Commissioning Day arrived…

Apparently, we are ready for the opportunity to share our best treasure in Earth with the people of Ndanda, Tanzania: “TIME”.

My storage of medical knowledge, my practical wisdom, my patience, my courage and my spirituality manifested in the human elements of humility, compassion, kindness, generosity and dialogue, together with a stethoscope, a tuning fork, a flashlight and reflex hammer is what I am going to take with me for my doctoring.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph will be my co-workers, my consultants, my PDR and my library. My tolerance of the uncertainties will play a pivotal role. I hope my diagnosis and treatment judgments based on the analysis of probabilities and the grasping of the true meanings of the relationships between my patients and I will guide me in my daily work.

The mutual trust in the doctor-patient relationship will define the quality of my doctoring keeping always in mind that the goal is not to relieve the human condition of the human condition.

No more hypothetic thoughts, ideas or expectations. From now on this blog will be based on the description of my direct observations and experiences at the Benedictine Missionary Abbey.

I hope that the differences between everyone at the Mission Abbey will be based on what we do and not in what we are, allowing us being our true self focusing just in the now, and if there is some extra time left, then focusing in being the fathers of our future and not the children of our past.

We need to learn to believe and to have faith in what and who we are in spite of any circumstances telling us the contrary. If we do not trust in the power of God within and through us, our doctoring and teaching will be part of: “Gone with the Wind…”

Thanks to the unique wisdom of Pat/Julia’s team, we found out that Carolina is a 2 with two wings, one in 3 and the other one in 1; and I am a 3 with a wing in 2 [Enneagram].

We would like to dedicate a few words of special gratitude to all the professors and teachers of our formation program. Each of them with passion and dedication gave us the best of their knowledge and wisdom with the idea in mind of being active participants of our missionary experience in the next three years. Thanks from the bottom of our hearts to: Sister Patricia Beirne and her extraordinary friend Julia; Sister Rosanne Belpedio; Sister Kathleen Bryant; Professor Daniel Smith Christopher; Maureen Connors; Carol Cogwill; Sister Jeanne Fallon; Joan Henehan; Amir Hussain; Rev. Bill Kerze; Professor Brother John Kiesler; Rev. Eric Law; Julie Lupien; Rick McCarthy; Betty Risley; Jonathan Rothchild; Sister CJ [Carol Jean] Willie; Lillian Wood; Janice England; Elise Frederick; father Damian S. Kabot, father Anthaiah Madanu and deacon Willard Hall from Saint John The Evangelist Catholic Church.

We will see you again in Tanzania. Take care and thanks again for everything, mainly for walking beside us…

"For We Are God's Helpers"

[Commissioning ring’s engraved words]

I think it would be easier to experience the joy of living within the Jesus Christ’s love if we are healthy physically, mentally and existentially. 

My role as medical doctor in Ndanda, Tanzania will be based on the progressive understanding of my own growing spirituality. I am acquiring the responsibility and compromise of not just trying to improve the quality of life of the people I am going to encounter, but to inspire them through my dedication, my joy, my personal qualities and my professional skills to see and experience the essence of the Catholic Missionary Church.

Carolina and I are so blessed, so privileged and so grateful not only for being touched by the poverty and miseries of the masses of the world, but mainly for having the honor and the opportunity to try to do something about them through Monsignor Anthony Brouwers’s legacy.

We hope to be able to walk throughout our time in Tanzania with Monsignor Brouwers, side by side, holding hands… honoring his believe: “that  no religious missionary could offer the powerful and pervasive day-to-day example of ordinary Catholic living out their faith…”

We will take in our minds, hearts and souls the words of Teresa of Avila: “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on Earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks with compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Thanks for everything.

“Yes, Lord, I will go if you lead me.”

We have received our official assignment:

          St. Benedict Hospital
                            Ndanda, Tanzania…                               
                                       


The care for the sick has a high priority in the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the sixth century. Ever since missionaries have cared for the sick, visited them at home and opened dispensaries. Later these places have developed into fully fledged hospitals.
Our mission in Ndanda will be based mainly by the daily example of our lives and work.
Awareness of the local history, social structure, people’s customs and values, religious precepts, insights, moral standards, etc… will be pivotal in our success.    
  

 

By learning we will teach… by teaching we will understand.
To conclude this blog, I would like to share with all of you a lyric from the March 10, 2012 Reflection
Day Closing Mass and few quotations:

The Summons
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known?
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

Will you love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In Your company I’ll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus, I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

•    “Jesus Christ will be Lord of all or he will not be Lord at all” [Saint Augustine]
•    “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen” [Ralph W. Emerson]
•    “If I saw myself as my friends and other people see me, I would need an introduction” (Anonymous)