Missions
When the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales arrived in Little Namaqualand, to which the mission was then confined, they found not one hundred Catholics. In 1903, without any change of population, they counted 2735. There were six stations with churches and resident priests, five other stations regularly attended, 125 conversions during the year and 98 children baptized; 122 confirmations, 25 marriages; 3 hospitals and homes for the aged, 8 schools, 3 orphanages, 82 orphans, 8 missionary priests, 3 catechists; 15 missionary sisters aided the mission. Some fifty places were visited by the priests to attend to the spiritual and temporal wants of the people. In several places, all Catholic adults received Holy Communion on the first Friday of every month and the great feasts of the year.
Sella was the residence of the vicar Apostolic and Hierachalis that of the prefect Apostolic. These results were most encouraging, considering the great difficulties confronting the missionaries. In 1909 the approximate statistics for the two missions were: 1 bishop; 14 priests; 3 catechists; 22 missionary sisters; 480 children in Catholic schools; 175 baptisms of children, 315 baptisms of adults. In Little Namaqualand the natives understood Dutch (rather Afrikaans) or English; but in Great Namaqualand, besides German, the extremely difficult click language of the Hottentots had to be mastered.
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Famous quotes containing the word missions:
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)