IN A world whirling with change, Religious Missionary Life is responding to new realities, new needs and declining numbers in the Northern Hemisphere. Some changes have invoked vision and courage, some have been challenging and daunting.

For the Holy Rosary Sisters it all began in Killeshandra, County Cavan in the 1920s.

Our sisters left home and country propelled by their love for God and neighbour, providing pastoral, educational and health care, at first, in Nigeria, then, extending to other countries in Africa and later to Brazil and Mexico. The training of local people has always been a priority.

Many thought that they would live and die in their adopted country. While that has been the case for some, now for reasons of age, health, mission accomplished or driven out by war, a number of these women have returned to their country of origin. Though they, like retiring people everywhere, face transition from a life of being wanted, needed, and hectically busy, are trying to cope with the slowing of age and the pain of displacement from familiar scenes continents away.

And these women are alive with memories. They leave behind men and women, trained in different professions who are making a contribution to their society;

some past pupils have served and are serving in highly responsible positions in their country and abroad. One such woman is a government minister in her country who has taken a courageous stand to protect the health of the population by demanding safe drinking water standards and other important public health measures. Still again, others have taken the road less travelled: a caller recently looking up one of our sisters who had been her teacher of many years ago turned out to be a Nigerian Carmelite Sister, celebrating the 40th anniversary of her profession of vows.

Taking their place is a vibrant and growing African contingent of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary Congregation working in response to the needs of today.

Changes within There is a flowering of the concept of the vows.

Poverty once seen mostly as giving up the right to ownership now incorporates commitment to stewardship of planet earth, the environment and equitable distribution of the earth's resources. There is enough for everyone Chastity not only embraces celibacy but engages in a deepening of relationships. Life is about relationships. Relationships invite us to an ever deepening of our level of consciousness and love of God.

Obedience. Once seen as merely doing what you were told, now invites us to engage with issues of power, dominance and control within ourselves and the people with whom we live and work.

Sisters joining our ranks now are offered formation based on these more liberating concepts as well as retaining the best of the old.

Changes in Mission Here the issues are complex.

While dialogue is now the accepted way to engage with people of different cultures, faith values, the question is how to dialogue with people in need? How to say, 'what are your needs?' Jesus did say to the blind man 'what do you want me to do for you?'

thereby giving the man a chance to make choices.

We ask ourselves, how shall we make an impact on the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has left a swathe of parentless children across Africa while grieving grandparents say: 'what will they do when we are gone?'

And what of the victims of war, the gang raped, the children who carried and used Kalashnikovs, the amputees, agricultural lands turned death traps with landmines, the displaced, the homeless and the new landless. How are we to be in solidarity with, these our brothers and sisters?

Our response Firstly we are there and we care. Our young sisters . . . and some not-so-young . . . educated, enthusiastic and joyful, are present to women with HIV or AIDS, women recovering from the experience of war, in refugee camps, rape victims, women economically deprived, women being trafficked, women oppressed by social and religious taboos.

We respond to different needs in different contexts.

You will find some engaged in education and health care, pastoral and development work.

We wish to be together with people as they struggle for new life in the midst of many hardships.

Their hope and resilience makes us aware of what a joy and a privilege it is to live and work among such people.

The labourers for this great field are never enough.

But while love and compassion urge young women to rise up and go out to bring the touch of a healing hand, the smile of love, the word of comfort to many who experience death in the midst of life, we know that Missionary Religious Life is experiencing the end of an era and the beginning of the bloom of another.

Visit us on our website:

>>www. holyrosarymissionary sisters. com