FATHER JOSEPH GÉRARD:
OBLATE OF MARY IMMACULATE

by Gerard O'Hara, OMI, MA, PhD

INTRODUCTION

Just over 30 years ago I went from Natal, South Africa, to Lesotho, in search of Fr Joseph Gérard. I had read and heard much about him and I was keen to visit the place where he had lived and worked for 52 years. I had youth on my side then and it led me to emulate some of his long treks on horseback. I will never forget one day in particular when Fr Ernest Ruch and I climbed the Machache peak and also visited Thaba-Bosiu, the Mountain of Night, where the renowned King Moshoeshoe 1, the Lion of the Mountain, used to live. We rose long before dawn and, among other exertions, spent eight hours in the saddle before we got home utterly exhausted in the evening. I needed no other experience to convince me of the hardships that Fr Gérard endured!

I was also privileged at that time to meet people who had actually known him. There was Sister Johannes, a Holy Family Sister, who was then 98; at the end of a novena to him she had been cured inexplicably of a gaping wound which earlier had refused to heal and she told me: "Fr Gérard had humility without limit. I have never seen anyone like him." Priests who had lived with him - one of them for eleven years - agreed that he was an extraordinary man. Quite near to Thaba-Bosiu an old man, who claimed that he was a nephew of Moshoeshoe, told me that he could recall the days when Fr Gérard had called at his father's house on his errands of mercy. And working at the major seminary in Roma was Florina Phakela who se cure, through the intercession of Fr Gérard was accepted as an authentic miracle when the Cause for his Beatification was being promoted in Rome.

When I returned to Natal I wrote a short life of Fr Gérard which is now out of print. Another one was needed in view of the growing interest in him since the official announcement that Pope John Paul 11 would beatify him during his visit to Lesotho in September (1988), and I hope this brief biography will provide answers to questions people are asking about him. Although I have written it for the ordinary reader, I have tried to avoid sacrificing accuracy for popularity. I have relied heavily on the letters, diaries, and memoirs of Fr Gérard and other historical sources that were available to me and I have often let him speak for himself. I have been helped by works of various authors such as Trekking for Souls by Fr John Brady and, in a special way, by the substantial biography of Fr Gérard Clartés Australes, by Fr Aimé Roche. I have also been helped by fairly recent scholarly works such as Professor Joy Brain's Catholic Beginnings in Natal and Beyond, and the doctoral thesis of Fr Jerome Skhakhane, The Catholic Pioneer Attempt to Evangelize the Zulu.

I am grateful to all who have assisted me in any way to produce this simple story of Fr Gérard. Most of all I feel indebted to Fr Howard St. George. His book on Bishop Jean-Francois Allard, Failure and Vindication, the product of many years of tireless research, is in a class of its own and has much to say about Fr Gérard who served under Allard. Fr St. George is a living source of Oblate history and, at 85, retains the zest and generosity that have always marked his life of dedication to the Oblate Congregation and its Zulu missions.

He is a vital link with past insofar as his paternal grandparents, Sir Theophilus and Lady Maria St George, knew Bishop Allard (and presumably Fr Gérard) very well. In fact the Bishop baptised three of their seven children including the one who was to become Fr St. George's father, and he had business dealings with Sir Theophilus who was the resident magistrate in Pietermaritzburg. The St. George family later moved to a home outside Pietermaritzburg on the road to Richmond and when I went, with Fr St. George as guide, to visit the early Oblate missions he pointed it out to me. He said that he knows for certain that his grandmother provided food for Bishop Allard when he passed that way, walking on his long journey to the missions with only a few cold roasted mealies in his pocket, and he feels quite sure that she must have helped Fr Gérard in similar circumstances.

G O'Hara
Oblate Centre
Convent Close
Glenmore
Durban

NOTES:
1. As practically all the Bishops, Fathers and Brothers mentioned in these pages are Oblates of Mary Immaculate, I have dispensed with the usual O.M.I. initials after their names. The exceptions are Abbé Cayens, Blessed Jacques-Désiré Laval, Bishop Allen Collier, Fr Jacobus Hoendervangers and Fr Benedict Marole.

2. In referring to the people of Lesotho I have used the singular, 'Mosotho', and the plural, 'Basotho'; the language is 'Sesotho', which is also often used as an adjective.

CHAPTER ONE

YEARS TO REMEMBER

(FRANCE 1831-1853)

Joseph Gérard came from a modest French home which prepared him well for his life's work. His father, Jean Gérard, and his mother, Ursule Stofflet, were people of the soil and they lived in the small French village of Bouxiérès-aux-Chênes- (near Nancy) in Lorraine. It was there that Joseph, the eldest of their five children, was born on March 12, 1831. His parents gave him a profound example of Christian living and left him the legacy of a sturdy physique which would stand him in good stead during his missionary days in South Africa and Lesotho. His early years must have affected him very deeply because he was able to recall them vividly even towards the end of his life. He remembered in a special way the days he spent as a herdsboy when, all alone in the silence of the pastures, he had felt close to God. Being a herdsboy in Lorraine gave him later an affinity with the herdsboys of Lesotho. He had a special affection for them and went out of his way to catechise and instruct them during their lonely watches.

He also looked back in his old age on the people who had a marked influence on his life. One of these was Sister Odile who had taught him catechism and whose words he could recall for the benefit of his children at the mission. He also recalled his first Holy Communion:

"One could wish, he wrote, 'that this day would never end, never give place to another... It has never been effaced from my memory. "

Besides Sister Odile there were two others who had a decisive influence on young Gérard. One of them was a Monsieur Richard who offered to pay for his education and taught him the art of prayer by leading him meditatively through the fourth book of the Imitation of Christ. The other was the parish priest, Abbe Cayens, who had himself been a missionary in Algeria for a time. He told Joseph Gérard about his experiences, and seeing in the boy a possible future priest, he arranged Latin lessons for him and eventually guided him to the minor seminary at There he was to begin the studies which it was hoped would culminate one day in his being ordained a priest.

Some 36 years later he wrote in his memoirs that in the minor seminary he had saints for his mentors. These men generously allowed others to reap the fruit of their labour by opening their seminary to visiting missionaries. One of the visitors was Fr Leonard Bavaux who came about the end of 1847.

He was a member of a recently established religious Congregation, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. It had been founded in 1816 by Fr Eugene de Mazenod who was to become Bishop of Marseilles in 1837 and who was beatified in 1975. Fr Bavaux had been one of his Congregation's pioneers in Canada where the Oblates had started a mission in 1841 and where he had worked among the Algonquin and Iroquois Indians. His stimulating narrative stirred Joseph Gérard and his friend, Antoine Mouchette, and helped them hear the call of missionary life.

Another Oblate, Fr Louis Dassy, came to preach two retreats to them, one at Pont-A-Mousson and the other at the major seminary in Nancy where they had gone after finishing at the minor seminary. Fr Dassy had never been beyond the shores of France. Unlike some of his confreres he had never ministered to the Indian tribes of the Great North West but he had a marked impact on the two young seminarians. They had yet another example of Oblate missionary fervour when Fr Nicholas Laverlochere also spoke to them about the Canadian missions where he had worked, and a few months later they were both knocking at the door of the Oblate novitiate of Notre Dame de l'Osier, Our Lady of the Willow.

This novitiate had been opened by de Mazenod as the place of initial training for his Congregation which in 35 years had spread amazingly to Switzerland, Corsica, Algeria, England, Canada, America, Texas and Sri Lanka. When Joseph Gérard arrived he was warmly received by a community that had prayed ardently for more members. A novice, Mathieu Balain, who was afterwards to become the Archbishop of Auch, told of his great joy in admitting the newcomer because he himself, until then the latest arrival, had been jokingly accused of closing the door too firmly against all others.

