Excerpts from the Diary of our Missionary Sisters en route to Katete Mission, Northern Nyasaland

11 April 2017

May 19, 1948

 

Smiles, someone has written, are one of the requisites for sanctity. If so they be, the natives who hailed us so heartily at Ntakataka Station this morning are all prospective candidates for canonization. Another good sign is that many had given a conspicuous place to the rosary round their neck. How we should have liked to say even a word of friendliness – but the medley of Babel is still to be deplored in our twentieth century!

At 9:30 we reached Salima, where we were met by Msgr. St-Denis, our paternal Prefect Apostolic. Devoted Brother Jean Marie, who accompanied him, helped us unload our luggage through the windows, after which some natives took charge of it. Then we walked over to a building at the disposal of the passengers, where Monsignor gave us the provisions brought for our breakfast. All hearts, I need not tell you, were gladsome. But we had to be brisk about it, for Katete was still one hundred and ninety miles away, and we wanted to get home before nightfall. Two of us climbed in Monsignor’s jeep, the other twosome in the luggage truck, ans off we rode.

Before we left the village, Monsignor was so kind as to wire a reassuring message to our dear Mothers and Sisters of Cote des Neiges […]

 

(The Precursor, Septembrer-October 1948, p. 630)