I receive Maryknoll Magazine because I make a monthly donation.  The Maryknolls do mission work throughout the world.  But they don’t see their job as making Christians, but in doing what Jesus would do by helping the poor and ministering to people.

There was a story about Father Venne, who worked in Bangladesh for 30 years and died in December at 81 years old, still working in Bangladesh.  He lived in a house that was 18 x 10 feet on land of a Muslim man who he told, “that he hadn’t come to convert people, but had chosen to do as our prophet Jesus told us, to go out and help the poor, and I have chosen to do that, and if someone draws nearer to Allah because I am working among them, then that is why I have come.  The Muslim man replied, “I can accept that.”

In the same magazine there was a poem that touched me.  I have rewritten it here.

Here I Stand

by Joseph R. Veneroso, Maryknoll Missionary

You filled my heart with glowing visions of a world

Where justice, truth, goodness and beauty coexist,

Where right triumphs and evil fails,

Where children live loved, fed, clothed and taught

What bad there is need not forever be,

Where laughter marks unfettered, unworried  youth

Unaware all that is good might soon be no more

And the aged pass each precious, fleeting hour

With grace and quiet dignity.

You filled my mind with images of peace

On earth still sundered by war, violence and strife

While anxious hands grope for tools or weapons

Though plowshares lack for want of still unbeaten swords.

Then you dared me keep silent if I could

In the face of our world’s self-inflicted wounds

(What chance did I have against your Word

the universe itself cannot contain?)

Knowing I had the power to change the world

By starting with myself.

I began to speak, to tell of all I knew and dreamed and believed

But I could not, then I stood content

To let some simple deed become a paving stone

In the highway leading to our God.

Yes, many misunderstand and others doubt

And some threaten me with death—or worse

But here I stand, I can do no other,

For while I live, each man and woman is

My favorite sister and my long-lost brother.