ON MISSION PATHS
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The Month of May and Missions |
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Thursday, 20 May 2010 09:53 |
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Fr. Joseph V. McCabe, M.M.
I recently had the opportunity of presiding over a First Communion liturgy here in parish where I reside in the diocese, and reflecting on that joyous day, I thought of the many First Communion services I witnessed in various mission lands over the years, and some of the differences as well as some of the common elements.
Here on Long Island, the young boys and girls come to church accompanied by parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends. They all wear magnificent new outfits: the girls dressed in flowing white gowns and veils, the boys in brand new suits, ties and with a white bow on their right arm. After the Mass, the children and parents jostle for space among the flowers in the parish garden for photos as individuals and as a group to mark the day. Then they pile into cars and go off for a small feast at home or in a restaurant nearby.
 In my first parish in the missions things were a bit different. We had rather small First Communion groups of school children each year, perhaps as many as 50 but never more than that, and even though the month of May was still part of the season of “long rains,” nonetheless the weather did not interfere too much with the celebrations. As here on Long Island, our school children in Tanzania had a lengthy catechetical preparation that included memorizing prayers and the different parts of the Mass, learning hymns, and lessons from the Bible and from the Lives of Saints. A few months before their First Communion, they would begin attending special religious education classes at the parish on Saturdays and Sundays, getting them used to being around the parish and in the parish church. Those from outstation areas had an almost identical program run by their village catechists.
On the weekend of First Communions, the women in the parish would spend extra time scrubbing down the church, and preparing it for this special day. The children would gather wild flowers and flowering branches from trees and bring them to the parish hall, where the women’s group would begin making intricate arrangements and special arches tying the wild flowers and branches together to brighten up the sanctuary space.
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Reflections on the Journeys & Experiences of One Missionary |
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Friday, 23 April 2010 09:44 |
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Fr. Joseph V. McCabe, M.M.
Dear Friends in Mission!
 In this post-Easter season, the Pontifical Mission Societies and Mission Office of the Diocese of Rockville Centre is happy to open a new chapter in our missionary outreach with all of you – the priests, Religious, deacons, lay ministers and faithful of the diocese, and anyone who happens to open our webpage here in the Diocese. This outreach will take a few forms whose aim is to exchange information about the mission world, inform you about current events, offer an historical and cultural perspective about the people missionaries are privileged to live among and serve, and above all, to let the people whose lives touch as us to speak to YOU.
In the footsteps of the Great Missionary Apostle, St. Paul, all missionaries journey along paths – paths that take us to the very ends of the earth. We set out on our journeys following in the footsteps of St. Paul, obedient to the call of the Master, to “Go … and make disciples of all nations…” (Mt. 28:18) This is the Missionary Mandate, and this is what inspires each of us as we leave our families, friends and homeland and travel over often remote and difficult paths preaching the GOOD NEWS.
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Our Lives are Temporary, Mobile, and very Flexible!! |
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Thursday, 22 April 2010 10:42 |
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Fr. Joseph V. McCabe, M.M.
"We all learn as missioners the great missionary dictum of Bishop Walsh, who ordained me. He taught us,
“A missioner goes where he is needed but not wanted; and
stays until he is wanted but no longer needed.” |
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Something About the Author |
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Monday, 19 April 2010 10:37 |
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Fr. Joseph V. McCabe, M.M.
As some may know, I am a native of Long Island and of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Born in Queens, raised in Nassau County, and receiving my high school education in Brooklyn, my formational background has been affected by my roots here on Long Island.
I entered the seminary immediately after graduating from high school, and began my training for the missionary priesthood in the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers at the age of 17 (which was not such an early age in those days!). My training took me to Chicago for college, Boston for my novitiate, and eventually to Westchester Co in NY for my major seminary formation. Along the way, my formation took me to the poorer sections of Chicago and working in public wards in Cook County Hospital, learning clinical psychology in Boston City Hospital, to a summer among Native Americans and migrant farmers in Blackfoot, Idaho, and eventually leading me to my formal overseas training in Tanzania, East Africa.
After two years working in a parish in Tanzania, I was returned to the U.S., and was humbled to be ordained to the diaconate by my pastor in St. Joseph’s Parish, Garden City, the late Bishop Vincent J. Baldwin. This ordination, coinciding with the parish’s 75’s anniversary of establishment, tied together my roots with my vocational journey. I look back even today on the tremendous influence of the many priests and Sisters who served in my home parish over the years and whose encouragement, advice, and prayers accompanied me on my missionary journey. I think I can speak for each of the native missioners of Rockville Centre Diocese acknowledging the tremendous and essential role our parish priests and Religious in the schools played in our vocational development.
Following my ordination in Maryknoll in May of 1977 by the great Bishop of Maryknoll in China, Bishop James E. Walsh, M.M., I was assigned to Tanzania, and spent the next 13 years ministering there.
In 1990, in the aftermath of the pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II to Tanzania, I was transferred to Rome, and spent the next decade serving in the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Vatican), serving under one of the greatest mentors any missioner could have, Cardinal Jozef Tomko of Slovakia. Over these ten years, I often accompanied the Cardinal on his own great missionary journeys throughout the world, and had the joy of not only seeing new places and meeting new peoples, but I also occasionally met another missioner from Rockville Centre!
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