Young Gérard soon settled down in his new environment. He was impressed by the piety of those who coached him, and drew much profit from the fact that the successive novice masters, Frs James Santoni and Gustave Richard, were as different as could be. Fr Santoni was of a pleasant disposition and therefore understandably inclined to the sober and affectionate spirituality of St Francis de Sales. He shared the conviction of Francis that one can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrelful of vinegar. Fr Richard had chosen quite another way. For him, and for those who cared to follow him, the path to God was one of austerity and self-effacement. Brother Gérard as he was then called, seems to have taken kindly to both of them and made good progress. Fr Richard had once written of him: "I believe that Our Blessed Lady wants to make a saint of him." And so she guarded him, this Lady of the Willow, and brought him safely through the trials of novitiate life until on May 10, 1852, he offered himself irrevocably to Christ her Son by perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and perseverance

Before his novitiate he had already completed the greater part of his clerical studies in the minor seminary at Pont-a-Mousson and in the major seminary at Nancy, and so did not have to spend long in the Marseilles seminary where he now went to finish his course. Fr de Mazenod had by this time undertaken the running of this seminary and sent his own Oblate students there. Because he considered this work to be "so sacred... and of such great importance" he staffed it with the finest of his men. The superior was Fr Henry Templer who had been the first companion and confidant of de Mazenod. Among the lecturers were Fr Dominic Albini, whose Cause for Beatification has been introduced at Rome, and Fr Joseph Fabre who, on the death of Bishop de Mazenod in 1861, was elected second Superior General of the Oblate Congregation. Joseph Gérard once again made the most of it. The archives of the Congregation in Rome preserve reports on his character which describe him as "...a model... always happy and ready to help his confreres, eager for mortification and humiliations... having an extraordinary devotion to the Blessed Virgin." There is however a note of criticism: one of his superiors thought he was rather stiff and formal and that his too-evident piety might as easily repel as attract others.

Whatever the case, it seems quite certain that he was well advanced spiritually when, on April 3, 1853, he stepped forward to be, ordained deacon by Bishop de Mazenod. The correspondence of later years shows quite clearly that these two were kindred souls from the beginning and when Gérard went out to promote the kingdom of God in South Africa and Lesotho, de Mazenod followed him in thought, from far away, with fatherly anxiety. It was not an easy decision for a Superior General to have a youth of 22, not yet a priest, launch out into the deep for the recently founded Vicariate of Natal in South Africa. But the Oblate Founder was bound by a promise. He had assured Bishop Allard, whom he had ordained as Vicar-Apostolic of Natal in 1851, that he would send other labourers into the South African vineyard as soon as possible, and Br Gérard had been asked for by the new missionary Bishop.

And so, in May 1853, he felt behind him the formative days of his youth and sailed from France in the company of Fr Justin Barret and Br Pierre Bernard. He decided that the parting was to be forever. He was to see France no more but he was always to remember her. A few days before his death at the age of 83 a postcard, sent by his family, set him upon a track of memories. He recalled the church in which he had made his first Holy Communion, the details of its belfry, its Stations of the Cross which he still remembered had cost 1 400 francs, its altar of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, the picture of St Mary Magdalen and the pealing of the bells.

"And," he wrote in reply: I very clearly remember the fine men of Bouxieres, our fathers, our uncles, and those other sturdy relatives, who searched the woods to get timber for our altars in the streets. I have not forgotten a thing, you see, and I always think of my dear village. "

CHAPTER TWO

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

(NATAL 1854-1862)

The frigate which had the three Oblates aboard left Toulon and, following prevailing winds, it called first at Rio de Janeiro. After that it sailed past the South African coast, eventually reaching the Island of Bourbon (Reunion). It must have been a relief for them to transfer there, from a boat on which they had to contend with the gibes and irreligion of rowdy sailors, to the Jeanne d'Arc which was captained by a devout Catholic. Their next port of call was Mauritius where they had to wait for over two months for a sailing to Natal. It was time well spent for they met the remarkable Spiritan Father, Blessed Jacques-Desire Laval, who instructed them in his own ingenious and fruitful missionary methods. Mauritius in turn benefited by their zeal. Three months before they arrived in Durban Bishop Allen Collier of Port Louis had written to Bishop Allard to say:

"I cannot allow your two excellent missionaries, Fr Barret and Br Gérard to leave without writing a few words to express my sincere gratitude for their service during the last two months that they stayed here. Fr Barret often heard confessions and Br. Gérard has administered the sacrament of Baptism and conducted several funerals. On every possible occasion they were ready to fulfill my slightest wish in their regard. I congratulate your Lordship on having such zealous and edifying missionaries for your Vicariate."

When they found a boat for Natal they left Mauritius to sail first to the Cape and then to Durban, arriving on January 21, 1854. Fr jean-Baptiste Sabon who had come out with Bishop Allard and Fr Julien Logegary in 1852 received them with open arms. They spent some days with him before going to Pietermaritzburg which Bishop Allard had chosen as his episcopal see. Almost immediately afterwards they joined in the Oblate annual retreat which ended on February 17, the 28th anniversary of Rome's approval of the their Congregation. Two days later Br Gérard was ordained priest by Bishop Allard.

The Oblates now had one bishop (Allard), four priests (Sabon, Logegary, Barret and Gérard and one brother (Bernard). There was only one other priest to help them, Fr Jacobus Hoendervangers 0. Praem., who had come to South Africa in 1849 from his Premonstratensian monastery in Grimbergen, Belgium, and was stationed in Bloemfontein, This pioneer band was responsible for the Vicariate of Natal which, as they knew it, comprised not merely Natal itself but also the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, part of the Cape Province, Swaziland, Zululand, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Lesotho - an area covering more than 800 000 square kilometres. Their numbers by comparison were infinitesimal and this disproportion is all the more striking when one recalls some of the best known missionary treks. In later years Fr Victor Bompart, for example, set out on foot and spent 32 days in atrocious conditions on a journey from Durban to Maputo in Mozambique, returning in the same way. Fr Frederic Porte, who worked in Botswana, once walked more than 1 600 kms in three months.

Fr Gérard and his good friend, Fr Barret, began their missionary life in Pietermaritzburg where they ministered to the white colonists who were mainly Irish. For this they had to learn English but their chief concern lay in preparing themselves for work among the Zulus and so they had obviously to learn Zulu as well. As they were not able to find teachers they went to live in a Zulu village and assimilated all they could of Zulu language and life the hard way. Fr Gérard, particularly, mastered Zulu rapidly and after Christmas he and Barret were asked by Allard to visit Chief Dumisa near Umzinto, with a view to getting his permission to build a mission in his territory. They walked to their destination - a direct distance of about 75 kms but much further by the route they had to take -in the fierce summer heat and slept out at night on the ground.

They were successful in their request and then went back to Pietermaritzburg to prepare for their apostolate among the Zulus. They left again on foot in February on a journey which took them five days, and which, according to a letter of Fr Gérard, to his parents, involved all kinds of hardships, including a downpour which soaked them to the skin on their very first day. They also suffered hunger and sleeplessness; they had to clear their way through dense forest and they were in danger from wild animals like lions, leopards, wild dogs and warthogs. Eventually they arrived at the place where Dumisa agreed they could settle among the Amacele, one of the Zulu clans.

Fr Gérard told his parents about this first mission which was dedicated to St Michael the Archangel:

"Fr Barret and myself have been assigned the work of planting the Cross in the midst of several thousand people, distributed here and there in the immense diocese of Bishop Allard. Among the Zulus here, the empire of the devil is widespread and very solidly established. If we did not have confidence in the God of mercies, the weapons would fall from our hands. But the Lord is almighty. He holds in his hands the hearts of all people; the Zulus are not excepted. One of them asked us in fairly good English what we sought. We answered in Zulu that we were sent by God, that we did not come to look for gold, nor for cattle but that our mission was to teach people the things of God and help them become good.

We immediately began the construction of a chapel, which was opened to the people in September 1855 We began by singing Veni Creator (a hymn invoking the help of the Holy Spirit). The Zulus united their voice to ours by a pleasant humming. They are born musicians. However, although they are being evangelised, they are not yet converted... Immorality is very widespread among these people. But, if they become Christians, they will be as good as they are now immoral, because they have a lot of good common sense and they undertake nothing without a long deliberation. When the light of truth is brilliant enough for them to see they will follow it with generosity. "

Unfortunately his great desire to convert the Amacele was thwarted. The rains came literally and metaphorically. A torrential downpour beat on the chapel they had built making it unfit for use. Dumisa launched an attack on the Amacele who fled before him and settled in the Umzimkulu valley. He would have allowed the missionaries to stay on but they thought it better to leave and thus, sadly ended the Oblates' first attempt at evangelisation. Fr Gérard, who had been very III at one stage during this period, wrote to Bishop de Mazenod telling him of the obstacles they had to face and also of an accident in the Umkomaas river where he himself had come near to drowning. He expressed his desire to go back to mission work:

"I am in love with the work among them though I realise it will be difficult and thankless. " Then he added paradoxically: "The days when we have had to suffer have been the happiest of all."

