Harvesting the global power of mission

We all need leaders who are going to put the people first. We look to Jesus. Jesus taught about the common good of the people.”

Father Henry Ussher, missionary priest, pastor of St. Clement Parish in St. Clement, St. Joseph Parish in Louisiana and the Mission of Mary Queen of Peace in Clarksville

The House of Ussher is flooded with unending light.

Money from the Jefferson City diocese’s Mission Collection paid for solar panels for the hospital built by Father Henry Ussher in his home diocese in Ghana.

“People are being helped. At least 100 people every month in my hometown are being taken care of,” said Fr. Ussher, pastor of St. Clement Parish in St. Clement, St. Joseph Parish in Louisiana and the Mission of Mary Queen of Peace in Clarksville.

“That is part of what the Church here has done, what the people here have done,” he stated.

The diocesan Missions Office dispensed about $350,000 last year to help the Church minister to people and improve their lives through mission partnerships with overseas dioceses.

The main source of money for the Missions Office is the annual Mission Collection, which will be taken up in parishes throughout the diocese the weekend of July 19-20.

A special envelope for the collection is inserted in this issue of The Catholic Missourian.

Contributions can also be made securely online by visiting: diojeffcity.org/donate-missions.

“What people give is doing good things outside the diocese, and many lives have been changed,” said Fr. Ussher.

He noted that the power grid in his hometown in Ghana is not reliable.

“So, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a whole day, there would be no lights in the hospital,” he said.

That changed in 2023.

Archbishop Shawn McKnight, who led the Jefferson City diocese from 2018 to this past May, authorized the Missions Office to pay about $25,000 to install solar panels, the first in the area, on the hospital building.

“It’s a great thing,” said Fr. Ussher. “Through it’s not able to power all the equipment, we at least have 24/7 light again, and that’s been a huge help,” he said.

World of difference

Missionary priests from Africa, India and South America bring a new strain of joy and vitality to parishes throughout the diocese.

One of the ways the people thank their priests is by helping them grow the Church in their homelands.

“The focus of the Missions Office is, while we can’t save the entire world, we can do wonderful things by helping the missionary priests who are serving here to help lift up and do good works in their home diocese,” said Jake Seifert, senior diocesan director of development and missions.

“We have this great, longstanding relationship with our missionary priests,” Mr. Seifert noted. “They have become so vital to our diocese. We wouldn’t have the vibrant diocese that we have here without them.”

They help sustain the faith here, and the people here help sustain the faith in the missionary priests’ home dioceses.

Last year, the Missions Office paid to complete the second floor of a Catholic school building in the Diocese of Jashpur, India, home to Father Walter Kispotta.

Funding from the Missions Office paid to build two new Catholic grade schools, build a kitchen and bathrooms at another grade school and build a new kitchen at a Catholic high school in the Archdiocese of Kampala, Uganda, home of four priests who are serving in this diocese.

Donations to the Missions Office renovated and enlarged a chapel in the Diocese of Puntarena, Costa Rica, home of Fr. Greivin F. Rodríguez Agüero.

Renovations to a school and the diocesan Pastoral Center in the Diocese of Daltonganj, India, home of Father Alexander Gabriel, was completed with funds from the Missions Office.

Support also went to seminarians in India and Uganda and to the Merida Foundation in the Yucatan Peninsula, which feeds many children and matches used eyeglasses to people in need.

“We distributed $350,000 last year!” said Mr. Seifert. “While that might seem like a modest figure in terms of the cost of building in the United States, when you’re talking about building in countries with developing economies, it’s a staggering sum.”

In addition to grants for projects such as these, the Missions Office presents $2,500 per year to the home diocese of each missionary priest serving here.

In Fr. Ussher’s diocese in Ghana, that money helps pay for the seminary fees for men who are discerning a call to Priesthood.

“There are a lot who want to become priests, who have a desire to go to the seminary,” said Fr. Ussher. “But the subsidy from Rome has dwindled. So, the bishop has to supplement. And the cost of everything is going up, and if the diocese doesn’t have enough income, it becomes difficult.

“So, that money going in every year helps cushion him to take care of the seminarians,” he said.

“Come and see”

Fr. Ussher recently led a group of his parishioners on a 12-day faith-cultural mission to the Diocese of Wiawso, Ghana, and the neighboring Diocese of Sekondi-Takoradi, where he grew up.

“Being their first time to be on the African continent, the 12 disciples walked in the footsteps of the missionaries who sowed the Catholic faith in Ghana — specifically in the Wiawso diocese, to foster oneness and to share our common Christian values — charity, mutual help, kindness and reaching out to those in need, among others,” Fr. Ussher stated.

They visited the hospital Fr. Ussher spent 13 years building, as well as the Catholic school he’s helping to build.

He celebrated Mass with them in the diocesan cathedral.

They toured St. Joseph Catholic Basic and Junior High School, which has about 1,000 students, 150 of whom board at the school.

“And they have a kitchen — an open pavilion not as big even as the room here, with only a roof on it,” said Fr. Ussher.

