I will be traveling down to Durban on Sunday, returning on Friday, for the Biannual St Anne’s national conference. The St Anne Sodality was founded in 1850 in Québec, Canada, by Oblate Father Jean-Baptiste Honorat. It was brought to Southern Africa in 1934, via Lesotho, by Bishop Joseph Cyprian Bonhomme OMI. Its motto is to “serve the family, the Church and the community”.
In South Africa today, the sodality is a strong support group for its members and a powerful resource for their parishes in over 20 dioceses. Their social involvement includes visiting young mothers, lapsed Catholics and the bereaved, as well as attending to any other needs made known to them by their parish priests. Based on the virtues of St Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the following are included in the intentions of the sodality: to foster and encourage vocations to the religious life among children; to be exemplary models of married women and mothers; to comfort those in sorrow, and to love and care for the poor.
During my 10 years in Soweto, I was the deanery chaplain to the sodality and always encouraged them to not only wear their uniform on the second Sunday of each month but to be actively engaged in the life of their parish communities. Given their charism / spirituality they should be the first to volunteer for anything to do with marriage and family life in the parish. Whenever we had deanery masses, when several hundred members would meet, I would ask them who was involved in marriage and family life ministry in their parish. Very seldom did anyone put their hand up. Sometimes membership of a group or sodality can be limited to monthly mass and social gatherings.
Groups and sodalities have two purposes only: the sanctification of their members and the service of the church. If you are not made a better, holier person because of your participation in the life of a group or sodality, then you need to look for another one. If your group or sodality is not serving the church, then you need to look for another one. One of the great benefits of belonging to a sodality is the companionship and support that it offers to its members. They truly can help us to be better people by helping put our faith into action.
If you speak to any member of the Catholic Women’s League you will hopefully discover that being part of the group has helped them in their journey of faith though their “charity, work, loyalty”, which is their motto. A group that used to exist in the parish was the Society of St Vincent de Paul, who focused on helping the poor, but whose focus has become broader and now includes social justice and environmental justice. I hope that there are people in the parish who would like to resurrect the group, for the service to poor, the church and their own personal sanctification.
A large gap in what we do here at St Martin de Porres is to provide groups for men to get involved in. This could be something like the SVP, or the Knights of da Gama, or a Men’s Forum that gathers the men of the parish for men’s retreats, or monthly men’s prayer breakfasts and so on. The only limit on what we can do is our imaginations. If there are any men who would like to start something up next year, please talk to me after mass or send me a message. I will offer you my absolute support, and will be present as much as I can in the activities that you plan.
