Pilgrimage in Africa

Carole Wark kindly offers us the following tribute to recently deceased Br Charles Howard:

'[Charles] also wrote a pastoral letter to the Brothers of Africa, entitled "Pilgrimage in Africa".  This letter must have remained close to his heart since he quoted it at length in some private memoirs.  "The title may seem strange.  But it has been a pilgrimage in a real sense, a visiting of holy places, if one defines a holy place as one where God is found, where God speaks to us - through the goodness of people, through the needs of others, through the terrible suffering of many of His sons and daughters...

How often, as I saw hundreds and thousands of young people going to school in the morning, I wondered about their future... all their dreams and hopes and aspirations... knowing that, unless there were drastic changes, many of them would be frustrated in their efforts to find employment, to use the skills they had learnt, to fulfill their dreams...

Any visitor to Africa cannot but be struck by the role of women in society.  As the bishops of Zambia mentioned recently, "they are the background of our families and the leading actors in our economy."  ...  Here, as in most countries, women constitute the majority of the active Church members, whether lay or religious.  But for a variety of reasons - lack of formation, male dominance, forms of clericalism - they are often absent from decision-making in the Church.

The question for us is:  what are we being called to do?... what does this mean for us?... or do we think it is something that concerns only the politicians and other leaders?  Are there some signs of the times for [Marists] here?" '

Carole adds:

'These thoughts of Charles and his questions echo my reflections following some other reading I was doing yesterday on the numbers and patterns of attendance of girls in Kenyan schools and how the HIV/AIDS situation has impacted on the education of post-primary school girls in particular.  Our time together in Africa will have much to say to our hearts, I'm sure, and challenge significantly the work of our hands on our return.'

Thank you Carole.

John McMahon