Faith

Father Bernard Makadani Zulu celebrates Mass at a rural outstation in Chipata, Zambia.

Propagation of the Faith

True Mission is Giving and Receiving

Friday, June 13, 2025Faith

The country of Zambia, in southeastern Africa, is twenty-eight times the size of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in area. Their population is only double ours. To say that populated areas are few and far between once you are outside metropolitan areas would be an understatement.

During my visit to that beautiful country some years ago, I quickly learned that getting from one place to another took two things: a lot of patience and good company! While I am sometimes short on the first of these, in Zambia, I never lacked for the second.

My host and driver was Father Bernard Makadani Zulu, then-National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Zambia. Father Bernard had thoughtfully prepared a picnic lunch for us, knowing that villages were few and far between along the road to his diocese of Chipata. As we traveled along in the truck loaned to us by the Bishop's Conference, Fr. Bernard told me about his lifelong link to the Pontifical Mission Societies which deepened his love for his ministry: all four Societies were responsible for a part of his faith formation. As a child, the Missionary Childhood Association was responsible for his sacramental preparation. The Society of St. Peter Apostle helped to build the seminary he attended and gave him a yearly scholarship making his ordination a reality. The Missionary Union had encouraged so many to lift him up in prayer as he learned. And of course, The Society for the Propagation of the Faith had made it possible for him and his family to worship in a parish church at all.

As National Director, it was his job not only to oversee all the projects that are helping to build up the Zambian Catholic Church, but also to educate the faithful -- to help them understand that because they are baptized, they too are missionaries, obliging them to pray and sacrifice so that others may learn our faith. They take this responsibility seriously. Although most Zambians are subsistence farmers, living on about $2,600 a year, last year Zambian Catholics sent $48,668.81 to our General Fund in Rome to be disbursed to other missions, including $14,260.81 sacrificed by Zambian children who are Missionary Childhood Association members. Along with those funds, came untold prayers as well.

This summer, parishioners of Saint Isidore, Middleboro, Saint Mary of the Assumption, Brookline, Our Lady of the Visitation, Milton, and Saint Mary of the Annunciation, Melrose will be blessed to learn more about the Church of Zambia from Father Bernard himself.

Get a head start on your sacrifices for the missions -- begin praying for your visiting missionary and the people they serve today!

- Maureen Crowley Heil is Director of Programs and Development for the Pontifical Mission Societies, Boston.