Irish MSC, 70 years in South Africa
On July 6th, 1950, the first group of MSCs arrived in Northern Transvaal, working in an area now recognised as the Limpopo Province. Here, they immediately took responsibility for mission areas in Louis Trichardt (today known as Makhado) and Messia (now known as Musina). By 1953, our sister congregation, the Daughters of our Lady of the Sacred Heart, had also arrived in Musina, where they began to provide aid and support to patients and their families in the local mine hospital.
This area has now developed into the present-day diocese of Tzaneen, and MSCs from the Irish Province continue to travel to Africa to contribute to the growing community here.
The scope of the African mission
The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart currently run several missions across Africa, with local MSC members working in Senegal, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Africa. One of our main objectives as MSCs is not just to provide aid, but to teach people to be self-sufficient through our schools, our agricultural training, and the formation programmes we offer in our pastoral and spiritual centres.
OUR NEW MISSION FIELD
Alan Whelan MSC, Archivist
Our readers and benefactors are well aware that many of our Irish priests and sisters have been engaged in Missionary work in the faraway islands of the South Seas for a score of years. This mission which includes New Britain, New Ireland and several of the smaller islands has become dear to all our hearts and the fact that the Apostolic Vicariate of Rabaul (this is the ecclesiastical title for this particular mission) holds the mortal remains of four of our stalwart priests will always make us look with pride and gratitude to God for the blessings bestowed on these far-flung islands. A large contingent of our young men are helping the German Fathers of our Society, the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, to rebuild this mission which was so completely devastated during the recent war. We are pleased to be able to help the present Bishop, Most Rev Lea Scharmach, MSC, in the tremendous task of rebuilding his mission and thereby be instrumental in holding for Christ those natives already converted as well as winning over to Catholicism countless more thousands from the darkness of paganism. It is indeed Missionary work of the first order.
But now the time has come when the Irish Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart has decided to break new ground and to assume complete responsibility for its own mission territory, that is to say, a region or district where Irish priests and brothers of our Society, as well as the daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart from Ballybay and Glendore, and helped by the generosity of our loyal friends here at home, will toil and pray for the conversion of the thousands of pagan souls confined to our care. This is another landmark in the history of our Irish Province and we rejoice that the Lord has directed our steps to Africa. Very soon the first contingent of Missionary Priests will leave for the North Eastern Transvaal. Here, the Apostolic Delegate to South Africa, His Excellency Most Rev Dr Lucas, SVD, with the cooperation of the Abbot-Bishop of Pieterburg, Most Rev Dr Osterrath, OSB, and the Benedictine Father, has offered us approximately half of the Abbey Nullius of Pietersburg, namely the districts of Zoutpansberg and Letaba, an area of over 20,000 square miles. The Limpopo river separates this territory from Southern Rhodesia, the Olifants river from its southern boundary, while Portuguese East Africa is on the eastern side. With the approval of our Very Rev Fr General and his Council, we have accepted this territory.
In all humility we accept the new burdens which this mission territory necessarily entail for our Province, but putting our hope and trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place the North-Eastern Transvaal under the protection of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, knowing that under her maternal guidance all will be well. Our old friends will rally round now more than ever before, new friends and helpers will be enlisted and our united efforts will ensure that before long the name of Jesus Christ will be praised and blessed in all corners of that vast area of over 20,000 square miles what has been given over to our care.
Up to now there has been only two resident priests in this territory. Can you imagine two priests in an area about two-thirds the size of Ireland? It sounds incredible but such is the position. It is up to us to ensure that before long this position will be remedied, that large number of priests will be sent out who will preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments to those thousands of natives who know nothing of the Redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ.