After leaving St Michael's Gérard, and Barret went to join Bishop Allard and with him they worked again among the white colonial Catholics in Pietermaritzburg and in areas around it. Allard had always been noted for his dedication to the Rule of the Oblates. Even in a missionary country where others would have felt justified in adapting the Rule to local conditions and allowing for a wider and more benign interpretation of it, he kept to the letter of the law and insisted that others should do the same. His inflexibility was thought by some to be least partly responsible for the fact that three of the five Oblates who came with him had defected, two going back to Europe and one joining a Protestant Church. All his life Allard was the object of much criticism which, in the end, caused him to resign in 1874 and retire to Rome where he died in 1889. Some of this criticism came from de Mazenod who wrote unsparingly to him about the failure of the Zulu mission. It is hardly possible that Gérard too did not feel the sting which de Mazenod's letters carried because he was always a faithful disciple and a staunch supporter of Allard. They must both have smarted under the chastisement of their Superior General who was never known to mince his words.

In May, 1857, de Mazenod wrote:

"There is reason for extreme concern in the lack of success of your mission to the Africans. There are few examples of such sterility. What! not a single one of those to whom you have been sent has opened his eyes to the truth you were bringing them! I have difficulty in consoling myself over it since you were not sent to the few heretics who inhabit your towns. It is to the Africans that you have been sent. It is, therefore, to the Africans that you must direct all your thoughts and efforts. All your missionaries must know this and take it to heart. "

In November he wrote again:

"I must admit, my dear Lord Bishop, that your letters still trouble me greatly. Up until now your mission is a failed mission. Frankly, one does not send a Vicar Apostolic and a fairly large number of missionaries for them to look after a few scattered settlements of old Catholics... What is particularly disturbing is that you have so many complaints about those working with you. Examine your conscience a little before God, and see whether you ought not to make some changes in your relations with them, and in the way you are running things... Since I am discussing disturbing facts, you will allow me to say that you keep too much out of Practical action and involve yourself in administration. Elsewhere I see the Vicars Apostolic putting their bands to the plough like any other missionary. It seems to me that you are not acting in this way, and perhaps one ought to attribute the failure of your mission so far to the methods you are using... It is a fact that it is unheard of for a Vicar Apostolic, that is a Bishop, and three or four missionaries to be sent to the pagans and not to manage to produce a single conversion, not to speak of forming a small Christian group."

By the time the second letter arrived Allard had been to visit St Michael's and it was decided to reestablish the mission. Frs Gérard and Bompart, a newcomer, went in February, 1858, to start building huts for their accommodation, almost three years to the day that the first ill-fated mission had been attempted; the Bishop joined them in March. In Gérard's words he "arrived one day exhausted, practically unable to stand. He had walked all the way in the blazing sun." He then took his part in the back-breaking work of building and in a letter to de Mazenod told him of the difficulties that this involved. It may have been his way of saying that he had taken de Mazenod's strictures to heart.

Eventually they completed their chapel and, before it was officially opened in July, Gérard and Bompart went around to invite people to the celebration. It was quite an imposing ceremony at which Gérard preached and afterwards questioned the people on what they had heard. Later, on Sundays, the Oblates held simple Zulu services with hymns, a sermon, and the litany of the Blessed Virgin. The numbers at these services were reasonable thanks largely to the fact that the missionaries had made a practice of visiting the homesteads and encouraging the people to attend. But after a time, when there was no sign of any conversion, they began to get despondent. Allard said that they had encountered opposition to their preaching and Gérard wrote dolefully to de Mazenod:

"At the present we find ourselves in most painful circumstances; everything seems lost, and for ever, in this locality. The Africans are becoming harder and harder of heart. The women, at first prevented from coming by their husbands, did come at last, but it was either through fear or to curry favour I was unable to obtain anything from them at catechism... The only prayer, the Lord's prayer, translated into Zulu, is recited as play-acting. They turn everything to ridicule... "

The Bishop and Gérard were in fact so disillusioned that they left the mission to Fr Bompart and another newcomer, Fr Francois le Bihan, who later closed it in 1863, and they went on to visit their former flock, the Amacele tribe. They were so delighted with the reception they got that they decided on a third attempt at establishing a mission. On Gérard's suggestion it was to be called the mission of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. It was a title that was appropriate as was the remark of Allard describing the area as the land they had come to water with their tears. They opened a chapel in October 1860 and hoped * for better results than they had found elsewhere. Tragically it was not to be. After their initial efforts seemed promising there came a time when they began to suffer the same sense of defeat that they had ex perienced before. There was one man who tried to console them and Fr Gérardwrote about him to de Mazenod:

"One of the most influential of the Zulus here, speaking in the name of all the others, told me that there was only one thing which prevented the African people from following the white people in their religion: this one obstacle is the wives that must be given up. 'Ah!' he said, 'why did you not come sooner when we were young and bad but one wife? Anyhow it is not your fault; you have instructed us with the words of the Chief from above. Do not have a sorrowful heart, do not worry!' "

But it was too late for such consolation. After only nine months Allard and Gérard once more decided to close their mission and set out yet again to find another more promising place. Perhaps they did so because of what de Mazenod had written to Gérard in September 1860, eight months before his death in May 1861:

"After so many years not a single conversion; it is awful!... (but) You must not lose heart because of it. The time will come when the merciful grace of God will produce a sort of explosion and your African Church will be formed. You ought perhaps to penetrate deeper among these tribes in order to bring this about."

de Mazenod's prediction of an explosion seems to suggest that he had some prophetic insight. There was indeed to be an explosion of faith, but not in Natal. The Oblates' mission attempt there had apparently been a complete failure but in God's own way it had prepared Allard and Gérard for the work that still lay before them. They must have been forced to analyse the reasons for their failure. Perhaps the most important of these was that they were overanxious and over-hasty in their desire to get results. One could hardly blame them for this, especially as they were told by de Mazenod that other Oblate missions in Canada and Sri Lanka were flourishing, and here they were, almost ten years after their arrival, without as much as one African convert to their name! As Gérard put it succinctly:

"Three failures one after another: to come so far and to accomplish so little!"

Moreover, it emerges from letters written by Allard and Gérard that they had taken a largely negative view of the Zulus, and had not properly appreciated the real positive values and strength in ' their religion and traditional society. It was to be about 25 years before Gérard on a visit to Natal, would be able to see and admire the growth of the Catholic Church among them. But for the moment he and Allard took de Mazenod's advice to penetrate further. They made their way over the Drakensberg Mountains and spent some time visiting scattered Catholics in the Orange Free State (South Africa). Then, on the advice of an Irish trader whom they met there, they crossed the Caledon River and ventured into Lesotho - the land of promise.

CHAPTER THREE

THRUST AND PARRY

(ROMA 1862-1876)

Fr Gérard recalled the early days of the Oblates in Lesotho when at the age of 79 he wrote his memoirs which, of their nature, may or may not be correct in every detail:

"We left the Zulu mission of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. We were searcbing for a nation better disposed. We found the Basotho still independent at that time. They were governed by King Moshoeshoe. For over 20 years the Calvinists (Paris Evangelical Protestant missionaries) were established there. They had made many disciples... We began by making a little retreat near the residence of King Moshoeshoe, to place our mission under the protection of the Blessed Virgin... We climbed the Mountain of Moshoeshoe, Thaba Bosiu... Moshoeshoe was a good old man.... He made us completely at ease. He was very happy with our project to instruct his people in the Good News and to help them become good Christians; he told us to collect our luggage in Natal and to return to his country without delay. After some preparation in Natal, we returned (this time bringing Br Bernard) to Thaba Bosiu, October 21, 1862, after many hardships, many of our trek-oxen dying from drought and poison grass. Moshoeshoe sent one of his sons to lead us to the site be bad given us. The Bishop and the King resolved that the mission would be called Motse-oa-MhJesu i.e. the Village of the Mother of Jesus, later called Roma mission (because many of its people were Roman Catholics). The nation of Lesotho is therefore the nation of Mary. "

Gérard also wrote of the way in which they were received by Sepota, a chief in the Roma valley, to whom they had been recommended by Moshoeshoe. He and his people were Matabele - an offshoot of the Zulus - and Fr Gérard recalled many years later that Sepota unlike some others had treated the Oblates well, giving them food and protection when they were still living in tents. Sepota himself, fifty years later, was converted to Catholicism and this was, to Gérard's mind, a fitting reward for his kindness to the early missionaries.

