As I told you when it happened, a little over a year ago I was elected Assistant Provincial for the Servite Friars in the United States Province. Since there are not a whole lot of us anymore in the United States, this is a very part-time job (and, so I kept my day job at Assumption). But we do have Servite friars attached to this province who are ministering overseas; and, thus, my side job involves a foreign trip every year. Last fall the Provincial, Fr. Smith, and I spent two weeks in Australia, visiting the communities and participating in their annual meeting. The Servites in Australia minister in three parishes, one hospital, and one high school, all in western Australia in the Perth area. This year I head east. From July 22 to August 7, I will be in South Africa, in Kwa-Zulu Natal, where our friars also serve.

Three Servite Friars from the United States arrived in what was then known as Zululand in 1949. This is the area in the far northeast corner of South Africa, near Mozambique. The friars were not only going to the other side of the world, but they mostly had to discover what they were getting into after they got there. That was life in the pre-internet days! It was a very poor land, subject to drought; there was little education; and one doctor for every 40,000 people. It was a land of many different religions, some with dangerous and life-threatening practices. But the Servites did what they could. They reached remote areas on land rovers. They learned how to pull teeth and deliver babies. Their language skills improved. They started schools and taught catechism, and they prayed a lot. And little by little other friars from the United States and Ireland joined them. Within a decade or so, the Catholic Church was established among the Zulu people. In more recent years, the people of South Africa has faced other challenges. The rigid apartheid laws e finally collapsed in the early nineties and everyone was free to vote. Then the AIDS pandemic took a tremendous toll on South Africa, creating lots of orphans. South Africa is still young nation, still finding its way economically and politically. High unemployment has led to a very high crime rate. One of our friars was killed in a carjacking incident.

I previously served as Assistant Provincial from 1994 to 1999. During that time, I was privileged to visit South Africa twice. Since then, there has bene an almost complete turnover of Servite personnel. In the 1990’s the Servites we visited were almost exclusively senior missionaries who had served there for decades. Now, only two members of the “old guard” remain and they are mostly retired. The ministry is now being done by African friars. What had been a missionary effort is now truly a local church. While Servites once provided all the Catholic ministry in the area, there are now diocesan priests who minister in the region. That creates a healthy challenge for the Servites to develop a new understanding of their role in the diocese. How does the presence of a religious community enrich the local church?  

This past weekend, we had our annual mission appeal. Fr. Michael Ogweno, C.P., who delivered the appeal, presently ministers in Botswana, a land-locked country just north of the Republic of South Africa. He spoke about the financial and ministerial challenges he faces on a daily basis. I have always believed that the value of the mission appeal goes well beyond the generating of funds. It is an opportunity to remember in very concrete terms that we are part of the Catholic Church, a word that means “universal.”  We are part of one large family, comprising many languages and customs and traditions that impact our worship and our experience of church. Yet we are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Our church lives under many different forms of government—sometimes as a tiny minority. We share the hopes and dreams, the agonies and the hardships of our sisters and brothers in the faith all around the world. Charity may begin at home, but it should never end there. Part of being a “good Catholic” is not losing that global perspective, not becoming too insular in our thinking. Part of being a “good Catholic” is embracing our own call to take part in the mission of the Church as it exists all around the world.. So, I believe that visiting South Africa once again will be good for me. It will refresh my understanding of being a good Catholic.

                                                Fr. Joe