Fr. Polycarpos of Agia Anna

I arrived overnight in my beloved city of Sakaraha in Tulear. I came, although yesterday the fever and the exhaustion of the last two months

What I saw before my eyes was tragic: an eight-month-old infant with an aged skin looking like 70 years old: soft and wrinkled. I asked the father what the infant ate and he said, mostly rice, and at times some milk, which a Catholic nun gave him. I told him that the child needed milk immediately. In the afternoon, I went to the pharmacy and bought him special milk for infants…

Now we are sitting with Him by the sea, where the famous Mozambican channel with its angry waves joins our world, the land of Madagascar, with the other similarly unfortunate Mozambique world, the land of Africa…

The Mission, like any good work, is not just a beautifully laid out sequence of events, nor a romantic monologue aiming to impress and cause temporary emotional stimulation of the senses, but most of the time a harsh reality…

I don’t promise you embossed gold rods. I have nothing like that to give you. I will give you a reed in your hands to support you on your long marches through the dust and mud. Like the simple reed our Lord bore in His hands before that ultimate Sacrifice of Crucifixion…

His watery eyes can make out a black figure going up and down the corridor. He stands for a while at the door of the surgery. Then he leaves. He comes and goes. But who cares? Through the pain and wonder, the young man’s weak voice is heard to be asking: “Who are you?”

It is well known that every effort and every good work is first tried by temptations and grief. This is one of the laws of