During the mid-morning break, the mission center staff celebrated the anniversary of the founding of Maryknoll. Two diocesan priests from the United States, Fr. Thomas F. Price and Fr. James A. Walsh, and one woman, Sr. Mary Joseph Rogers, established the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America after receiving permission from Pope St. Pius X on June 29, 1911. They eventually set up their headquarters near Ossining, N.Y., on a hill they named Maryknoll in honor of the Blessed Mother. Maryknoll consists of a society of priests and brothers, a religious institute of women, an organization of lay missioners, and an organization of lay affiliates. These four groups work cooperatively in global mission that today focuses on Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The society publishes a magazine and founded Orbis Books, which has popularized liberation theology in the United States and around the world. All the students and volunteers gathered with the staff of the mission center as Padre Alejandro, the director, recited the history of Maryknoll, Father Ken offered a benediction to everyone, and I shared fist bumps with seminarians Joshua and Charles. We were reminded that, whether we minister in our homeland or another country, we are all commissioned, by virtue of our baptism, to be witnesses to Christ and to live the Good News in a way that brings the peace and justice of the reign of God to communities everywhere. Thus every sister and brother in Christ has a missionary mandate, whether as a layperson or a member of a religious community or a priest.
It was good to recall this on the eve of another anniversary that comes close to home. The Capuchin friars of New York and New England celebrate the patronal feast of their province tomorrow. We are the Province of St. Mary, and we observe our feast day on the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is the second Saturday after Pentecost. Our community traces its ancestry to the founding of the first permanent Capuchin mission in the United States in 1857. Our province extended from New York and New England through the Midwest to Montana until this vast territory was partitioned in 1952. The Midwest Province was rechristened in honor of Saint Joseph, and the New York-New England territory was rechristened in honor of Mary Immaculate. A relatively complete history of the Capuchins of the Midwest to the present day exists. One day someone will produce a chronicle of the New York-New England Capuchins covering the last 70 yearsof our mission!
At Maryknoll, everyone who wasn’t a vegetarian snacked on salteñas. (I am still waiting for some culinary genius to perfect a salteña stuffed with a stew of seitan or tofu.) We also bade farewell to Brett, who finished his classes today and will return to Boston College to resume his theological studies en route to ordination. Brother Scott, who also attends the School of Theology and Ministry there, will be one of his compañeros. And whenever I pay a visit to Beantown, I will be sure to look up my Jesuit friend in the Lord, and we will find another nice Italian restaurant to patronize.
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