🇬🇧 Triduum Day 2: Fr. Ivel Mendanha, CSsR, reflects on St. Gerard Majella, a Missionary of Hope

In this reflection in preparation for the feast of St. Gerard Majella we reflect on how St. Gerard was a sign of hope himself, how he was a Missionary of Hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer to so many women and men and children who were experiencing hardships of various kinds in Southern Italy and in a sense how his missionary impulse reached people beyond the shores of Italy.
Fr. Ivel begins with the Question, who is a missionary? According to Pope Francis in his personal comments to the members of the XXVI General Chapter on the 1st October 2022 he said that a Missionary is one who is ready and willing to leave his or her comfort zones so that we can draw closer to the abandoned poor to whom we are sent. He then reflects briefly how St Gerard, a Redemptorist Brother was a Missionary of Hope, constantly leaving his comfort zones to be Mission, to proclaim God’s abundant Redemption to the poor and the most abandoned, through his very person and life rather than through his preaching or the pulpit.
We begin with his vocation to join the Religious life. Secondly, every Redemptorist Missionary lives in community for the purpose of the mission. To live in community joyfully is indeed a challenge as one has to go through an exodus, a giving up, a leaving behind, a stepping out of one’s comfort zone of one’s ego, one’s self, one’s own needs and culture and place oneself at the service of the mission living with and for one’s own brothers, one’s confreres in community. Thirdly, Gerard was a Redemptorist Missionary par excellence. In that, Gerard accompanied the Redemptorist Priests on mission, as they went through the small towns of the countryside to preach the very popular Redemptorist Parish missions. Fourthly, a Redemptorist missionary is a people person who in the spirit of St Alphonsus is close to people and their pain and suffering and thus brings them the Hope of plentiful Redemption. St Gerard was truly a people person in his ability to connect with the sick and pray over and with them and through his prayers so many were healed.
St Gerard was a Courageous Missionary of Hope showing through his life example that the Church can truly live its true calling to be simple, a Church of the poor and for the poor and most abandoned.

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