Oct 3, 2024
Welcome to the Winter 2024 edition of the MSC Message!
• Read a seasonal greeting from Fr John Fitzgerald MSC, Director of the MSC Missions Office.
• Find out more about MSC efforts to protect our earth with the ongoing ecobricks project in the Philippines.
• Join us as we celebrate 150 years of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
• Read all about this summer’s Camino adventure as our MSC pilgrims walked the Camino Inglés, raising over €20,000 for the Holy Family Care Centre in South Africa.
• Catch up with the latest news from the Chevalier Training Centre in Fiji.
• Fr Alan Neville MSC writes from South Sudan, with an update from the Catholic University in Rumbek.
• Learn more about Fr Frank T. Natale’s story as he shares how he came to be an MSC in the US Province.
• Catch up on news of our recent Novena to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
Read the Winter 2024 edition of the MSC Message
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Sep 19, 2024
The end of August marked a very special day for our extended Sacred Heart family, as the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart marked their 150th anniversary on August 30th.
Established in 1874, this year marked a jubilee celebration for our OLSH Sisters, and we are delighted to share photos of just some of the wonderful celebrations that took place around the globe to mark the occasion.
In a heartfelt post, the Facebook page for the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Australia wrote:
“On this day, August 30th, 1874, 150 years ago, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart were founded. Today, we celebrate this 150th Jubilee with hearts filled with thanksgiving for the last 150 years. We give thanks to those pioneer Sisters who, filled with the vision of Fr. Jules Chevalier MSC and the inspiration of Mother Marie Louise Hartzer FDNSC, went across the world, ministering and working alongside the poor and the vulnerable, establishing schools, hospitals, working on mission, and in recent years, working for justice, the rights of refugees, climate action, advocating for those whom society has placed on the margins, and much more! As we celebrate this special day, we are filled with the fire of God’s love to continue our mission with renewed vision so that we can continue to be ‘On earth the Heart of God.’
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart – Pray for us!”
The Australian OLSH community went on to highlight their continued commitment to their mission in a beautiful promise “to share God’s boundless love with everyone – no exceptions and no exclusions.”
Some marvellous photos of the celebrations were also shared from the Philippines and the Province of the Pacific Islands.
From the Facebook page for the MSC Scholasticate Community – Philippines:
From the Facebook page for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart – Province of the Pacific Islands:
We join our hearts, our voices, and our prayers with our OLSH Sisters as they mark this jubilee celebration, as we give thanks for the past 150 years, and look forward to continuing on our shared journey, making the spirituality of the heart known wherever and whenever it is needed most. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved!
From the Facebook page for MSC Vocations – Australian Province:
Jul 25, 2024
Today, we’re sharing some wonderful photos of one of the latest initiatives from the MSC Centre for the Poor in the Cebu District of the Philippines – a series of music lessons for young students.
These music lessons encourage the children to learn new skills and discover new talents in a fun and enjoyable way, while keeping them encouraged and motivated throughout. These pictures show the young class taking on new knowledge with little more the most basic equipment and boundless enthusiasm – and even with the help of some furry friends!
The MSC Centre for the Poor in the Cebu District is part of a larger programme in the Philippines, with the original MSC Centre for the Poor in Butuan now having branched out to several additional locations across the country. The ethos of the centres remains the same – to provide the poor and disadvantaged with a better quality of life by teaching and fostering skills for self-sufficiency and personal growth, and to promote this in harmony with the natural world around us, nurturing the people and the planet in unison. Dedicated to caring for the community and the environment, with initiatives such as plastic waste prevention and clean water and food sustainability programmes, the award-winning MSC Centre for the Poor Agricultural Cooperative (MSC CEPAGCO) are determined in their work to improve the quality of life of the people in their programmes, while fostering ecological awareness and balance.
The music class demonstrates one of the many arms of the multi-faceted plans and programmes in play at the Centre for the Poor, as they continue to inspire people of all ages. Well done to all the budding young performers in the Cebu District, and good luck as you continue in your musical endeavours!
Images via the Facebook page for the MSC Centre for the Poor – Cebu District
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Jul 11, 2024
The MSC community in Manila, capital of the Philippines, have been working on an ongoing project where discarded plastic bottles are repurposed and made into “ecobricks”, finding new life as fences, planter boxes, outdoor furniture, altar decorations, and even chapel walls.
Part of the “Sowing Hope for the Planet” campaign, a worldwide movement to promote environmental awareness, the ecobricks project is just one of many efforts in the MSC mission for ecological sustainability and care of our common home. MSCs in the Philippine Province are also extremely active in the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, a Vatican initiative based on Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, not least with the remarkable efforts of the community at the MSC Centre for the Poor and their accompanying agricultural co-operative.
Fr James Espuerta MSC was rector at the Manila seminary from 2018 to 2023, where he led countless workshops in the construction and use of the ecobricks. Each brick is comprised of a 1.5 litre plastic bottle, which is then stuffed with smaller pieces of plastic, all compressed with a bamboo stick. Often, the plastics and bottles are painted in bright, appealing colours. The creation of a single brick is time-consuming, and can take a full day to be produced.
“If we have plastics, instead of throwing them away or into the trash or to the garbage cart, better to keep them and then organize ecobrick-making,” says Fr James.
A recent article by Earthbeat reports how the MSC ecobrick initiative began in 2019, at the seminary in Manila, and has since expanded into 15 parishes in the care of our MSC brothers. A chapel in Santo Nino Parish, on Camotes Island in Cebu, has been constructed using ecobricks, and several plastic banks are in operation, whereby people in need can trade plastic they bring from home, or pick up on the street, for food.
Ecobricks help to reduce the costs of building materials while also promoting recycling and ecological awareness, and MSCs in the Philippines are very much aware of the need to reduce the use of single-use plastics in addition. “We have to care for our common home. And plastics destroy creation,” explains Fr James. “Human beings are not the only residents in the world. We also have our brother creatures, and we have to take care of them.”
“Being responsible for the use of the plastic could be a good way to save our environment,” Fr James says. With the support of our mission friends here in the Irish Province and around the globe, MSCs in the Philippines continue in their mission to work in harmony with the natural world, while developing sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyles for the vulnerable and disadvantaged communities in their care.
Original article and images via Earthbeat:
https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/science/philippines-catholic-priests-tackle-plastic-waste-brick-brick
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Jul 9, 2024
Welcome to the Summer 2024 edition of the MSC Message!
• Read a special greeting from Fr John Fitzgerald MSC, Director of the MSC Missions Office.
• Read all about the ordination of Fr Gabriel Shikongo MSC, which took place in Swakopmund, Namibia, as he celebrates his first year as an MSC priest.
• Catch up on the latest news from the mission fields, including updates from the Holy Family Care Centre in Africa, from our OLSH Sisters in Papua New Guinea and Burkina Faso, West Africa, and from our MSC brothers as they celebrated Holy Week & Easter around the world, .
• Join us as we celebrate the new Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in India.
• Find out the latest updates from the team at the MSC Centre for the Poor in the Philippines.
• Discover more from Centro Faustino Villanueva in Guatemala, where staff and students are celebrating 40 years of ministry at the MSC-run vocational centre this year.
• Fr Alan Neville MSC writes from South Sudan, where he is currently ministering with the Loreto team in Rumbek.
Read the Summer 2024 edition of the MSC Message
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