New Needs, New Means: OMI Lacombe Canada Responds
Oblates and Associates are responding across the country, creating new means to meet new needs of the time. Here are a few stories about what’s taking place across the Province. Throughout these weeks, we hope our sharing helps us to maintain connection, bridge the distances, and inspire us. We are in this together with the Spirit to guide the way.
This week we have stories from Saskatchewan District and the Kenya Mission.
To submit your stories, please email Fr. Richard Beaudette at vicar1@omilacombe.ca
Saskatchewan District – Associates Christine and Brad Taylor
‘Leave nothing undared for the kingdom,’ could serve as the hashtag for the Taylors. Found at the end of every email and letter Christine Taylor sends, it captures in a sentence both Chris and Brad Taylor’s commitment to the mission of Eugene de Mazenod and the Oblate charism. Both are long-time Saskatchewan Associates, now residing in Prince Albert, SK. and Chris’s mission work is carried out as the Director of Evangelization and Catechesis for the diocese. Brad’s ministry is prison chaplaincy: he serves as one of the site based chaplains at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, a multilevel federal prison. The Covid pandemic has meant that each of them has had to find new ways to carry out their ministry.
For Chris, it has meant finding creative ways to continue catechesis, especially sacramental preparation for children. She found that many of the publishing companies responded to the Covid situation by developing new resource materials and Chris has put them to good use. Online, she has been able to help not only the catechists around the diocese but also families. She has made new connections with parents, dialoguing with them as they take an even more active role in preparing their children. This parental involvement could be, she realizes, a major long-term benefit arising from the shut-down.
A second, unexpected benefit has been more personal. Less in-person office time has allowed her to focus more intensely on her thesis for a Doctorate in Ministry from St. Michael’s College, Toronto. The thesis has now been competed and submitted and Chris is waiting word on when the defense might be. It, too, reflects her missionary focus, proposing a new methodology for sacramental preparation for children. The aim, Chris explains, is to evangelize the whole family, bringing each member to encounter Christ intentionally.
For Brad, it has been a trying time with his ministry being suspended. With over seven hundred inmates at the prison, the potential for virus spread is high and the federal government moved quickly to protect the prison populations. As early as March 18, all ‘non-essential’ workers were laid off and Brad, along with all the chaplains and elders, was unable to enter. The situation remains the same today, although more recently, Brad was hired back to do part-time ministry. It’s thirty hours a month and consists mostly of phone ministry with inmates but also includes research and meetings about a return to the prisons might be possible.
Brad’s primary concern in all this is the inmates. “There is no spiritual care available,” he notes, “and this is at a time when they need it most.” With the limitations on personal visits and cessation of all volunteering, the need is greater than ever, “but we are handicapped in our ability respond.” The pain, he comments, reaches beyond the individual inmate, affecting families, friends, volunteers, and on down the line.
As a response, Brad, alongside others, is engaged in a letter-writing campaign, lobbying the federal government to allow spiritual care to take place again. Profoundly aware of the difficulties, he is still hopeful for some solutions. “The chaplains and elders are in this ministry because we care,’ he states baldly. “And it is hard.”
“Leaving nothing undared for the kingdom,” for both Brad and Chris means pouring their hearts and souls into their ministries. Their dedication is a faithful reflection of the heart of de Mazenod whose own heart for the young, for families and for prisoners is well-known. The pandemic has increased the challenges but has not stopped the mission.
Kenya Mission – Fr. Fidel Munkiele, OMI – Superior of the Kenya Mission
The Mission is generally doing well. All members are in good health. From the beginning of March 2020, due to Covid‐19, most of the activities were shut down.
Our formation programs in the postulancy and the Pre‐novitiate are going on. Our pre‐novices and postulants are busy with their community tasks and with other formation activities in the community. There are three postulants in Kisaju and four pre‐novices in Karen. The pre-novices have been doing all their university class work and exams online.
Due to the travel restrictions in place, the members of the Mission have not been able to gather or to visit, but the members stay in touch in may ways.
The Covid‐19 has affected life globally and in particular Kenya. At the beginning of the confinement, people were more affected psychologically because of fear, anxiety and insecurities raised by the virus. Now it has become more of economic damage, it seems to be an economic pandemic now. Because of poverty, people have no options than trying to find ways to survive and to the extent of ignoring that Covid‐19 exists. They fear more dying of hunger rather than dying of Corona.
