PUMA, Tanzania — A flourishing missionary congregation in the Tanzanian desert, founded against the odds by a holy and diminutive Bavarian-born religious sister who had an unwavering trust in God, celebrated its 50th jubilee on July 21.
More than 800 local laity and religious, led by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, took part in the festivities, which recalled the remarkable life and witness of Mother Maria Stieren (1923-2008), the founder of the Mothers and Missionaries of the Holy Cross in Puma, near Singida in central Tanzania.
“Here in Puma, and other places where the Mothers and Missionaries of the Holy Cross work, is the true springtime of the Church — a time where the flowers again flourish and bring light and joy,” said Bishop Schneider during the jubilee Mass.
Mother Maria founded the congregation in 1976 after receiving, like St. Teresa of Calcutta, a “call within a call” while she served as a German missionary Benedictine sister in Ndanda in the southern part of Tanzania in the 1960s and ’70s.
Impelled by a need for greater reverence for the Eucharist, and after much discernment, she followed the Lord’s promptings to leave her successful educational work at the Benedictine Abbey in Ndanda and, with five of her female students, embarked on an extraordinary journey to establish a new congregation in a place of most need.
Arriving near Singida with her students but nothing more than $4 in her pocket and her breviary in her shoulder bag, she set about creating a mission that over the past half-century has expanded to include a large hospital, health centers and orphanages, a junior seminary, a girls’ school, and a preschool and primary school.
The congregation has also expanded beyond Tanzania, opening a mission in Anápolis, Brazil, in the 1990s that provides education for street children and orphans. In Germany, it has a home for the elderly in Albbruck near Freiburg. In total, today the congregation has 81 sisters, 21 priests and 13 brothers.
Mother Maria’s approach closely resembled that of Mother Angelica: total confidence in the Lord’s providence and Our Lady’s intercession. “If God wants me to complete a building that will serve the community or help the poor, then I get an idea, and I have to carry it out,” Mother Maria said just months before she died in 2008.
“Before the building is finished, it is paid for — even if I don’t have any money. That’s what we’ve experienced so far. We never have any money, but when it’s needed, it always comes in.”
Father Ratzinger Connection
The buildings and humanitarian work were only ever just part of Mother Maria’s overall mission, which was to bring souls to Christ. Aided in part by the congregation’s co-founder, Italian Franciscan Father Cornelio del Zotto, a former student of then-professor Joseph Ratzinger, she helped convert thousands of souls to Christ, even members of ferocious pagan tribes, often winning them over through food, clothing and simple acts of kindness.
Last week’s celebrations recalled these aspects of Mother Maria’s extraordinary life. In his homily, Bishop Schneider highlighted not only her unwavering trust in divine Providence but also the importance of the meaning of the cross in her life and its prominence in everything she did.
From growing up in Nazi Germany and nursing soldiers during the Second World War to answering the call to be a missionary in Africa and launching out on her own to found her new religious congregation, her whole life revealed an embrace of the cross.
She understood its meaning from an early age and, Bishop Schneider said, she “lived this truth of the Lord: that one cannot go to heaven, obtain true happiness, without the cross.”
“Why? Because our Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnated God, has chosen this way,” he continued. “When God himself, in his wisdom and love, has chosen this path, then it must be the best and the most blessed. And why has God chosen the way of the cross to save us, to open heaven to us? Because the way of the cross is the way of love and God himself is love. And what does love mean? St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus gave the answer: Love means to give all what you have and to give yourself. Mother Maria, therefore, has chosen the title of these congregations to be the cross.”
“You don’t need complicated programs,” Bishop Schneider continued, “just to embrace the cross” because then you will “always be on the right path, and you will always be good daughters and sons of Mother Maria Stieren and your work, your congregation, will be fruitful.”
Bishop Schneider, who became friends with Mother Maria in 1985, also underlined two other “pillars” important to her work: devotion to Our Lady and humility. Her congregation is “profoundly Marian,” he stressed. Recalling her small stature at under 5 feet tall, he remembered how she “radiated such a simplicity” and “always transmitted this simplicity to be little.”
“God loves the little ones,” he said, “and God loves to do His great works with the little ones.”
Two of the five students with Mother Maria when she founded the congregation celebrated their 50 years as missionary sisters of the Mothers of the Holy Cross during the July 21 festivities: Mother Melania Amlima, who is now superior of the female branch of the congregation, and Mother Angela Mniachi, who until recently spent many years at the Anápolis mission. Seven other sisters and four brothers also celebrated their silver jubilees.
After the Mass, Bishop Schneider venerated a relic of St. Benedict of Nursia, a patron of the congregation, which he then offered as a gift to the community.
Speaking to the Register, the superior of the Missionaries of the Holy Cross, Father Antonius Maria Mamsery, said how pleased he was with the celebration and expressed surprise that thousands of people had followed it on social media, including in other African countries. “We received many graces from God during this jubilee,” he said.
Pray for Protection
Joshuah Joachim Mwala, who works with the German medical charity Interplast that assists the mission hospital in Puma, expressed his deep gratitude to God for Mother Maria and the work of the missionary sisters and brothers. He told the Register how the hospital in Puma has “helped the society a great deal,” noting that “Mama Maria started it to help people who were unable to pay for treatment themselves” and that it now “helps many people from all over the Singida region.” He also pointed to the other important services the mission provides, which, he said, is encouraging many of the young people in the region to become religious and priests.
“We need to pray for the congregation,” he said, “that God continue to protect them and that they remain strong spiritually.”
Closing his homily, Bishop Schneider said: “Our hearts and souls are filled with joy and gratitude to Our Lord, and together with Our Lady, St. Benedict, St. Francis and all your patrons, we say these short words: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord.’”
Edward Pentin is the author of a forthcoming biography of Mother Maria, God’s Mighty Little Missionary: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Mother Maria Stieren, which will be published in October by Sophia Institute Press and is available for pre-order. All of the author royalties from the book will be donated to the congregation.