Eventually a chapel was built and, in preparing for the opening, Fr Gérard spent three days sheltering in the mountain rocks. He said he had gone there to become recollected before God and to think out what he had to say in an unfamiliar language (Sesotho) before what was to be a large and imposing audience; it was indeed a festive occasion which King Moshoeshoe graced with his presence. He expressed his desire to see the Catholic Church prosper and told the chiefs with him to give it their support.

The Church began to take root but only slowly. Gérard had to wait for more than two years before he was able to admit his first catechumen, Puleng. Puleng had lived a pagan life. She had enjoyed its debaucheries and revelries, ridiculed anything Christian, and even a serious illness had not brought her to her senses. When her friends thought her dead they prepared her for burial. They bent her knees to her chin and tied her in this position so that, when the bonds were broken on the resurrection day, she might leap with greater ease towards the land from which she had come. All would have gone well if it had not been for a young relative called Selloane who heard Puleng's baby crying and, flouting a solemn Sotho superstition, held the child to its mother's breast. Puleng who had only been in a coma revived and later flung herself once again into the abandon of her earlier days. Music was her delight and when she was told of the big 'drum' at the mission she made a special point of going to see it. The big 'drum' was really a battered harmonium. When Puleng arrived someone was coaxing from it the impressive melody of a Sesotho hymn. At first she seemed to undergo a bout of hysteria but when she was taken to the Village of the Mother of Jesus she grew calm and told Fr Gérard that she wished to become a Christian. Fifty years later she spoke of his reaction: "Fr Gérard taken aback, looked at me for a moment; he had never before heard these words on African lips."

Fr Gérard won his converts only at great cost to himself. Humanly speaking there was nothing attractive about the way of life he had been called to follow in a country that had little in common, and among people who had even less in common, with his own background. His early days in Lesotho demanded an acute adaptation both physically and mentally. His ministry was one long round of unremitting effort. He set out in the early morning rosary in hand, and spent all day on horseback and on foot, climbing mountains, struggling through out-the-way places and fording rivers. There was no respite for him as he went about like his Master doing good, preaching, catechising, visiting, encouraging, warning and rewarding. When the sun had gone down and the Sesotho world was still, he would not even then let up. There were prayers to be said, the Divine Office to be read and instructions to be prepared. At times he fell asleep over them and, in later years, when his eyesight was failing his Bishop told him not to use the dim candlelight. Fr Gérard obeyed but not before making enquiries as to whether the Bishop's command also ruled out the use of a lamp!

Working on St Paul's principle, becoming all things to all people, he so integrated himself with the Basotho, eating their food, drinking their brew, rejoicing and suffering with them, that they said he was one of themselves. Only a man of faith could have won such a compliment and when his efforts were rewarded he thought the trouble taken of little account. Once, after a night of watching at the bedside of a dying man, he crept out of a smoky hut and triumphantly told someone who had been waiting for him: 'I got him ... my pagan... but it was hard going!'

Always hard going in Lesotho! Even the best way of approach to the people was problematic. Allard was all for an offensive but Gérard was afraid of forcing the issue and thereby risking what he thought might be a reaction similar to that of the Zulus. He was inclined to be cautious but when Allard reproached him for this attitude he decided to show a bolder front:

"The Bishop told me a very serious thing to-day... It is that I am not bold enough... I am too timid, - unable to force my way through the defences of the Sesotho heart. I know the language well... but I have not insinuated myself enough. That is the point... I must take myself seriously to task over this failing of mine... I must not be afraid. "

The truth was that he needed all the strength he could muster; opposition was growing. In an effort to discredit and dislodge the Catholic Church rumours were spread to the effect that Catholic priests worshipped things like the stone and wood of their altars, that they made a good income out of the confessional, and that their celibacy was only a cloak for their depravity. Fr Gérard bore this burden patiently even when the more easily beguiled added their own quota of lies. They said that he cared for the old people so that he could bury them alive in the place intended as the site for a new village; that, when he buried their dead, he left one hand uncovered above the ground and filled it with mealie-meal as a provision for the deceased's journey into the Great Unknown. Some went so far as to test their suspicions by lying in wait behind the cemetery wall. The more ruthless among them closed their doors against him. It was well for him that he believed passionately in the words which he once wrote during a retreat:

... "we must love them, love them in spite of everything, love them always. "

A new chapter in the Lesotho mission began when reinforcements came, at long last, in answer to an appeal made by Bishop Allard to the Holy Family Sisters of Bordeaux. Six of them left France in February 1864 with Frs Bartholemy and Hidien. They reached Durban in May, went on to Pieter maritzburg, and exactly one year after their departure from their home country set out on the last lap of their journey. On February 17, 1865, two oxwagons left Pietermaritzburg with Bishop Allard, the two priests, the six sisters, six Africans -and a following of a 28 oxen, three cows, calves, chickens, dogs and ducks! They reached the mission only on April 26 and were given a right royal welcome by Moshoeshoe. Resplendent in a French admiral's uniform which the sisters had given him, he told of his conviction that their coming would ensure peace and prosperity for his later days.

He was however mistaken in his hopes. He had already committed his country to war against the Boers and his enemies were just as intent on his downfall as he was on theirs. The war began in June 1865 and the Basotho, with little arms or ammunition, took refuge in Moshoeshoe's stronghold at Thaba Bosiu the Mountain of Night. Its summit could be reached only by three of four narrow paths, each of them extremely dangerous. It was, Moshoeshoe thought, impervious to attack. He did not realise that a defensive and confined army can be its own undoing. Moreover his power was on the wane and all his sons except one, Masupha, had deserted him. Fr Gérard however stood fast. He never forgot a kindness, and at the risk of his life frequently ventured out across rocks and ravines to the self-imprisoned king.

In November 1865 he wrote:

"During August the Boers encamped before Thaba-Bosiu where Moshoeshoe lives... For weeks they have constantly shelled that impregnable rock; hunger, thirst and the guns destroyed everything, but Moshoeshoe, surrounded by the elite of his tribe, remained firm;... the fiercest assault was made on the feast day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the day when Bishop Allard, with the permission of Moshoeshoe, consecrated Lesotho to Mary Assumed into Heaven); upon that hung the life or death of the king and of his nation. Soon I heard the noise of the army which was coming firing rifle shots... several bullets came in this direction; I hear them whistling past, I shiver, and lie down on the ground behind a straw mattress. I made my preparation for death fairly quickly. A large number of bullets just grazed the wagon tent; others struck just a few feet away... then three of these bullets pierced the tent from side to side and passed near me; one of them hit Fr Hidien's breviary and tore it to pieces; that breviary was just close to my feet!"

Before peace ended the sporadic encounters of Boers and Basotho Moshoeshoe was a broken man. Each succeeding day his fortress had become more and more like a concentration camp where men grew weak from hunger and shrivelled with disease. Refugees sought out the mission in the hope of saving themselves and Fr Gérard added to the sisters' burden by admitting others when their resources were already over-taxed. When he found the most unfortunate of all fallen by the wayside, he bent, Good Samaritan that he was, and picking them up staggered with them to safety.

After the siege of Thaba-Bosiu had been lifted and an armistice signed, it was obvious that the spirit of sacrifice which Fr Gérard had shown in his care for the sick, wounded, and dying, had made a deep impression. Walls of suspicion crumbled and people began to speak in whispers of what he had done. The Basotho were convinced that he passed through the enemy's lines with an invisible hand to guide him. As a result his influence was more potent, his authority more respected.

