"The Visitation" pamphlet

Introductory pamphlet to the Congregation. No date. Title is simply "The Visitation"

Full Title: "The Visitation" pamphlet

Catalogue number: 2021-11-30/238

Extent and Medium: Two copies of a four page, A5 pamphlet.

Detailed description: Introductory pamphlet to the Congregation. No date. Title is simply "The Visitation" AI CLEANED TEXT **Sermon preached by Father Kelly, S.J., on the occasion of the opening of the Novitiate House of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, at Collon, Co. Louth, on 11th December, 1938.** **THE MYSTERY OF THE VISITATION** "And Mary rising up in those days went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah." (St. Luke 1:39) In these words, St. Luke begins his narration of the Mystery of the Visitation, which was the first action of Mary after the overwhelming message of the angel. The first movement of grace in this new stage of life and holiness, the first movement of Christ whom she carried within her, was this long journey to her cousin, whose son, miraculously given to her in her old age, was to be so closely connected with the Saviour that Mary herself was carrying. She went with haste on her gracious message of charity. She leaves her home, the retirement she needed to enable her to understand her secret, to realize her blessing. She goes into the world, she climbs into the hill country. This first journey was symbolic. It typified the role of Our Lady in the whole history of the world. Not merely does she give Jesus Christ human nature from her most holy flesh and blood, not merely is He born of her, but she brings Him herself to the world. "Caritas Christi urget nos," St. Paul could cry. How incomparably stronger the urge and desire of Mary, driven by the infinite zeal of the unborn Saviour of the world. See the double aspect of that mystery: the gracious act of womanly charity to a friend in her trial of maternity, see the spiritual aspect, that she comes not alone but with One at whose approach the infant leaps in the prison of the womb and the mother is filled with the Holy Spirit. I have called the Medical Missionaries of Mary the latest manifestation of that spirit, and it is certainly not the least original and bold. It is the response to the appeal of the Holy Father for a new effort to meet new needs. It is a true religious congregation, whose members will have public vows, and the rights, responsibilities, and privileges of religious. Its distinctive work will be to help the missions not merely in Africa, but wherever the Church will call it in medical work. It will be oriented to that work in a very special manner, and its constitutions, rules, and way of life will be framed so as to give the fullest and freest scope for that work. In accordance with the instruction of the Holy See, it will procure the most modern equipment and training, and it will put the newest inventions of science and discovery at the service of religion and charity. **Rooted in Charity** Skilled, professional, and unwearied service—it will give. But it will give more because it will be more than a professional body. It will be a religious order. Its motto is St. Paul's "Fundati et radicati in caritate" (founded and rooted in charity). Its external activity is but the manifestation of an intense interior life—not doctors and nurses merely, but nuns. Their lives will be bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, those holy bonds that do not depress but elevate, that do not shackle but set free. They will tend sick pagans because they love them, and they will love them because God has already loved them and given His Son for them. They will spend their professional skill and care on sick, fever-wracked, diseased bodies, but they will have a tender care, a deeper solicitude for the soul that is in darkness and the shadow of death. Let me end with the gracious picture with which I began. The Visitation came after the Annunciation when Our Lady had conceived Christ within her, then she went abroad to carry Him to the world. The Medical Missionaries of Mary will have their Annunciation; they will have St. Paul's ideal: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me." Their spiritual training will fashion them to an intense interior life. And then will come their Visitation. They will go forth in haste to the hill country, they will go into the ways of the mission fields. The jungle, the lonely hut, the hospital ward will be for them the city of Judah. To those wracked with fever, to lepers, to sick children, to suffering, mothering women; they will, as trained doctors and nurses, carry healing and comfort. His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin to open a house, Rosemount, in Booterstown, where aspirants and those following