The Mill Hill Missionaries

Basil Cardinal Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, London, said once, "God in His wisdom and goodness pays man the compliment of being His collaborator" - of letting him also feel and experience the frustrations, difficulties and joys of the continued making and shaping of the world.

Jesus acted likewise. He asked His followers to be His witnesses and to continue His work among all nations. We are to be responsible for the welfare both spiritual and material of our fellowmen.

Understanding and accepting this, made the early followers of Jesus leave their country, leave Asia, and bring the Good News to the people of Europe. In this same understanding and feeling of responsibility, the followers of Jesus in Europe have come to Asia to bring the Good News to people and countries which had not yet heard of Jeus Christ. That explains arrival of the first band of missionaries on the shores of Sabah in 1881. (We are not allowed to forget the almost singlehanded and heroic efforts of Mgr. Quarteron in the years 1858 - 1878).

The first years in Sabah were undoubtedly years of great hardships, of privations and poverty and of many frustrations. We can only admire the faith and the power of endurance of these first missionaries.

In 1891 the first Sisters came to Sabah to help the priests, especially in the task of evangelising the women, and helping them through education and doing medical work among them.

In the course of the years, more and more priests and sisters came, and more and more mission stations were opened. In the 1930s, Mill Hill Brothers arrived to assist the priests in the building of churches, schools and dwelling houses and to train carpenters for the kampungs. In 1956 a group of Brothers started a development project in Bundu Tuhan. With infinite patience and great dedication, they have been instrumental in bringing prosperity to a once very poor district.

But even more important than all these types of missionary work was preparing the minds of the people and make them aware of their own capabilities, and of their responsibilities towards their own brothers and sisters, their own people. A seminary was started and a congregation for local Sisters was formed. A Carmel was built and Catechists were trained. The first Sisters were professed in 1941; the first local priests were ordained in 1946; the Sisters in the Carmel are all local Sisters.

It is more than hundred years since the first coming of the Good News to the people of Sabah. The task of the Mill Hill Missionaries is almost over. Only a handful of them are still working in the Diocese. That is the way it should go. Of great importance is the emerging of a strong local Church, growing more and more in maturity. It is the finest present given to the Mill Hill Missionaries in this Centenary Year.

In a message to the Church in Sabah during the dedication of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in 1981, this was what the Mill Hill missionaries had to say:-

"We (the Mill Hill Missionaries) wish to congratulate you all, dear friends, and we hope and pray that yet many more among you realise and believe that God wants to pay the compliment of being His Collaborators to you also. We hope that then many more will dare to accept this beautiful task and responsibility of being priests, brothers or sisters, of being dedicated laymen, accepting the call to be men for others, following so Jesus Christ. Then no doubt the local Church in Sabah will be a blessing for the people of Sabah and for the people of Asia."

To the Mill Hill Missionaries, we the people of Sabah have this to say,