Within a month after the armistice he was celebrating, on October 8, 1865, the first solemn Baptism of seven people at Roma. When he wrote of it in his diary he used words that echoed those of de Mazenod predicting an explosion of God's grace:

"This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it! At long last the day has come, forecast from all eternity, when the Lord would reveal his love and shower his mercy on the poor Basotho... Today the Holy Church of Jesus Christ received in her bosom the first fruits of these barren lands of Africa... So many years of expectation, of failure, made this day a marvellous one and such a novelty to us. Yes, thanks to the mercy of God who from heaven saw our disgrace among all the missionaries of the world."

Amongst those who were baptised that day was Puleng who was given the name ' Maria. She lived in the village of Maliele, close to what was later St Michael's mission, and eventually she became the great-grandmother of Fr Benedict Marole one of the first diocesan priests in Lesotho.

Another event which gladdened Fr Gérard's heart came when Veronica, a widow who had for a long time wanted to consecrate herself to God in a special way, decided on his advice to take a vow of chastity on the feast of St Joseph, March 19, 1867. He said that it was one of the most beautiful days in his life:

"It is a new fruit, exquisite, rare, and of such pleasing odour".

Convinced as he was of the tremendous value of the life and work of the Holy Family Sisters, he longed for the time when young girls would be ready to join them. In fact, Veronica's daughter joined the Holy Family Congregation; she took the name of Sr Xavier, and worked at Roma as a nurse. Today there are nearly 700 Sesotho Sisters in Lesotho, 125 of them Holy Family Sisters, and Fr Gérard's dream has become a reality.

He also gathered together another band of women who did not enter the convent but spent themselves in helping the sisters either by catechising or nursing. Their influence was considerable because they lived among the people and brought religion quite naturally into their work-a-day life. One of their services was to carry the old and infirm, sometimes over 20 kilometres, to the safety of the mission, and their good example made others anxious to imitate them. Their leader was Perpetua and, after her death during a violent storm, she was found by Fr Gérard with her arms around Dorothea, a destitute widow.

About this time Fr Gérard was blessed with a remarkable conversion in the person of Setlopo. This man had been the foremost of Moshoeshoe's warriors, foremost too in the attack on the Church. His prestige was strong enough to have merited for him the title of Master of the Village. Now, with some 90 years behind him, he was completely blind and mellowed at heart. The kindness of the Christians against whom he had fought vehemently took him by storm and he asked for Baptism.

Fr Gérard decided on a public Baptism on Thaba-Bosiu; he thought it would be an example and an incentive to others. The solemn event drew about 1000 including Moshoeshoe, his son Masupha, and his councillors. There were some however who were violently angry that Setlopo should become a Catholic. When Fr Gérard appeared they set upon him roughly, screaming that he had no right to intrude in a land that did not belong to him. The Catholics who were present were ready to retaliate but Fr Gérard forstalled them. "Leave them," he said, "leave them alone. They have done me no harm." The crowd fell back and then surrounded Setlopo who made a long speech according to custom. He relived the battles he had fought with Moshoeshoe, recalling the details of each. He renounced pagan rites, rallied his comrades-at-arms and then, while Fr Gérard commented on the ceremony, bent his aged head under the saving waters of Baptism, administered by Bishop Allard. Setlopo's span of years was closing fast and Fr Gérard looked after him until he died shortly afterwards. His last words were: "Jesus Christ died for us on the cross," and when he had said them he covered his face and exchanged his blindness for the light of God.

However not all Fr Gérard's efforts were fruitful. There was one loss in particular which must have affected him deeply. He had set his heart on converting Moshoeshoe, because he knew that the conversion of the chief would have far-reaching repercussions on his people. The King was coming to the end of his days. His non-committal policy had left him neither Protestant nor Catholic and when, in January 1870, his breath grew laboured both sides were more concerned about him than ever. Fr Gérard, in his diary, tells us that he had doubled his visits to him but on March 11 Moshoeshoe died without having been baptised either Protestant or Catholic. Gérard wrote to Bishop Allard who had gone to Rome to attend the First Vatican Council:

I heard of his death and I set out once more to visit this unfortunate man; I have never felt such great sorrow in all my life... He died a pagan... he whom you loved so well, for whom we have so often prayed, " and, in a final note, eloquent in its pathos: "0 my God bow inscrutable are Thy judgements... 0 Mountain of Night!"

Another blow which struck at his heart was the defection of some of his flock at St Michael's mission which he had established a few kilometres from Roma. Helena, a niece of Moshoeshoe, was Queen in the district and she made unreasonable demands on Fr Gérard during an epidemic of typhoid fever when her daughter, Josefina, was stricken down. He did his best in a difficult situation but it was not enough. Mother and daughter left the Church, provoking him to speak strongly in public about Helena's bad example.

Then there was a revolt against the sisters' schools which had been the mainstay of the mission. Some of the pupils returned to the ceremonies of initiation, others flaunted religion, scoffed at their crucifixes, and threw away their rosaries and medals. The Holy Family Sisters were depressed and wondered whether there was ever to be a reprieve. Fr Gérard, encouraged them, and although all hope seemed futile persuaded them to open a novitiate which was to provide them later with many new members.

He also decided it was time to look for suitable candidates for the priesthood among the Basotho when every human consideration seemed altogether against the project. But he was never partial to merely human considerations and his early ventures have blossomed today into a minor seminary, a major seminary, and an Oblate scholasticate. He himself of course did not live to see the full flowering of the seeds he had planted. He had to be content with the vision of faith which had always sustained him. And now at the wish of his superiors, after 22 years at Roma which by this time had 500 Catholics, he went to start another mission. This was St Monica's in the north of Lesotho quite dose to Ficksburg in the Orange Free State, across the Caledon River.

CHAPTER FOUR

A CHILD OF TEARS

(ST. MONICA'S 1876-1897)

Before taking up his post at St Monica's Fr Gérard spent three months in South Africa and some of his letters about his visit show he had quite a whimsical sense of humour:

"It was towards the end of February that I left the Village of the Mother of Jesus (Roma) to go to Natal, to supervise the printing of 2 Sesotho books. (These were his translation of St Luke's Gospel into Sesotho, and a short History of the Church in Sesotho which he had written himself). I was accompanied by a young Christian our trip by horseback lasted 10 days. Most of the time we slept under the stars.. One night, we were caught by rain in a narrow and dark pass of the Drakensberg Mountains without any other shelter than our blanket and a little coat...

Another day we were more fortunate. We received hospitality from a good Dutch farmer who saw us pass his house at the end of the day. He was a bit deaf, but certainly not dumb, and his wife was also talkative! With the help of my young christian Mosotho who knew Dutch we held a long and interesting conversation. This good farmer was similar to those of his country, all very religious and very hospitable. I speak of the Dutch born in Africa whom we call Boers. Before supper there took place the traditional ceremony of washing of the feet. A member of the family approaches each person with a basin Of water and a towel... I let them proceed and I presented my feet".

In another letter he wrote:

"The Dutch who inhabit this country are genial at heart.. they received us everywhere with great hospitality... One day, when we knocked at the door of a farmer, we were introduced to the lady of the house and given coffee, a custom universal among these people, where coffee is drunk at all times of day... When the supper table was ready, a little girl came with a bag filled with old hymn books. Each one of the family came near the table and took his own. The father began to say a prayer in a most solemn tone, then announced a psalm.. they all began to sing full-throatedly In afar corner of the room where I was, I would willingly have given rein to a wild desire to laugh at the discordant harmonies of that choir. But, biting my lips, I kept a straight face A serious thought soon passed through my mind: how many Catholics allow themselves to fear the opinion of others, and omit their prayers, before and after meals, whilst these people, true to their traditions, did not mind the presence of a Catholic priest?"

It was a good thing that he could establish friendly relationships with the Boers; during his next 21 years at St Monica's in Lesotho he also ministered to Basotho on the Boer farms in the Orange Free State. He said the farmers there, Boer and non-Boer alike, had treated him as though they were his parents. During this time too he got to know some Europeans on both sides of the river who joined his community at St Monica's church. They helped him considerably in his building projects but he regretted that others who were traders in Lesotho set a bad example for his. flock.