medical courses in the hospitals or University might stay. And the permission given by His Eminence to open the Novitiate at Collon, which is the ceremony we celebrate today. THREE BENEFACTORS. In its short history the young Society has met with many friends, none of whom it will forget, but there are three especially whose service to it has been incalculable, and whom it is only just to mention on this occasion. His Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio who from the beginning has taken the deepest and most helpful interest in every step of the foundation and whose presence here to-day is deeply appreciated; His Grace Archbishop Riberi, Delegate Apostolic in Africa for the Missions, who approved enthusiastically of the idea, hastened the foundation and secured all the necessary permissions at Home; and Mgr. Moynagh, Vicar Apostolic of Calabar who received the Society in his vicariate, petitioned Rome for its being made a religious institute and gave it a hospital and noviceship. The Medical Missionaries of Mary will never forget these benefactors whom God raised up for them and whose services made their existence possible. OUTBURST OF APOSTOLIC ENTERPRISE. Today's ceremony is the latest manifestation of the unquenchable missionary spirit of our people. The last twenty years have witnessed an outburst of apostolic enterprise which can be paralleled only by the days of Columba and Columbanus and Gall. To all the pagan lands, to China, to Africa East and West, to India a stream of priests, brothers and nuns are going forth, but we must not forget that it is the zeal and generosity of our people at home which have made that effort possible. The spirit that made St. Paul cry out (Vae mihi si non evangelizavero—"Woe to me if I preach not the Gospel"), the spirit that made those early missionaries desire peregrinari pro Christo, to be exiles for Christ's sake, that spirit still burns clear and strong in our people through God's mercy. At a moment when the whole world is filled with war, with the preparations for war, with racial hatred and injustice, it is consoling to think that our own country dreams of extending the kingdom of Christ, and subduing [nations to] Him, whose service [is] Life and freedom and justice. Joy, see Our Lady's charity on the double plane, the natural and the supernatural, and you will understand the propriety with which the mystery of the Visitation has been chosen as the inspiration of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. NOTABLE CEREMONY. The ceremony which you have come to witness and in which you take a part is something very simple, but very unusual. The foundation of a new religious congregation is in itself not often seen, but there is another consideration that makes this ceremony still more notable. It is the first response of Ireland, if not of the Catholic world, to the new call of the Holy Father, which marks by its nature and spirit and organisation and constitutions a new departure in the history of the missions, a new adaptation of the Church to the new needs of the missionary Apostolate. The presence of this distinguished congregation shows that the significance of that event is fully understood, that all recognise that this quiet ceremony is the putting into the ground of a small seed which with God's grace will grow and develop and become a great tree and send its branches far and wide and will provide shelter and life and rest for great multitudes. With this day's event the history of the Medical Missionaries of Mary may be said to begin officially, but the foundation of the Congregation has had its history, which may be briefly sketched here. The idea came eighteen or twenty years ago to one who worked in Nigeria under Dr. Shanahan; some years of experience as nurse and teacher among the pagans led to two convictions: one, the necessity of a professional medical service; the second, that such work needed a special organisation, that the spirit of sacrifice, the devotion, the constancy could be, as a rule, expected only from those who were freed from family ties and had special spiritual helps, that is, from a religious congregation. The idea persisted for years, though it seemed but a dream. Many things happened which seemed to make it impossible, among them continued bad health. But perhaps from the delay came fuller conviction and a clearer grasp. And after eight or nine years came the first faint steps towards realising the dream, and five or six others were found who had already vaguely thought and hoped for a kind of missionary work which they had not yet seen realised. In that first group there came a sifting and winnowing until there was left finally a few who had that spirit of courage and confidence that qualified them to be pioneers in a new spiritual