Urban Missionaries mark 40 years of service

By Christina Galeone
CFP Correspondent
WORCESTER – In 1979, Walter Doyle was in his first year of formation for becoming a deacon. But that isn’t the only reason that that year was a pivotal one in his life and in the life of his wife, Kathy. It was also when the couple and their five children sponsored their first family of refugees from Vietnam. Although that family of 12 (accompanied by an uncle) stayed with them for three to four weeks, the hard-working, devoted family in desperate need left an indelible imprint on their lives. And the experience inspired the deacon and his wife to answer the call of Jesus to “welcome the stranger” by establishing an apostolate that serves refugees and immigrants.
Since then, the apostolate – which is now known as the Urban Missionaries of Our Lady of Hope – has sponsored nearly 100 refugee/immigrant families, and it has shared its time, talent and life-changing resources with countless people.
On Oct. 26, at St. Joan of Arc Church, Deacon and Mrs. Doyle commemorated the 40th anniversary of their Worcester-based Catholic social action ministry with a Mass celebrated by Father Paul Nguyen, a member of one of the families sponsored by the ministry.
In addition to providing vocational, educational, mentoring and re-settlement programs and services for struggling refugees and immigrants, Urban Missionaries of Our Lady of Hope, offers people inexpensive clothing and items through its Little Store. It also runs an extensive Christmas Giving program that serves 3,000 or more local children each year with help from many Worcester Diocese parishes. And it runs a food pantry.  
Keeping such a wide-reaching, freestanding ministry going and thriving isn’t easy. But Deacon Doyle and his wife believe that they aren’t the ones orchestrating it.   
“Kathy and I are just two instruments that the Lord plays,” Deacon Doyle said cheerfully. He added, “We’re just doing what we’re being asked to do.”       
Ordained two years after the ministry began, Deacon Doyle believes that his growing formation as a deacon contributed to the growing spirituality that he and his wife experienced during the early years of the ministry. With a tremendous devotion to the Blessed Mother, he also believes that because their spirituality has continued to evolve, he and his wife are further empowered to do the work that they do. And he’s grateful for the extraordinary blessings the ministry has received.
With the couple’s love of the Lord being at the heart of the ministry, it’s not surprising that the Mass was the perfect way to commemorate the apostolate’s 40th anniversary. Deacon Doyle loved every moment of it. And it was particularly nice for him and his wife to not only have Bishop Robert J. McManus be part of the Mass, but to have it celebrated by Father Nguyen.  
Now serving as a parochial vicar at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Cape Coral, Florida, the priest was a teenager who couldn’t speak any English when he came to the United States in 1988 after fleeing Vietnam with his family.
“Marvelous; I can’t even express it,” Deacon Doyle responded, when asked what it meant to him to have Father Nguyen celebrate the Mass. Noting that he was happy to see that he had become a “great preacher,” he added, “When we decided to have the anniversary Mass, he was the first person who came to mind.”         
It meant a lot to Father Nguyen as well. He’s deeply grateful that Deacon and Mrs. Doyle and the Urban Missionaries of Our Lady of Hope welcomed him and his family into the community and into the country. And he’s equally thankful that they have done the same for so many other families. He said that even though they are all individual families, they “journey together as a community,” and he said that like other families, his family’s story is “part of the big story – the story of God and his people.”       
Celebrating the anniversary Mass gave him a chance to express his gratitude for the ministry’s role in his family’s story. “To me … Mass is always a thanksgiving; the Eucharist is a thanksgiving,” Father Nguyen shared. “This Mass was a thanksgiving to God and to the ministry.”
Ultimately, Father Nguyen, who enjoyed seeing Deacon and Mrs. Doyle and their family again and was elated to see that Bishop McManus is so appreciative of the ministry, felt honored to be there.
“It was such an honor and a blessing for me to celebrate the Mass,” he said. “Forty years of living out the Gospel. Forty years of serving the people of God. That’s huge. That’s a huge success for them and the community.”