our official title is Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic – so we belong to two families – the Dominican family and the Maryknoll family.

Let me end my reflections by looking at our identity as women religious in these challenging times in both church and society. I can do no better than to quote theologian Sandra Schneiders in her latest book: Prophets in Their Own Country: Women Religious Bearing Witness to the Gospel in a Troubled Church (published by Maryknoll’s Orbis Books).

Schneiders describes religious life today as a “prophetic life form in the Church” and calls religious “the greatest source of hope for the contemporary Church.” She helps us to see that our life will continue to undergo change as it adapts to the needs of each age.

We will never again be a large labor force, maintaining Catholic institutions, either here or abroad. Rather we will be like the lamp put on a stand that sheds its light into the darkest corners of society; like the salt that adds flavor to the ordinary actions of daily life; like the widow’s mite that is small but significant because it is a total giving of self. We will be that reflection of God’s love that Mother Mary Joseph said defines or characterizes our mission spirit.

I end with an invitation to each of us; an invitation full of trust in God and hope in the future that is yet unknown but in the process of being formed. The invitation comes again from our founder, Mary Josephine Rogers. Speaking to 17-year-old Margaret Shea, who came to see her as she debated about what she should do with her life. Mary Josephine, or Mollie, smiled and simply said: “Let’s just go together and see what God has in store for us.”

 – Sister Janice McLaughlin

It is an honor and joy to welcome all the affiliates who are with us today. Let me congratulate you on your 20th anniversary in the name of all Maryknoll Sisters. As we look towards the future, I can confidently say that you ARE the future! We are proud and happy to have been your founding mothers and we promise you that we will remain your lifelong partners.

June 24th, the feast of John the Baptist, has special meaning for me since it’s the anniversary of my first vows in 1964. This feast takes on added meaning today as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Maryknoll Affiliate Movement.

John the Baptist is an appropriate role model for the affiliates – indeed, for all missionaries. John was a messenger, proclaiming a new moment in history, a new hope for the world. He called for radical transformation as a precondition for an encounter with Jesus and used the symbol of water in baptism to signify the demands of a new life in Christ. With his coming, the world would never be the same.

As the newest members of the Maryknoll family, affiliates, like John, are also messengers, proclaiming the values of the Gospel that contrast sharply with the values of the world in which we live. You also, with the witness of your lives, call for radical transformation, a new way of seeing that clashes with what we see and are told in our mass media and in our success-driven societies.

Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has a wonderful way of expressing what this new vision means. “How would it be to turn with God’s loving gaze and see those we name as enemies?”, he asks. “How would we treat them?…. The pimps, prostitutes, and prisoners, the drug-dealers and the deranged, the illegal immigrants, the terrorists, the race baiters, the homophobes and haters – all are held in God’s loving gaze….” Tutu concludes: “With God’s eyes we see our enemies as they are – a bundle of incomprehensible hurts and hatreds, anger sheathed in human form. And we see them as they truly are – people made in God’s own image, with hopes, loves, laughter, blood and tears like ours….” (Desmond Tutu, Made For Goodness, Rider, Johannesburg, 2010, p. 199.)

What a radical message! Like John’s, it calls for transformation, for a new way of seeing. The readings that you have chosen today are all about seeing.

The Gospel story of the two travelers on the road to Emmaus is a powerful example of what this kind of seeing means and what happens when our eyes are opened to God’s presence in our lives and in our world.

The story of this encounter with Jesus is sometimes called “The Gospel of the U-Turn.” We know the story and just heard it read to refresh our memories. The two travelers, perhaps a husband and wife, recount the shocking news of the death of Jesus to a stranger, who has joined them on the road. They are obviously disappointed, confused and discouraged. Their hopes have been dashed.

But this is not the end of the story. When they break bread together on arriving home, we are told that “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…” With this new awareness, they now turn around and go back to Jerusalem, at night, seven miles without any rest. They want to share their experience with the other followers of Jesus. They have become messengers of the Good News – missionaries.

In a reflection on this reading, Sr. Gilmary Beagle IHM writes: “Each of us can probably recall Emmaus moments in our lives – times when Jesus, recognized or not, came to us to share our journey, to remove our confusion or lack of understanding, to share a Eucharistic experience with us. Did we, in turn, share our heightened awareness of Jesus in our lives with others?” (Gilmary Beagle, IHM, God is Listening, Daily Reflections for Lent and Easter, IHM Sisters, Scranton, PA, 2011.)

This is a good question for us as we reflect on our Maryknoll history during these two centennial years, on 20 years of the affiliate history and the 35 years of our lay missioner’s history. We know that our founders also met disappointment and discouragement on the road they traveled. They set out on a journey that was new and risky. The road ahead was full of unknowns. Mary Josephine Rogers, James Anthony Walsh and Thomas Frederick Price started out with little but a shared dream of spreading the Good News of God’s kingdom of peace, justice and love to the whole world. It was a new undertaking in the U.S. Church and they had to convince others that it was do-able. And then they had to raise the funds, recruit the members, find a site for the headquarters, spread the message and determine where and how to assign their members. Imagine what a huge task this was and they were few – only a handful at the beginning.

There were many setbacks along the way. It took eight years and three tries before the Maryknoll Sisters received the approval from Rome for their undertaking. Fr. Price died in China in September 1919, only eight years after the founding of Maryknoll and a year after arriving in China. Imagine what a setback that was! And there were many more.

In the history of your own movement, I’m certain that there were setbacks, detours and wrong turns as well. Perhaps your founders and pioneers, most of whom are with us today, can help fill in the blanks of your history. During these anniversaries, it’s important that we recall not only our successes and achievements, impressive as they are, but that we also acknowledge the problems, hardships and different points of view that were present. We need to see our own history rightly in order to act authentically.

The four pillars of your movement are a means of opening your eyes to see rightly. Community, spirituality, global vision and action help you to filter out the false and misleading visions that are held out by the world. When you join with others in prayer and action, you will bring change and you will be changed. This is the gift of our missionary vocation.

The Emmaus story and the Maryknoll story teach us the need to persevere in our journey, even if there are difficulties along the way; to make that U-turn to share the Good News with others even when we are tired, discouraged and ready to give up. At the end of the road, our eyes will be opened to see that we were not alone. God was with us all the time.

As we walk into the future together, let us trust in the vision of our founders, be willing to take risks, and have the courage to challenge the values of the world. As Bishop Tutu reminds us, with his characteristic message of hope: “With God’s eyes we can see ourselves as we are, with all of our pride, every lack, all our limitations, and each prejudice. And we can see ourselves as we truly are – not sinners in need of saving but saints in need of seeing.” With this vision, we can change the world!

— Sister Janice McLaughlin, MM