enterprise. Those were years of slow growth of hope and prayer when only desire and zeal were certain, and all means and ways uncertain. DEEP AND FAR-REACHING ROOTS. The decisive event of that first period, the event which really began the process towards the formation of a religious congregation, was the invitation of the Prior of the Benedictine Abbey of Glenstal given to the foundress to live close to the monastery and share as far as could be in its spiritual life. The two years spent at Glenstal were decisive; they constituted a kind of noviceship, in which the principles of the religious and spiritual life were given to the aspirants by instruction and by assistance at the Liturgical Life of the Monastery. The Medical Missionaries of Mary would wish this public record on this occasion, of their incalculable debt to the sons of St. Benedict, and it is a significant fact that this latest venture in religious life, under the most modern conditions, should go back to drink at the spring from which came the beginning of monastic life in Europe eleven hundred years ago. All new movements in the Church spring from deep and far-reaching roots. While the idea was growing in clearness in the mind of the foundress and her companions a full sense of the difficulties was also growing. Like all the things of God the growing institute was fed on disappointments and trials; it was stamped with the cross, that truest guarantee of vitality and future success. There were practical difficulties of all kinds of ways and means, of permission: but perhaps the chief difficulty, which lay across the path like a great barrier, was the fact that the Church did not in general approve of unrestricted medical work for nuns. Certain fields of medical work, especially maternity work, had traditionally been considered as not suitable for religious. With such a restriction the [new] institute could scarcely exist. There were many who said that the restriction would never be removed. The work of preparation went on in hope and prayer and suddenly the great barrier which had seemed to block all advance was lifted. In February, 1936, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda issued an instruction of immense import, which will be regarded as marking a decisive point in the history of the missions and which will be considered as one of the Great decisions of the present Holy Father. The Sacred Congregation said that its practise had always been to have the methods of apostolate conform to the varying needs of place and time, that the significance of medical work, especially for mothers and children, had been brought home to it by the reports of Bishops and Vicars Apostolic and missionaries all over the wide mission fields, and that after mature study it had decided that medical work, especially for women and children, would have better provision made for it in future. Consequently it expressed the desire for the foundation of new religious institutes of women who would dedicate themselves principally to that work, and the wish that already existing institutes might found special branches for this purpose also. It emphasised the necessity for the best and most modern professional equipment and training, it insisted that all that concerned the spiritual formation and security of such religious should be abundantly guaranteed. In itself this instruction made mission history. For the nascent institute it was decisive, it seemed like a special answer to prayer, it was an immense incentive and encouragement, the way now lay open, the Church had spoken her mind decisively and had called for an institute which corresponded exactly to the secret hope that the foundress and her companions had been cherishing for years. Difficulties of a practical order remained in abundance, but the fundamental one had been removed. Preparation could now be made with the assurance that what was aimed at was what the Church was calling for. I need not detail the different steps that led to the foundation of the society. The final step, the erection into a religious institute, was taken as was fitting on the mission field. At the end of 1936 the foundress and two companions left Dublin for Calabar in Nigeria, where a noviceship was canonically erected, in which the spiritual training was entrusted to a religious of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. Here the Medical Missionaries of Mary were erected into a religious congregation by Mgr. Moynagh, Prefect Apostolic of Calabar, and on Low Sunday the foundress pronounced her vows of religion, and became first professed sister, taking the name of Mary of the Incarnation. She had been gravely ill with fever, had been anointed and had been taken to a Protestant Hospital because there was no Catholic one available. There