Cry, the beloved mission station

By Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa

Until the recent past many Catholic churches, especially in rural areas, were called “missions”. This, in the main, was a description of the developmental state of the local Church. Today many of them would be called parishes.

My family once lived on a mission farm. I was later to learn that every diocese comprised several mission stations. When I started my pastoral work in Witbank, I was responsible for 17 such outstations!

A typical mission station was managed by a team of priests, religious brothers and sisters. Most of them came from Europe, Ireland and a sprinkling from America.

The division of labour had a set pattern: priests looked after the “souls” living on the farm or in neighbouring areas. Their daily routine included saying Holy Mass, visiting the sick and teaching catechism. They prepared candidates to receive the sacraments, especially baptism, Eucharist and marriage; they heard confessions and preached on Sundays. Some of them travelled many kilometres to minister to their congregations.

The religious brothers were mostly agriculturists, carpenters, farmers and builders. In some cases they assisted the priests in the administration of the sacraments.

The good sisters were responsible for domestic management, such as cooking, cleaning the church, doing the laundry, preparing the sacristy, teaching handwork, giving catechetical instructions and making sure the girls behaved themselves.

Your average modern religious sister’s scope of work has since undergone many changes. The computer, better education and training in various skills have given the sisters a bigger choice in how they aspire to serve the people of God.

Some of the clergy, brothers and sisters doubled as teachers where the Church ran its own schools or training institutions.

A group of alumni recently visited Maria Trost mission which once hosted a secondary school. It was truly a sentimental journey. The former school buildings, the old church, dilapidated carpentry shop, boys and girls’ boarding houses, tennis court and football field bear testimony to a glorious past. Can anyone blame the alumni for being nostalgic?

Much as they were excited to reminisce about old times, they were struck by enormous changes that had taken place over the years. Of the dozen or so priests who used to live there permanently, only the tired-looking Fr Konrad Nefzger MCCJ is left. The convent which housed many religious sisters now provides accommodation for one German nun who is assisted by a team of lay people to run a pastoral Institute as well as to take care of the church property. Brothers? Not one is left, and with no prospects of that position being filled, either by colleagues from Europe or by local vocations.

Because of the global economic recession and worsening poverty, let’s spend a little time on the contribution made by the brothers to economic development and a better life for the people of Mashishing.

Maria Trost no longer boasts of well-cultivated gardens with luscious fruit and vegetables, let alone the manicured green grass recreational facilities. Gone are the green peas, cabbages, beans and mielies that students thought were rightfully theirs to enjoy, sometimes without permission. There was no need to buy vegetables from the market. The mission was self-sufficient not only to feed its personnel and students, but also to help feed the poor and provide jobs.

The most favourite pastime for male high school students was always a clandestine trip to the vineyard and orchard where the tasty grapes and other fruit proved irresistible. Only few culprits were ever caught, thanks to the students’ intelligence networks. The alumni asked one another whether after “nationalising” the brothers’ grapes they had gone to confession.

The mission owned cattle, chickens, pigs and other well fed beasts. The brothers were in charge of carpentry, sewing, painting and animal husbandry. They reared fish in our dam. They repaired the sewerage, drainage, broken furniture and acted as amateur motor mechanics. In the process, many local people acquired useful practical skills from the German brothers.

Maria Trost today raises a few troubling questions:
• Whatever happened to those dedicated priests, sisters and brothers who answered God’s call to minister to our people and often under hard conditions?
• Why are they not replacable?
• Why has the infrastructure in most former missions virtually collapsed or is standing on its last toes, as it were?
• Whatever destroyed all those great and fertile agricultural lands?

Vast tracks of arable land are lying fallow; buildings are pale shadows of their former selves. One is not being sentimental. The reality is that we won’t be getting another generous crop of dedicated men and women who were willing to offer their services for a noble ideal. Their work ethic was impressive.

Few able-bodied men and women are now available to develop the land. They would rather swell the number of the unemployed and poor in urban informal settlements and abandon land that could provide fresh, healthy and affordable food. They prefer the smog and filth of the township to the fresh, cool and healthy air of the rural areas. How as a Church do you deal with a situation where there are no cheap labour brothers and sisters to continue the service they rendered?

Given this reality, what can the Church do to empower people who live on Church-owned land and are willing to continue the Trappists tradition of “Ora at labora” (Pray and Work). Fr Bernard Huss would smile in his grave.

There are options:
• Sell the land and keep only what you need for pastoral ministry.
• Keep the land and develop it in partnership with the people living on the farm so that they feel they have a stake in its development.
• In partnership with the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, start projects which government can fund.
• Encourage people to start credit unions and cooperatives.
• Initiate a land awareness campaign because God gave us the land for our sustenance. In this gloomy situation of global economic meltdown, people need not starve or fall prey to preventable diseases when they have so much land.
• Help willing people to acquire technical skills in agriculture, animal husbandry, carpentry, financial and business management, agricultural production and food security.

We can help local people to develop model farms with the help of international funding agencies such as Misereor, Caritas International, Catholic Relief Services, IDT, NDA and so on.

Some agricultural experts could be invited to impart skills to locals on a voluntary basis. This would be in line with “you fed me and gave me water when I was hungry and thirsty” (Mt: 25 35-40) translated into the contemporary situation.

This of course raises a much bigger question. How do you train future clergy and religious to appreciate the rapid urbanisation of our country but at the same time realise that millions of people live in rural areas where the Church still owns some land? Admittedly, some Church owned land has since been disposed of.

Maria Trost, my alma mater, is by no means the worst example of the after-effects of the exodus of the missionary enterprise. There are far worse examples.

Without glossing over some mistakes that missionaries sometimes made in their over-enthusiasm, all of us should be able to say: Cry, the Beloved Mission Station.

Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa is a former secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. He is currently president the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa.