To celebrate the anniversary of the Founding of the Congregation of the Mission on January 25, VinFormation presents a special feature on the De Paul Centre in Nairobi Kenya complete with sights and sounds of Kenya.
When St. Vincent first sent missioners to Madagascar in 1648, he wrote them a seven-page letter– described by Fr. Barry Moriarty, C.M. as “loving, encouraging, energetic, and humorous. Every line of the letter reveals Vincent’s excitement and surety about the importance of this mission. If it were at all possible, Vincent laments, he would go himself. Since he cannot, he mandates his missioner: ‘Go then, Monsieur, and cast your nets boldly.’
In reading Vincent’s words, we share with him the excitement, the challenge and the joy of continuing this work of the Congregation in East Africa. In 1900 there were 2700 Catholics in Kenya; today there are approximately nine million.”* Because of this phenomenal growth, back in the 1970s the Catholic Church was in desperate need of missionary assistance and, in particular, the bishops wanted major seminary teachers and formators. The confreres opened seminaries and offered formation programs. In collaboration with their brothers and sisters of several other branches of the Vincentian Family, the Congregation has been accompanying the poor in Kenya for over 20 years now. From the founding of the Congregation the road of this mission has taken many turns.
We invite you share the sights and sounds of the journey to Kenya with the missioners in our multimedia story — an integration of text, audio, and photography. A journey OF and TO the poor, an epic journey, to borrow the words of Barry Moriarty *from “Cast Your Nets Boldly”: The Mission Ad Gentes in Kenya by Barry Moriarty, C.M.
Tags: Congregation of the Mission, Featured, January 25, Kenya, Missionary Spirit