seems to be a peculiar propriety in the fact that the ward of a fever hospital in Africa was the scene of the first profession in the Medical Missionaries of Mary. The two chief succeeding events worthy of mention here were the permission given by. OCR ORIGINAL TEXT Sermon preachedby'YathertKely,S.J., on the occasion of the OpeningoftherNovitiate House of the Medical Mission. Ames of Mary, at Colon,Go. Louth, on iith December, 1338. THEMYSTERY OF THE YISITAMON. LAnd Mary nong up in Chose days went imto (he MiM coumiry AItA Hasteimo a qly o/Juda. L1. Luke 1,30) N these words St. Luke begins his narration of the Mystery of the Visitation, which was the Arst action of Mary alter Re the overwhelming message of the angel. The Arst mnove. ment of grace in this new stage of Mile and holincss, the Arst movement of Chrst whomn she carried within her, was this Long journey to her cousin, whose son, mniraculously given to her in her old age, was to be so cioscly connccted with the Saviour that Mary herself was carrying. She went with haste on her gracious mnessage of charty. She leavcs her home, the retirement she needed (to enable her to understand her secret. to rcalise her blessing. she goes into the word. she climbs into the hill country. This Arst journey was symabolic. 1t typikes the role of Our Lady in the whole history of the word. Not merely does she give Jesus Chrst human nature frorn her most holy Hcsh and blood, not merely is He born of her. but she brings Himn herselt to the worid. "" Caritas Christi urget nos'" St. Paul could cry. How incomnparably stronger the urge the desire of Mary driven by the infnite zeal of the unborn Saviour of the womd. See the double aspoct of that mystery. the gracious act of womnanly charity to a Iriend in her trial of maternity, see the spiritual aspect, that she comes not alone but with One at whose approach the infant Leaps in the puison of the womb and te mother is fled with 1 have called the Mcdical Missionaries of Mary the latest mnanifcstation of that spirit, it is certainly not the least original And bold. it is the rcsponse to the appeal of the Moly Father 4or a new cHort to mnect new needs. 1t is a true rcligious Congrcgation, whose members will have public vows, and the rights, responsibilitics and privileges of religious. Mts distinctive work wil be to help the missions not mercly in Africa, but wherever the Church wil cal it in mhedical work. It will be orientatcd to that work in a vey special mnanner, consbitutions, rules, way of 1ite, will be Mramned so as to give the fulest and Ircest scope tor that work. In accordance with the instruction of the Moly Sce it will procure the most modern cquipmnent and taining it will put the newest inventions of science and discovery at the serrice of religion and charity. ROOTED IN CHARITY. Skiled, professional, unwearied service, it will give but it will give more, because it will be more than a proicssional body. 1t will be a rcligious order. 1ls motto is St. Pauls Pundali ef radicalt in carilate founded and rooted in charity. Ms exteinal aclivity is but the mnanitestation of an intense interior Lle, not doctors and nurses muercly but nuns. Their Lives will be bound round by the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, those holy bands that do not dcpross but clevate that do not shackle but set irce. They will tend sick pagans because they love themn, they will love themn because God has ahcady loved themn and given Mis Son (or themn. They willspend their proicssional skill and care on sick. fever-wrackcd, diseascd bodies, but they will have a tenderer carc, a dccper solicitude for the soul that is in darkness and the shadow of death. Met me end on the gracious picture with which 1 began. The visitation came after the Annunciation. when our Hady had conceived Christ within her then she went abroad to Carry Hirn to the word. The Medical Missionares ot Mary wIMhate thcir Annunciation: they will have St. Pauls ideal" 1 Mve, now not 1, but Christ Mves in me.' Their spirtual baining will fashion themn to an intense interior Mke. And then will come their Visitation. They will go forth in haste to the hil country, they will go into the ways of the mission Helds. the Junge, the lonely hut, the hospital ward will be for thern the city of Juda, to those wracked with fever, to lepers, to sick chidren, to sukering, mnothering women: they will, as trained doctor and nurse, cany assuasement, healing. comiort. They His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin to open a house, Rose. mount, in Mooterstown, where aspirants and those following medical courses in the hospitals or University might stay And the perrnission given by His Mmninence to open the Movibiate at Colon, which is the coremony we cclebrate today. THREE BENEFAGTORS. In its