“That’s where all of the children’s food is cooked,” he stated. “And there’s an empty room in the school that has no chairs. Those who live there eat in the morning, the afternoon and the evening.”

Fr. Ussher wept when he saw the kitchen.

“Because when it’s raining, the rain comes in the sides, the fire goes out, and the children are hungry,” he observed.

He said some things had improved in his diocese since he came to minister in Missouri 13 years ago — such as the ordination of about 20 new priests.

“The faith has grown, and young men have responded to the call to become priests,” he stated. “We started the diocese in 1999 with only 19 priests,” he said. “By the time I came here, there were 30 or 31. Now, there are 55.”

But many things, regrettably, have stood still.

“Structure-wise, there hasn’t been much improvement,” said Fr. Ussher. “Only rich people can get elected to government roles, and they often don’t take the common good to heart.”

Getting better

Fr. Ussher got the idea to build a hospital while ministering in the Wiawso diocese.

Little by little during his time here in the United States, he sent money home and worked with people there to establish a place of healing.

People from the various parishes he’s served at here obtained hospital beds medical equipment and helped pay to send them to Ghana.

“It’s about a 65-bed capacity,” said Fr. Ussher. “It includes an outpatient department, an inpatient department, a maternity unit and a surgical ward,” he said.

He’s waiting for a more robust regular power source to run the surgical equipment before opening the surgery ward.

People pay a modest fee for treatment, which helps cover costs and pay the hospital staff.

“In the future, there may be nuns who are in charge of the administration of it,” he said. “That’s what I’m working on.”

He’s sending a young parishioner to the university to study radiography.

“He will complete his studies in November and will be able to come and use our scan and X-ray machines,” the priest noted.

Joyful flock

Ghana is located on Africa’s west coast, about 5 degrees north of the Equator.

The weather is warm all year.

About 70 percent of the nation’s nearly 34 million people are Christian. Of those, about one-third are Catholic.

The people are devout and observant. The churches are bulging at the seams for Mass every Sunday and on holydays of obligation.

Christians and Muslims get along well, many having married into each other’s families over the generations.

Fr. Ussher’s diocese is a rural community where about 70 percent of the people are peasant farmers.

The main cash crop is cocoa, which is slowly recovering after being hit in recent years by a deadly blight.

Farming without heavy equipment is difficult.

“To plant an acre or two, you have to use cattle to help break up the clay,” said Fr. Ussher. “And if you have big trees, you have to use an axe to cut them.”

It’s a hard life, but a very good life, he said.

“Most people don’t have much, but everybody is happy,” he said. “That is the life there. You live within your means and you appreciate what you get.”

Children are happy to walk to school and to fetch water outside.

“If you don’t have an alternative, you make use of what is there and go on with life,” he said.

The people are joyful and fun, and life is simple.

“You feel happy, you feel alive,” said Fr. Ussher. “The Church is vibrant. You go to church and sing God’s praises.”

At least 90 percent of Christians regularly go to church, he said.

Social structures are built mostly around communities and extended families.

“That’s the life I grew up in,” Fr. Ussher stated. “We support each other.”

What’s desperately needed is for the people who are wealthy to invest in things that help other people earn a living, rather than just building huge houses for themselves, he said.

The Catholic schools are trying to give the young people the skills they’ll need to become leaders and entrepreneurs, while nurturing the Christian ideals that wealth and power are to be used correctly.

“We all need leaders who are going to put the people first,” said Fr. Ussher. “We look to Jesus. Jesus taught about the common good of the people.”

The priest spoke of Jesus’s Parable of the Shepherd and the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:12-14 and Luke 15:3-7).

“He left the 99 to go and look for the one that was lost,” said Fr. Ussher. “If the 99 sheep are already secured and they love each other, then they’re ready to support one other even if the shepherd isn’t right there with them.”

Grand reunion

Fr. Ussher looks forward to the day when all the people from the Jefferson City diocese and all the people from his home diocese finally get to meet in heaven.

What will they say to each other?

“We’ll say, ‘We made it! We made it together!” he said.

He pointed to all the people who will be served by priests who got to go to the seminary because people helped with their fees.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” he said. “We have to help one another on our faith journey, no matter where we are.”

He called to mind the missionaries from the United States and Ireland who first preached the Gospel to his ancestors in Ghana.

“They didn’t even understand the language,” Fr. Ussher noted. “There wasn’t any road at the time. The people had to carry some of the priests in a palanquin, so they could get from one town to another.

“They sowed the faith, and the seed has grown,” he said. “And now, I get to help the Church grow here, in the United States, while sowing the faith and sharing the joy of my people.”

To God through Mary

Fr. Ussher asks for prayers for his people back home.

“I pray that the faith will continue to grow there, that there will be people who invest in things that lead to opportunities and development, and that the people will continue to hope for better things to come,” he said.

“I pray for more truly Christian leaders who will govern selflessly,” he added.

He suggested praying the Rosary frequently.

“We go to Mother Mary, because, she took care of the child Jesus for us,” he said.

“He entrusted her to us and us to her, so when we go to her, we know she will pray for us and our needs.”