When, after three months in South Africa he returned to Lesotho, he was heartened by what he had seen of Catholic life in Natal where years before he had passed through the crucible of suffering. On his return he called to Roma to say farewell and then set out for St Monica's with Fr Jules jean Barthelemy. Between them they had only thirteen pounds sterling to start their new mission.

It was not a pleasant journey. One of their horses got caught in a ravine. Lightning twice struck the spot they had just left and hysterical revellers insulted them and pelted them with clods of earth. Molapo, a son of Moshoeshoe, gave them a site which, although excellent in other respects, was located on the edge of a marsh. The two priests arrived long before missionary Br Philip Mulligan who was bringing up their provisions. As a result they were set upon by cold and hunger. It would have gone hard with them if Mafisa, a kind Mosotho, had not provided them with food and lodging. At length Fr Gérard, tired of waiting, went back for the wagon which he found overturned in the mud. He helped to drag it out and when at last it arrived, two months after the date of departure, all they got for their trouble was two sacks of flour. However they had the good fortune to ' meet two staunch European Catholics. One was a Mr Ryan who befriended them in their early days and left all that he had to them on his death two years later; the other, Mr Moran, helped in the building of their chapel and paid half the cost of the 50 000 bricks which they had to bake themselves.

Br Mulligan got to work on a hut which became their chapel and dormitory and where Mass was celebrated on the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, August 15, 1876. When he had completed this he turned his attention to the building of a church. It is very doubtful whether Fr Gérard, was of much help in these matters. Building was not in his line. His rows of bricks were out of plumb, and his windows let in the rain as well as the sun!

The new church rose gradually and on I I February, 1877, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, it was opened for public worship. Fr Gérard dedicated it to an African saint, Monica, the mother of St Augustine, whom she had won to Christianity only by her toil and tears. It was in precisely the same way that he was to win those whom he had given to her patronage. "The good mother of St Augustine has often helped and consoled me in my sorrows" he said. He had need of consolation for he had to contend with the same difficulties which he had met at Roma - misunderstanding, misrepresentation, suspicion, polygamy, and the initiation rites. One day he met Maria Gabriel quite near St Monica's. She had changed a great deal since he had baptised her at the Village of the Mother of Jesus. When he saw her, dressed in pagan costume, with heavy bracelets on her wrists and her body smeared in ochre, he wept bitterly. Was this to be the end of it all?

Some of his confreres who were critical of his work and methods seemed to think so. One of them even suggested closing all the mission stations and moving the missionaries elsewhere, a proposal that had Gérard up in arms at once. He wrote a determined and challenging letter to Fr Louis Soullier, who came from Rome as official Visitator of the Lesotho Mission, and complained bitterly; he said the priest who had made the suggestion had no right to find fault as he did with the work and spirit of the missionaries who had gone before him. He also said that his heart had bled listening to what he had heard. He admitted that there were failures but it was preposterous to suggest that the Oblates should be moved to other places. He was prepared to admit that there were deviations and faults in their apostolate, for which they would have to give an account to God, but if they were not dedicated to their mission, how, he asked, could one explain the fact that they had endured so many moral and physical hardships?

Still, at the same time as he defended others, he blamed himself for the many failures that beset his mission. He accused himself of apathy:

I am not the man I used to be, I am not united to God... my soul no longer has the peace that used to be mine... How is it that I am so poor?... so destitute? 0 my God enlighten me... St Joseph, Patron of the interior life, have pity on me."

His natural timidity weighed on him and made him feel unequal to the heavy task that overburdened him:

"My wretchedness is extreme; my life, my ministry, are worth nothing and the devil chuckles at it all; oh! bow many souls have been neglected!"

He made a stern resolution to repulse the discouraging thoughts that harassed him night and day. As if he had never before striven in Gods service he wrote:

I have been wanting to change. my life for a long time. I always say 'to-morrow.' To-day, however, on the holy feast of Pentecost, I can say at last, I will begin here and now!"

His most strenuous efforts were largely spent on deep and constant prayer. The Basotho were quite right when they said that Fr Gérard ate prayer. He certainly preferred it to his meals and the most gruelling day on horseback did not deter him from long vigils. Like Christ, his Lord, he was often found spending the night in prayer. No one knew when he went to bed or whether he had been to bed at all. They frequently saw him kneeling motionless for long hours before the Blessed Sacrament and sometimes, worn out by his travels, he lay prostrate at the foot of the altar. Though they waited out of respect for him their patience wearied long before his prayer was ended and they left him in peace. Night fell on Lesotho and families huddled together in their makeshift beds but the shepherd had to keep watch lest wolves should come to steal his sheep.

There is however a limit to the hardiest endurance. Even the chosen apostles slept in the Garden of Gethsemane and there were occasions when Fr Gérard too was overcome by fatigue. Once, when he found his head drooping and his fading eyesight blurring the pages of his breviary, he hit upon a splendid idea. He put his breviary and the candle, which had already singed his beard, side by side on a chair. Then kneeling before an old barrel-organ near the altar he ground it into harmony: one hand to play the organ, the other to turn the pages of his breviary, and the humble church became a monastery choir filled with the chant of a solitary monk. It was Christmas and the world was young again!

His prayer was matched by his earnest penance, and seeing the heavy toll his penitential life was taking on him, his confreres anxious for his health, counselled prudence. Fr Soullier, the Visitator, had earlier written in his report on Roma:

"The only regret I carry away from this fine mission concerns Father Gérard. I was upset to see his valuable health deteriorating because of excessive work, and my sorrow was twice as great when I realised that it was quite useless to ask him to take more care of himself. "

At St Monica's he frequently broke his fast only in the late evening and then his meal was more of an excuse than a reality. He allowed himself only a very meagre helping, never tasted sweet things, and apparently, in order to win a certain favour for his people, he had even taken a vow not to drink milk. Although he had ample reasons for a dispensation from the fasts prescribed by his Oblate Rule he kept -them as though he were still a novice. Sometimes his colleagues suffered as a result of his disregard for food; they had to bear with it whenever his turn to do the cooking came around!

And as if his fasting were not enough he added long journeys beneath a broiling sun in the exhausting summer heat, or against icy winds in the fierce winter, hours of catechism and instructions and unceasing visitation of the villages. He loved to meditate on the Passion of Christ. His Oblate Cross, which he had been given at his Profession, and which is still treasured by the Oblates in Lesotho, was the emblem of his choice. Because he loved its Sacred Victim so much he in turn became the victim of a delicate sensitivity to the sins for which Christ had to atone. He was known to have covered his face with his hands and to have wept bitterly when some of his penitents confessed serious sins. They pleaded that they could not have been responsible for the suffering of Christ because they were not living at the time of his Passion. Only patience and tactful explanation rid them of their error; then they too grew enamoured of the Saviour's Sacrifice.

Every Friday he went slowly along the Way of the Cross with them, in fact far too slowly for a certain young missionary who was anxious to chat with one of his brother priests. This young man decided to enliven Fr Gérard's measured tempo, much to the relief and approval of the children in the congregation. But when they had increased the pace Fr Gérard stopped short at the seventh Station. "Come now," he said, "this is not the way to make the Stations of the Cross. Did our Saviour run when he climbed Calvary? We will begin all over again."

The love of Christ in his Passion and a consequent desire to make reparation for sin must have taken firm hold of the Basotho. Otherwise they would never have accepted the stem penances which Fr Gérard dispensed so liberally. Today we may be inclined to criticise what appear to have been exaggerations when compared with the usual Church practice. Fr Gérard in his time, however, felt that strong measures were needed to counteract the very pronounced pagan atmosphere and he did not hesitate to employ them. Penitential life in Lesotho at that time had something in common with the austerities of the ancient hermits and, if need be, reparation had to be made in public. It was not as difficult as it would seem, for the Basotho had a code which prescribed public reparation for public offences and their temperament was amenable to refined degrees of severity. So, at his bidding, they stood with arms outstretched in the form of a cross, went around the church on bare knees, changed their clothes for mortuary sheets symbolic of the soul's spiritual death through sin, and stayed shrouded in these during Mass. Two penances which they counted most serious were indications of their growing Christian mentality. They shrank from being called on to hand back the crucifixes which Fr Gérard had given them: that forfeit they thought was something disastrous. And public reparation was a small matter in contrast with the ruling that their neighbour should no longer greet them with the Christian salutation; instead of saying "Praised be Jesus Christ" the other Basotho were to address them by their pagan names.