short history the young Society has met with many Miends, none of whom it will forget. but there arc thrce ospecialy whose service to it has been incalculable, and whorn It is only just to mention on this occasion. Mis Mxccllency the Apostolic Nuncio who irorn the beginning has taken the Hcepcst and mnost helpful intercst in cvery step of the (ounda. tion and whose prcsence herc to-day is deeply appreciated, Mis Grace Archbishop Kiberi, Delegate Apostolic in Africa tor the Missions who approved enthusiastically of the idea, hastencd the foundation and secured all the necessary permnissions at received the Society in his vicariate, petitioned Homne for its being mnade a religious institute and gave it a hospital and noviceship. The Medical Missionaries of Mary will never torget these benclactors who God raised up for them and whose serviccs made their existence possible. OUTBURST OF APOSTOLIC ENTERPHISE. Todays ceremony is the lalest manilcstabion of the unquenchable mnissionary spirit of our people. The last twenty ycars have witncssed an outburst of apostolic enterprise which can be paralleled only by the days of Columuba and Colurnbanus And Gall. To al the pagan lands, to China, to AHrica Hast and West, to india a shcarn of pricsts, brothers and nuns arc going forth, but we mnust not forget that it is the zeal and Home, and Mgr. Moynagh. Vicar Apostolic of Calabar who generosity of our pcople at homne which have mnade that cHort possble. The spirit that made St. Paul cy out ( Vae mih. si non cvangclisubero "' woe to mne if 1 prcach not the Gospel the spirit that made those carly missionares dcsre percgrinam pro Christo to be exiles tor Chuist's sake, that spirit shill burns cear and sbrong in our people through Gods mnercy. At a momnent when the whole womd is Hlled with war, with the preparations for war, with racial hatred and Injustice, it is consoling to think that our own country dreams of extending the kingdomn of Chrst, and subduing Mrsoncste Him. rhore servce LeMe and frecdom and justice. Joy, sce Our Lady's charity on the double plane the natural and the supernatural and you will understand the proprety with which the mystery of the Visitation has been chosen as the inspiration of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. NOTABLE CEREMONY. The ceremony which you have comne to witness and in which you take a part is something vey simple, but very unusual. The foundation of a new religious congregabion is in Mlselt not okten seen. but there is another consideration that makes this ceremony still more notable 1t is the Arst response of Ireland, 1f'not of the Catholic worid. to the new cal) of the,Holy. Wather. which marks by its nature and spirit and organisation andlconstitutions a new departure in the history of the missions a new Adaptation of the Church to thenew needs of the missionary Apostolate. The prcsence of this distinguished congrcgation shows that the signicance of that event is fully understood, that all recognise that this quiet ceremnony is the putting into the ground of a smnall secd which with Gods grace will grow and developr and become a great trec and send its branches far and wide and wil provide shelter and Mie and rest for great mnultitudes. With this days event the history of the Medical Mission. Arics ot Mary mnay be said to begin ofcially. but the founda. Lion of the Congregation has had its history, which muay be bnely sketched here. The idea came cighteen or twenty years ago to one who worked in Migeria under Dr. Shanahan somne years of cxperience as nurse and teacher amnong the paganslest two convictions onc, the necessity of a professional medical ser. vice, the second, that such work nceded a special organisation. that the spirit of sacrihce, the devotion, the constancy could be, As a rule, cxpected only Aromn those who were frced frorn farnily Mcs and had special spiritual helps that is tromn a religous congrcgation. The iden persisted for years, though it scemned but a-dream. Many things happened which seemed to make it imnpossible amnong thern continued badhealth. But perhaps Mromn the delay camne (uller conviction and a clearer grasp. And akter cight or nine years came the Arst faint steps towards rcalising the dreamn. and Ave or six others were found who had slrcady vaguely thought and hoped for a kind of missionary work which they had not yet seen realised. In that Arst group There came a sluns and winnorins unbl Chere was lelt fnaly 3 a few who had that spirit of courage and conadence that qualiked themn to be pioncers in a new spiritual enterprise. Mhose were years of slow growth of hope and prayer when only desire and zeal were certain, and all means and ways uncertain. DEEP AND FAR.REACHING ROOTS. The decisive event of that Arst perod the event which really began the