Little Franciscans of Mary growing in Madagascar

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Looking toward the future, a local religious sister joined others from her congregation on a trip to Madagascar, where they are gaining new vocations. There she saw faith and hospitality in the midst of difficult circumstances and visited a school that some people in the Worcester Diocese helped to fund.
Sister Rena Mae Gagnon, 87, of the Little Franciscans of Mary, told The Catholic Free Press about the April 3-26 trip. She helps Our Lady of Providence Parish in Worcester with its social justice committee and service to immigrants, and teaches English as a second language at the Marie Anne Center in the parish’s St. Bernard Church.
The Little Franciscans of Mary, French-Canadian immigrants who trace their roots to Manchaug and Worcester in the late-1800s, cared for the elderly at what was St. Francis Home in Worcester. They no longer run it, but four sisters still live in Worcester. Two others are in Winthrop, Maine, and about 45 sisters live in the Province of Quebec in Canada, Sister Rena Mae said.
She said their motherhouse was established in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, shortly after they were founded.
Diminishing in numbers and finding it expensive to keep the motherhouse, in 2017 they turned it over to the city and now lease space in a senior housing facility.
Little Franciscans of Mary are in one other country – the Republic of Madagascar, an independent island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa – Sister Rena Mae said. There they have about 43 sisters and three women in formation, all Madagascar natives. They range in age from 20s to 70s and live in five houses in different places. A Canadian sister temporarily living there plans to return to Canada.
The Little Franciscans went to Madagascar after the Second Vatican Council, when religious congregations were invited to send out missionaries, Sister Rena Mae said. Madagascar had been colonized by France, so residents speak French like people in Quebec do.
The sisters arrived there in 1968, and about 10 years later accepted into the congregation the first Malagasy, an ethnic group indigenous to the island.
“The new blood is coming from Madagascar” now, where vocations are coming in, Sister Rena Mae said. “The whole congregation may be re-routed there. That’s where the youth is; that’s where the energy is.”
So, looking to the future, she and four residents of Quebec visited Madagascar “to get a better understanding … (of) the needs of the ministry and the sisters.” She and another sister who had never been to Madagascar went because they are to participate in the congregation’s general chapter, a meeting the sisters hold every five years for the governing of the congregation. It is scheduled for August in Baie-Saint-Paul. Also on the April trip were their superior general, general treasurer, and a laywoman – the congregation’s secretary.
They were happy with the visit to Madagascar, Sister Rena Mae said.
“Our sisters there … do pastoral work” in collaboration with parishes, helping the poor and the youth and offering religious education, she said. Others work in health care or education.
She told about visiting a new school their sisters administer, “built with monies that were raised by our sisters in Canada,” with contributions also from associates, friends or family members of the sisters in Worcester and Maine.  
“The school is very well built … by the local people,” who also made the desks, which helped them earn a living, she said.
Parents whose children walked two to four hours to get to an education had asked the sisters to build a school, she said. One sister is the principal, another teaches there along with lay teachers. The school has primary grades, and the sisters expect to add junior and senior high school.
The visitors got to the school an hour and a half after closing time, but “the whole school was there to welcome us, to sing to us,” Sister Rena Mae said.
She also appreciated the religious devotion she saw in Madagascar.
“It’s beautiful to see so many people at Mass,” at 6 a.m. on weekdays, she said. “There were 20 altar servers” – from young children to teenagers. When it came time for the consecration they stood in front of the altar very reverently, she said.
“I certainly met a joyful people … hardworking, with so little,” she said. Employees on the sisters’ farm beat bunches of rice against rocks, collecting the grains on a tarp to be taken to a mill, so the sisters have rice to eat – morning, noon and night – and maybe extra to sell.
“They don’t have meat every day; they might have it three times a week,” but they have cheese and vegetables, she said. “You cook outside.” Some of the sisters have electric stoves but they do not always have electricity, she said. Their farm has solar energy grids; people take showers at midday, when the water is warm.
“This has been an education – in another world, an appreciation for another culture,” Sister Rena Mae said. “I’ve never seen so many babies. They’re so pretty. But … what is their future?” Some parents cannot afford to send their children to school, she said. Donations the sisters receive help pay for some children’s education, she said.
She wonders what people selling wares along the streets do if “you sit there all day and nobody comes, and you go home none the richer.”
Her experiences in Madagascar will help her be “a voice” for the needs there when she participates in the general chapter, she said. At the meeting, the sisters will likely choose one of their Malagasy sisters to be on the general council, which governs the congregation and which has had only members from Canada and the U.S., she said.
Asked what people here can do for people in Madagascar, Sister Rena Mae said, “Definitely we need prayers for them.”

– Anyone wanting to give financial help can send a check to: Little Franciscans of Mary, 50 Coburn Ave., Worcester, MA 01604.