The Covid‐19 has also affected our pastoral activities in our parishes and our ministry in the prison. There are no masses yet in our churches. Only funerals are allowed with minimal attendance. Very limited contacts with our parishioners for now.
At Kionyo, Fr.Constant is quite busy with church projects: construction on the main Church at Kionyo, Wathine and Irimbene.
The Mission office after considering the situation of our parishes and of our communities during this Covid‐19 crises, tried to respond with some assistance to help cover some expenses for the Oblates and for the parishes since parishes don’t get collections. Some assistance was allocated to help the needy and the most vulnerable in our parishes.
In Irinda, Fr.Daquin visited the slums. Majority of people in the slums are Muslims. There are many poor and needy families who lack the basics and the essentials for their survival. Fr.Daquin as a JPIC coordinator is working on how to assist them.
Adding my Voice: Advocacy for a Better World
Close up top view of young people putting their hands together. Friends with stack of hands showing unity.
“We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.”
~ Pope Francis
On May 25th the death – what many refer to as the murder – of George Floyd in Minneapolis resulted in outrage across the United States. Huge protest rallies continue to take place around the world.
Here, communities of people of colour were quick to point out how our country has certainly not been vaccinated against what, on June 8th, the Canadian bishops, (in echoing the US Bishops and the Vatican), called “the sin of racism.” The brutality of some law enforcement officials against Blacks and Indigenous peoples has been documented and recent incidents videoed. Lawyer Marie Heinen, writing in the Globe and Mail, contends that “the state’s weaponization of the criminal justice system for the purpose of racial marginalization has a long, well-documented history.”
The Leadership Team of OMI Lacombe Canada shows solidarity by attending the Black Lives Matter rally on Parliament Hill, on June 5th.
Many participants in non-violent street manifestations (including Prime Minister Trudeau) have “taken a knee” for 8 minutes and 45 seconds (the same time George Floyd’s neck was pinned by the knee that ultimately ended his breathing.) Catholic Christians are familiar with genuflecting when we come before sacred spaces and the presence of the Divine. How might we kneel to pray, so that our own hearts, and our imperfect societal structures, be converted?
(Photo: The leadership team of OMI Lacombe shows solidarity by attending the Black Lives Matter rally on Parliament Hill, on June 5th.)
As a first step, some religious communities are asking their members to pray over, reflect on, and adopt, the United Nations’ Personal Pledge Against Racism. It states:
As a citizen of the world community, I stand with the United Nations against racism, discrimination and intolerance of any kind. Throughout my life I will try to promote equality, justice and dignity among all people in my home, my community and everywhere in the world.
But Franciscan Friar Daniel Horan cautions that, “The emphasis on the personal dimension of racism too easily covers over its communal, structural, institutional and ecclesial nature.” Where are we challenged to grow more deeply?
Canadians need to work for systemic change so that Black lives are not discriminated against as a result of surveillance and policing. In these times of pandemic, we must demand health data that exposes where disadvantaged communities are at greater risk – to then be able to design equitable solutions. And we cannot allow the scapegoating of people of Asian descent for “causing” the spread of COVID-19.
To mark National Indigenous People’s Day this past Sunday, we can create awareness of and then advocate for full implementation of the 94 “Calls to Action” of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (which is celebrating its 5th anniversary.) As well, we can familiarize ourselves with the 231 “Calls to Justice” from the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls”, released on June 3rd one year ago.
After we “take a knee,” how then will our religious communities stand up and be counted?
Lifting Our Spirit
In these uncertain times, we need to care not only for our physical health, but for our emotional and spiritual health as well. We all need something to lift our spirits! Each week, we will be presenting you with something you might find inspirational, comforting, thoughtful or even, perhaps, amusing!
WE WELCOME YOUR COMMENTS, REACTIONS AND STORIES!
Fr. Richard Beaudette – vicar1@omilacombe.ca
Isabelle Gigault – igigault@omilacombe.ca
Lucie Leduc – director@starofthenorth.ca
Joe Gunn – jgunn@omilacombe.ca
Sandra Prather – sandramprather@gmail.com
