Supporting the global Church

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

For the past few years, St. Patrick Church in Whitinsville has held recycling days to benefit the church’s Young Neighbors in Action (YNIA) service projects, and food drives for those in need.
This Saturday’s recycling day and food drive will aid another cause as well. St. Patrick will also collect children’s and religious books for the St. John Vianney orphanage in Malowa Village, Tanzania, Africa. An added component is a donation of theology books collected from diocesan priests for St. John Vianney’s new seminary.
In recent years, Sister Mary Jennifer Wandia of the Adorer Missionary Sisters of the Poor has spoken at parishes in the diocese to seek donations for the St. John Vianney orphanage. She has also talked to the elementary school students and the confirmation class at St. Patrick’s.
“She has this beautiful smile,” said Aileen Lemoine, pastoral associate to youth ministry and coordinator of children’s ministries at St. Patrick’s. “She’s loving. She’s quiet, patient, full of passion for what she’s doing. So everybody connected with her.”
Twenty-seven students from three parishes, who attended a retreat together last month, are eager to help Sister Mary Jennifer through the project, Mrs. Lemoine said.
At the retreat “we talked a lot about that we have a local Catholic church, but we are also part of a global church,” Mrs. Lemoine said, “and that some of the projects that we do during our week of service will be local, but we can reach out as far as Tanzania. So they’re excited to do it.”
YNIA students from Our Lady of the Lake Parish in Leominster and St. Denis Parish in Douglas will join those from St. Patrick’s to box and load the books onto a trailer during a service week June 26-July 1. The connection among the parishes comes from Father C. Michael Broderick, pastor at Our Lady of the Lake, who used to be pastor at St. Patrick’s. He started the YNIA program there with Shelly Mombourquette. Also, Father Juan D. Escudero, pastor at St. Denis, was once a seminarian at St. Patrick’s.
Mrs. Lemoine said elementary school students in the three parishes will be asked to make cards for each of the boxes of children’s books.
“What a wonderful thing to be able to get these books,” said Michelle Lutter, director of religious education at Our Lady of the Lake, “for her (Sister Mary Jennifer) and to have these kids use their young manpower to pack it up for us. We’re looking forward to that.”
In 2018, St. Patrick’s YNIA students traveled to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to work with the homeless, including with young mothers, and to help the Salvation Army. In 2019, they cut trails and eliminated invasive plants at a natural preserve in San Diego and viewed the security measures at the U.S-Mexican border. Service trips last year and this year were canceled due to the pandemic, but St. Patrick hopes to take one next year.
“I’m just inspired by our kids, the challenges that they’ll take on and what they’ll do,” Mrs. Lemoine said. “Even if I get tired, our kids, they boost me and keep me going. They support us as chaperones, and we support them. We’re a team.”

THEOLOGY BOOKS

Besides children’s books from St. Patrick’s collection, Sister Mary Jennifer will be gifted with thousands of theology books from diocesan priests.
Father Dennis O’Brien, the diocese’s director of the Propagation of the Faith, said that each year hundreds of missionaries seek to appeal to parishes in the diocese for financial support. He decides who gets to do so. Over the past three years, he has assigned Sister Mary Jennifer to speak at several parishes.
“She’s dynamite,” Father O’Brien said. “She’s a modern-day Mother Teresa. Whenever she comes to the diocese, whatever parish she makes the appeal in, the (donation) number for the appeal goes sky high because she’s so real and her mission is so enticing. You want to be part of this enterprise. She’s providing education, shelter.”
Father O’Brien said each time Sister Mary Jennifer has visited, he has sent her home with at least two suitcases full of books. This year,  he hopes to fill a trailer with not only children’s books, but with theology books donated by priests, that will be shipped to St. John Vianney’s new seminary. The goal is to fill 1,124 boxes with books.
Father O’Brien, Father Tomasz J. Borkowski, pastor at St. Patrick’s; and the Holy Name of Jesus House of Studies have already donated theology books. Father O’Brien recently packed 30 boxes of books that once belonged to Father D. Timothy O’Mara, the former pastor of St. Paul Church in Blackstone who died in March.
The largest contribution, however, came from Father Chester J. Misiewicz, pastor at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in West Brookfield, who donated 10,000 books.
Father O’Brien said he’s never tackled anything like overseeing this book drive before.
“Will I ever do it again? Probably never. Should I have my head examined? Yes,” he said.
It may be a lot of work, but it’s worth it.
“I’m ecstatic,” he said.
When Father O’Brien was a seminarian, he served in Africa in Zambia and he visited Tanzania.
“So I know the need is great there and that was 40 years ago,” he said. “The thought of us being able to make such a contribution to the church of Africa, which is a church that is growing with a multitude of vocations, it’s a great, great opportunity.”