Praised be Jesus Christ!
On the weekend of June 10-11, we will be having our annual Mission Cooperative Appeal. Fr. Mariadass Irudayam, OFM Cap. will be celebrating and preaching at all the Masses for the weekend. Please welcome him and be generous in supporting the mission of his community. Below is a message from his community’s mission out-reach:
We, the Mary Queen of Peace Province, are serving in 10 dioceses in Tamilnadu, India. We render our service through various ministries such as pastoral work, so-cial work, counseling, legal services, etc. Apart from our service in Tamilnadu, we also render service in Zimbabwe and in Sri Lanka.
SRI LANKAN MISSION. We have established our Sri Lankan mission in Thandikulam, eight kilometers away from Tharanikulam. Almost 90% of the people are daily laborers. All of our Catholic people are daily laborers. Many children became orphans and semi orphans due to the last ethnic war. Many men have be-come invalids. A good number of youngsters have lost hope in life and have become drug addicts. Following the war, the availability of liquor and narcotic substances have been in abundance in the northern part of Sri Lanka. Pre-marital sex and teen-age pregnancy has become the norm of the day. Most of the Catholics are recent converts from Hinduism. Therefore, it is our primary duty to educate them in the Catholic faith. In some homes, photos of both Christian saints and of Hindu deities are seen. That is to say at least one or more of the members in the family are still practicing Hinduism. Poverty is the major problem of these people. They are living in the houses built by government programs.
ZIMBABWE MISSION: We are the Little Brothers in Zimbabwe, proud to be cele-brating the Silver Jubilee of the Capuchin Presence of the Custody of St. Pio Pietrelcina in Zimbabwe. We are working in five out of the eight dioceses in Zimba-bwe. We have seven Missionary Brothers and eight native friars in the country, with a total of 42 brothers altogether. We are investing our energy in faith formation and parish work. We also give retreats to priests, religious, and lay people, as well as conduct seminars and workshops for youth. Economically, we do not have any other sources of income apart from the General Curia and parish contributions.
Father Burish