Fr Gérard found little satisfaction in imposing these penances even though he believed that this regime was for his people's good.

"0 my God, " he begged, "teach me how to deal with these poor public sinners... help them to true penitence and to a new way of life. "

As always, he supported his prayer by example, particularly in the case of Joseph of Arimathea. This was a man who had incurred the penalty of having to stand at the church door during Mass for a period of three years. He had shown such a desire to amend that Fr Gérard decided to cancel the longterm punishment, and at the same time expose the ugliness of sin by taking on a drastic act of humiliation for his penitent. It was a Sunday in October and the retreat for men had just ended. Fr Gérard gathered them around the door of the church, threw himself face down on the ground and told them to trample on him. At first they recoiled but when he commanded them more firmly they walked, one after the other, over his body - all but one of them who tapped his forehead knowingly and said: "This man is mad... This man is really mad." It was true: he was indeed mad, mad with what St Paul calls the folly of the Cross.

His life at St Monica's was, like all his years, a mixture of agony and ecstacy. What he wrote about it mirrors the daily joys and sorrows of his apostolate. At one time he is exultant, at another cast down. After his arrival in 1876 he had had to wait another two and a half years before he was able to have the first solemn Baptism. He wrote of it:

"This poor mission has experienced days of suffering, humiliation and abandonment; today it was a day of glory and happiness with blessings shining on the mission, and on the catechumens, and on the whole country, a merciful visit of God. "

After that he continued to build up his Christian community, surely, but slowly.

As at Roma, he had had to contend for a time with warfare in the country. This was the War of the Guns, so called because of the prohibition of arms which the British imposed on the Basotho. One side under Masupha, third son of Moshoeshoe, opposed, and the other under Jonathan, grandson of Moshoeshoe, defended the disarmament. Fr Girard, in the isolation of St Monica's, knew little of the upheaval until the day on which the peace of his mission was shattered by frightened people who sought asylum there. St Monica's might have been besieged if he had not diplomatically persuaded the invaders to go away. When they had left, annoyed and disgruntled, he hid the refugees amid the ranks of a procession and led them to the safety of his home. Another day he was spotted by Sesotho warriors as he rode across the veld. They did not recognise him at first. and so they opened fire; they emptied their rifles, causing a cloud of dust to rise around their target, and when it had dispersed there he was, unharmed, and kneeling upright!

As at Roma too, he had the support of the Holy Family Sisters. Fr Berthelemy, who had originally founded the mission with him, had left for other work a few years later and Fr Gérard was all the more grateful when the sisters came to St Monica's to start a school, a small residential hospital, and a dispensary. They also helped the Basotho in the Orange Free State.

Eventually Fr Gérard came to the end of his term of office at St Monica's. By this time the Oblate Congregation had grown in strength and influence, both in Lesotho and South Africa, and its local superiors had many headaches in deciding the policies they should follow and the distribution of their personnel. At times they turned to Gérard for his advice. He gave it candidly and when he felt it was necessary he wrote to the Oblate authorities in Rome. He was particularly concerned about the Oblate leadership in Lesotho. There had been a good deal of indecision and instability because of some new and short-lasting appointments to important positions and Gérard was tired of it all. He was anxious to see a really competent and dedicated missionary at the head of the Lesotho mission, and must have been delighted when Fr Jules Cenez, whom he admired, was chosen for the post in 18 97. Cenez was like him, from Lorraine, and he had been influenced by Gérard's missionary spirit. Shortly after he assumed office he recalled his fellow-countryman to Roma, and the old soldier left St Monica's which now had 759 members and went back to his first and last post.

Before that though he was given a month's well-earned holiday in Natal. He took the first and last train journey of his life and he recorded for posterity that it cost two guineas! He wrote good humouredly about his journey to Pietermaritzburg:

"On the train from Harrismith, I unexpectedly met Fr Barret, by sheer coincidence, He was coming back from visiting a sick person. After twenty years I did not recognize him at first... I was sitting in the corner of my train compartment, dressed a bit like a Boer, a bit informally, and incognito. A traveller comes into my compartment, wearing a hat, but, hum... I say to myself, this one is a bit better equipped than myself! Would be not be an Anglican minister of the High Church, very neat, a levite in a black suit, clerical collar, a little cross on his watch. He greets no one and goes and sits in another corner of the compartment. I keep my silence, as he keep his, imperturbably. The train departs... Every once in a while our glances meet. I thought be was a Protestant minister, but, after all, a thought comes to me: this clergyman has some similarity to Fr Barret. But it cannot be him.... Fr Barret does not even know that I am going to Natal. So I was trying to put away this thought which, however, persisted. What to do? Shall I ask him whether be is a Protestant clergyman or a Catholic priest? But I decided it was more prudent to keep silence... However be does look like Fr Barret... at last, my guardian angel said to me: "In spite of everything, speak and ask gently who be is. "'Excuse me sir, are you not Fr Barret?" "And you. " be answered, "are you not Fr Gérard?" "Hey! Yes! I am Fr Gérard!" It was an explosion of delightfully He was, in fact, the very best friend I bad, my first companion when we started the first Zulu mission of St Michael's in Natal. The hours by train to Pietermaritzburg were very short. I thought that, in a still more inexpressible way, our happiness at meeting God, our good Immaculate Mother, St Joseph, all the angels and saints, our parents and friends, will be likewise great in heaven, and that for ever and ever."

CHAPTER FIVE

LAST POST

ROMA (1897-1914)

It would be reasonable to think that, being 66, Fr Gérard should have been able to enjoy the fruit of his earlier work in Roma. But for a decade after his return the Roma mission was unfortunately beset by all kinds of difficulties from within and without. He wrote:

"Oh! Sacred Heart of Jesus, have pity on this mission! Oh! Immaculate Heart of our good Mother, pray for this mission! I must utterly convince myself of the necessity of converting this mission of Roma. How many disorders!... What ignorance, indifference, apostasy! How many of little faith!"

It must have seemed to him that much of his life's work had crumbled and he was left standing amid the ruins. He felt wholly inadequate for the task before him and prayed that someone might be sent to take his place. At times he wrote of the trials he was undergoing in a way that suggests very deep anguish and depression. He speaks of

"...imaginary ills, anguish of conscience, obsessive temptations; sometimes a disgust for prayer, with a feeling of having been abandoned by God, and deprived for ever of the happiness of pleasing him. There is no doubt that ones does love Him and is loved by Him; but in those moments, one is not sure, and this uncertainly is torture. "

He was not a man given to fantasy and these words are quite frightening in their implications. Some of the saints have told of similar experiences in their own lives and we can only look on, astounded, at the excruciating pain they and Fr Gérard have suffered. It has of course been their intimate share in the Passion of Christ, leading them on to a share in his Resurrection, and like the saints Joseph Gérard came through victoriously.

With as much courage as he could muster he persevered in his ministry to the Basotho - sometimes too well for their liking! He had a remarkable eloquence which would often have been more appreciated if it had been less protracted. He always, had something worthwhile to say but his audience often tired as he went on and on. One day some of the adventurous spirits put an end to his sermon by teasing a little girl who cried hard enough to drown the preacher's voice. Even the Visitator from Rome commented on the unneccessary length of his instruction, and no-one was more pleased than the Sisters when, as a result of the Visitator's remarks, Fr Gérard asked that someone should ring a bell when a half-hour limit had been reached. This regulation had its effect - for a time; then it succumbed to his flow of language and, although he closed with another apology, they did not expect any improvement when he began next day with "Just a little talk for your edification"! It was the same when he gave advice in the confessional. A young priest tired of kneeling at Gérard's feet and exasperated by the usual lengthy admonition could bear it no longer. "Be quick, Fr Gérard", he said, "or my sorrow will disappear completely!"

