Living Water

By Sr. Mae Janet MacDonell, OLM
Summer 2000

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On March 21, 1999, Our Lady’s Missionaries in Brazil began their Jubilee celebrations with a great festa (party). This brought together friends and companions of our missionary journey covering all of the 35 years of our presence in the Archdiocese of Fortaleza.

While meditating on the Gospel (John 4:7-15) at this Jubilee Mass, an immense sense of gratitude was expressed as we celebrated the sharing of this “living water.” We remembered the wells of faith from which we had drunk mutually. Solidarity, companionship, resistance, fidelity to the struggle for justice, a common commitment for the right of all to celebrate life’s rejoicing in the living presence of Jesus in our midst, all of this was remembered and consecrated at this festa. It was not an Our Lady’s Missionaries Jubilee only, but one of all who gathered there. “A festa e nossa,” (this party is ours) was sung, danced and rejoiced in throughout the day.

During this year of celebrations, our unforgettable journey back through time in Canada, and several others here in Brazil, the theme of gratitude was a common thread.

Sr. Mary Hughes

Sr. Mary Hughes ministers to those afflicted with AIDS, both at St. Joseph’s Hospital and in their homes in Fortaleza. She recalls the day when her missionary journey began, “on a cold, windy evening on the platform of the train station in Alexandria,” where she first met our founder, Fr. Dan Macdonald. Although frail and aging, his fiery enthusiasm for the mission to which he received her, confirmed her childhood dream of becoming a missionary (as were the Scarboro missionaries who had visited her school).

Now, as she shares her gifts with her suffering people, poor in health and material goods, but rich in their belief in a God who sustains them, she is deeply grateful.

Sr. Pauline Doherty

It was at another Jubilee party later on in the year, in the community of Araticum in Palmacia parish, that Sr. Pauline Doherty recalls some of the richest years of her long missionary life in Brazil. It was a festa of the mountain people, enhanced by the beauty of the countryside, where old friends greeted and shared stories, food and tears. The years of mission were remembered as well as the sense of new life that was created there.

All this was consecrated in an outdoor Mass of great liturgical creativity. In the more difficult times of the present, they recalled ‘the good times’ when the Sisters lived in their parish, especially Pauline’s longer stay with them and her warm, practical contribution to their community life.

Today Pauline shares the vitality of these mountain people with all who come to her door in the Bella Vista bairro (neighbourhood) in Fortaleza.

Sr. Lalang Nunez

As a missionary still relatively new to Brazilian culture, Sr. Lalang (Lorie) Nunez says:

“I am so grateful for an experience that became a landmark in the meaning of Jubilee for me this year.

On October 4, 1999, I joined the caravan that travelled from Fortaleza to Brasilia to welcome over 1,000 landless farmers. They had made a 72-day march (1,600 kilometres) to mark an historic manifestation of resistance of the Brazilian people to the ever-increasing exclusion of a great part of the citizenry. Over 100,000 signatures, gathered in preparation for the march, were presented to representatives of the World Bank and the Brazilian government.

This struggle for liberation reminded me of the years when I participated in the human rights struggles in my own country, the Philippines. In the base Christian communities where I work in Riacho Doce and Pici, I hope to express and deepen this commitment to human rights in the form of dance, theater and reflection.”

Sr. Lucia Lee

The dimensions of the living waters of faith shared in the cross-cultural sense of mission was shared with all of us by Sr. Lucy Lee as we celebrated the Year of the Dragon on February 5, 2000. Among the friends who participated in this festa, little was known of the richness of Chinese culture. In a video, filmed by Lucy and her brother Joseph in her first trip back to China last summer, a great awareness was made of the unity and diversity among God’s people. The typical Chinese dishes (nine courses), prepared by Lucy with the help of the rest of us, confirmed the creativity special to the Year of the Dragon.

It is this creativity that Lucy shares with people in her pastoral work in various hospitals of Fortaleza. There she teaches artesan works, using recycled materials only, and encouraging the participants to create for themselves new ideas as well as new hope in life.

Sr. Mona Kelly

“For me,” says Sr. Mona Kelly, “the last 50 years have been filled with wonderful people who have taught me the joy of little things. Some of the most treasured gifts of my mission life has been watching kids flying kites, playing marbles, embellishing stories beyond all recognition, hoping in impossible situations, and hoping in a God who is always there for them even in the midst of great sadness.

I rejoiced looking back on this Jubilee year—the community celebrations in Canada and Brazil; my high school graduation class reunion in St. John, New Brunswick; a family reunion, held in May, to celebrate all the Christmases I had missed; and then an invitation to visit Nigeria to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of a hospital Our Lady’s Missionaries had opened there. It is hard to believe that I merited all this, more than the hundredfold, all in one year! And so I am very grateful. My world is rich with so many insights and blessings and still a sadness frustrates me at the greed and struggle for power of those who fail to recognize our bonds as a world family.”

As our Jubilee year drew to a close, we were grateful for the fruitfulness of these long years of service in the Archdiocese of Fortaleza and the richness of so many shared experiences in the building up of the Reign of God.

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