proccss towards the ormation of a religious congrcgation, was the invitation of the Drior of the Bencdictine Abbey of Glenstal given to the foundrcss to Mive close to the monastery and share as lar as could be in its spiritual Mfe. The two years spent at Glenstal were decisive, they constituted A kind oi noviceship, in which the principles of the relgious And spiribual life were given to the aspirants by instruction and by assistance at the Mturgical Mite of the Monastery. The Medical Missionaries of Mary would wish this public rccord on this occasion, of their incaiculable debt to the sons of St. Benedict. and it is a signhcant (act that this latcst venture in religious lite, under the most mhodern conditions, ghould oo back to drink at the spring kom which came the beginning of monastic lile in Europe cleven hundred years ago. Al new movements in the Church spring Momn decp and farreaching 1o0tS. While the idea was growing in clearnessin the mind of the foundress and her cornpanions a ful sense of the diMcultics was also growing. Like al the things of God the growing institute was fed on disappointments and bials it was stamnped with the cross that truest guarantce of vitality and (uture success. There were practical ditcultics of all kinds of wayS and means, of permission: but perhaps the chies dimhculty, which lay across the path Mke a grcat barrier, was the (act that the Church did not in general appprove of unresbricted medical work for nuns. Certain Aclds of mcdical work cspecially maternity work had traditionaly been considered as not suitable for rcligious. with such a rosbriction (he po institute could scarcely exist. there were mhany who said that the resticton would never be rcmoved. The work of prepara. tion went on in hope and prayer and suddenly the grcat barrier which had seemed to blocke all advance was lilted. In February, 1936, the Sacred Congregation of Propa. sanda issued an instruction of inmnense import. which wiII be regarded as marking a decisive point in the history of the missions and which will be considered as one of the Sreat decimons of the present Holy Father. The Sacred Congrcgation said that its practise had always been to have the methods of apostolate coniormn to the varying nccds of place and timne, that the signikcance of mnedical work, cspecially for mothers and children, had been brought horne to It by the rcports of Bishops and Vicars Apostolic and mnission. Arics al over the wide mission Aclds, and that after mature study it had decided that mnedical work especially for womnen and children, would have better provision made for it in uture Conscquently it expressed the desire for the foundation of new cligious institutes of women who would dedicate thernselves puncipally to that work. and the wish that already existing institutes mnight found special branches tor this purpose also. 1t emnphasised the nccessity for the best and mnost mnodern prolessional cquipment and taining, it insisted that all that concerned the spiitual formation and sccurty of such religious should be abundanby guarantced, In itselt this instruction made mission History. Nor the nascent institute it was decisive, it sccmed Mke a special answer to prayer, it was an immense incentive and encouragement, the way now lay open, the Church had spoken her mind decisively and had callcd for an institute which corrcsponded exacbiy to the secrct hope that the foundrcss and her com. panions had been cherishing ior years. Dimculties of a prac Micalorder remnaincd in abundance, but the fundamentalonehad been removed. Dreparation could now be mnade with the Assurance that what was aimned at was what the Church was calling Lor. I need not detall the diHercnt steps that led to the founda. tion of the society. The gnalstep the ercction into a rclipioug institute was taken as was Atbing on the mission Aeld. At the end of 1936 the foundress and two companions lelt Dublin for Calabar in Migeria, where a noviceship was canonicaly crected, in which the spiritual taining was entrusted to a rcligious of the Society of the Holy Child Jcsus. Here the Medical Missionaries of Mary were erccted into a roligious congregation by Mgr. Moynagh. Dretect Apostolic of Calabar, And on Mow Sunday the foundress pronounced her vows of rcligion, and becamne Arst prolessed sister, taking the namne of Mary of the Incarnation. She had been gravely il with fever. had bcen anointed and had bcen taken to a Drotcstant Hospital because there was no Catholic one available. There seers to be a peculiar propriety in the fact that the ward of a fever hospital in Airica was the scene of the Arst profcssion in the Mcdical Missionaues of Mary. The two chies succceding ovents worthy of menbon here were the pemmismion given by

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