When the years began to weigh heavily on him and he thought that hopes of a mass conversion were very remote, he continued to be what he called a line-fisherman, bent on landing them one at a time. His most faithful companion as he went about on these expeditions, patiently drawing in his catch, was his horse Artaban. Artaban apparently was an exceptional creature. Those who knew him said that he had learned the tricks of the trade. Unless ordered to do so he would carry no one but Fr Gérard", and those who dared to mount him did so at their own risk. Although by no means a thoroughbred he had an uncanny instinct On one occasion when Fr Gérard", was forgetfully absorbed in prayer Artaban halted and in spite of repeated urgings refused to put even one hoof forward. He knew what he was doing; he had heard a woman calling to Fr Gérard", and when she had caught up with them she told him of a sick person in need of a priest. On another occasion Fr Gérard", asked Miss Betouille, a young teacher from France, to take Artaban and visit a sick woman in another village. She demurred as she was afraid of the horse and, in any case, did not know the way. Fr Gérard", assured her that Artaban would act as a guide and also as a gentleman, and so he did, taking her to the sick woman's home and bringing her back safely again.

There are a number of important landmarks along Fr Gérard's latter days. In 1902 he celebrated the golden jubilee of his religious profession, and, in 1904, the golden jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood. On both occasions, the second particularly, the Basotho, Catholic, Protestant, and pagan alike, came to rejoice with him. One of the speakers launched into an eloquent tribute to the jubilarian's devotion to the aged and sick:

"How can I pass in silence over this hidden apostolate... in the caves of the mountains, and in desolate buts?... How can I forget the old abandoned men and women to whom you gave yourself without counting the cost? The legions whom you have sent to Heaven will welcome you there one day... Your ministry of devotion and love was not just transitory; it has been your life... your whole life ... with your arms ever lifted in blessing over the poor and guilty ones ... and it is they who are indebted to you for their peace of soul and for that tranquil serenity which helps them to face death resignedly 'and courageously. "

In 1907, he resigned from his post as superior at Roma and put himself at the disposal of the young priest who succeeded him. Their difference in age did not dissuade him from giving wholehearted loyalty. But although he thought his new superior was "a strong and saintly man" there were times when, still too timid perhaps, he chafed at his more enterprising spirit and decided:

"Oh if only God would give us at Roma an elderly and experienced Father!... I will have to tell him what I think. "

About this time he wrote a touching letter to Bartholomew Fobo, one of his parishioners, who had gone like so many others to work in the goldfields in South Africa and whose family life was suffering as a result:

"Oh! my dear Bart, now listen to me. I think I speak the truth, I say you have enough of the goldfields. Enough indeed: it is time to come back to your country, where you have been born and where you were baptised, where your wife and dear children are staying. Come to your home, where your mother is, where also your brethren and your old priests are. You have enough to live upon for a quiet and christian life. Come my dear, it is time; you cannot be happy where you are. Come!"

He was, by now, very frail; he had suffered an injury to his right arm and had fallen heavily one day from Artaban. It was a fall that forced him to spend several months in bed but although he feared that he might be permanently disabled he gradually regained his strength, and there came a day when he remounted his worthy steed.

No longer, though, the man of yesteryear; he now hobbled along, with his head drooping, his face towards the ground. He had made a vow of modesty to keep his eyes lowered; the people said he never looked at you but only at your soul. When one of them asked him: "Why do you hold yourself as if you were breaking in two, with your head so bent?" he said: "A sinner such as I has no right to raise his head because he in unworthy to look to heaven." In a photograph taken on the occasion of the jubilee of a fellow priest, he is in the front row, a diminutive figure, with head inclined as though asleep. Once an uncouth group addressing Fr Gérard's companion shouted after them: "Young man, your master has either drunk or eaten too much. He is an old helpless creature like a bundle of dirty rags thrown over a horse."

Their remarks were unkind, but they said something about his appearance.

"As for my poor self," he wrote in 1909, "1 will tell you that I am now 78... my eyesight and hearing are very much weakened. I have a horse that is very docile and I can still do rounds of two or three leagues on horseback but I cannot go as far as I used to. When I was young I could travel on foot all day. Now I no longer have the strength. And so I am preparing myself for the long journey from time to eternity... How good it is to have been a religious, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate!"

Weakened he might have been, and unable to do all he had done before, but he was far from being immobile, and he wrote in the same year of a visit to a sick woman, Ethelina, which would have tried the stamina of a man half his years. This visit involved a ride of three hours on Artaban during which he travelled over slippery roads, (no wonder he once wrote that heaven is a place where there is no mud!), climbed a mountain and crossed a large river. Then having arrived at Ethelina's home he spent time catechising her, heard her confession and anointed her. Early next morning he gathered all in the village for prayer and religious instruction. Later he set out for the Nazareth mission, a long way off, where he got an evening meal. Next morning he celebrated Mass for some Catholics at Nazareth. Then, without anything to eat, he set out again with the Eucharist to give Ethelina Holy Communion, taking four hours on terrible roads and thinking the journey seemed only a quarter of an hour because he was enrapt by Christ's abiding presence in the Host.

During his second term at Roma Fr Gérard was blessed by two remarkable conversions. He had been very disappointed when King Moshoeshoe had died without becoming a Catholic but this loss was in some way compensated for when his son, Masupha, took up the cudgels publicly in defence of the Church and later joined it, following the lead given by his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. He had been a reckless warrior who fell on hard times and was broken by humiliating defeat and exile but he was buried beside his father on Thaba-Bosiu.

The other conversion was that of Chief Griffith Lerotholi, a grandson of Moshoeshoe and an eventual successor to the paramount chieftainship of the country. According to some, this chief's desire for joining the Church was the result of a dream in which he had seen all his ancestors gathered around and crying to him in a tone of warning: "Take care, you are running a great risk. Your evil habits (he was a confirmed roue) will bind you and finally destroy you. There is only one way of escape - the way of the Catholic faith." Griffith went to see one of the missionaries who told him that, before being received into the Church, he would have to forego his dissipated indulgence in alcohol and give up all but one of his nearly thirty wives. The latter condition put Griffith to the test; he said that he was prepared to desist from concubinage only if he could keep two of them. The difficulty, however, was solved when one of these two died under an operation. Griffith married the other and they were both baptised in the same year, 1912. joyfully Fr Gérard told the priest who had been appointed as Griffith's chaplain:

"Look, Father Valet... The ways of Providence are beyond our understanding. God loves the Basotho and it is because He loves them that He has converted their chief. Be patient and indulgent with him. Remember that God has given him special graces. If the King perseveres in his devotion many of his subjects will not hesitate about becoming Christians themselves. "

Gérard was by this time coming close to the end of his life but, incredible though it may seem, he was in the saddle up to a month or two before his death. In March 1914 he wrote to his sisters and brother:

"This year, my dear sisters and brother, I feel the burden of my 83 years. I am very weak. I can no longer do any extended work. However I have a good appetite and I have a good horse which I have been riding for 17 years. If they help me on to my faithful Artaban be will still carry me for a distance of one or two hours to visit the sick, and that still happens often. If only you could see the good old Father in the bands of two tall young boys who lift him up on to the back of patient Artaban! Artaban knows me so well and takes me up and down our mountains without slipping a foot. "

In April he celebrated the diamond jubilee of his ordination. by singing a High Mass. By the end of the month he was quite disabled and had to be helped along. He was assisted by Fr Rolland who was himself crippled with rheumatism and whom Fr Gérard called his dear Cyrenean. Twenty years younger than Gérard he supported him as much as he could but finally the old man's strength failed and he could walk no longer. He celebrated Mass for the last time on May 22 and then, having been anointed by his good friend, Jules Cenez who was now a Bishop, he Jay back to await the Master's summons.

Even then the drama of his life had not altogether unfolded. Only a few days before his death, Maama, the chief of the district called to see him. Fr Gérard heard whispers around his bed; he opened his eyes, raised himself slowly and thanked Maama for having come. Then, startlingly, he inveighed against the chief who, in spite of Gérard's many entreaties, had given him self over to paganism and vicious rites:

"You have turned your back on God, and so He has turned His back on you. You asked me to baptise all your children and I did so. Where are they to-day? They have left the right path because of you; you have scandalised them with your paganism You have ruined them by your wicked advice! Remember, Napoleon the French emperor said: "If only I had five minutes more I would have triumphed. " And God gives you these five minutes, Chief, so that you might use them to save your soul!"

It was quite enough for Maama; the bitter medicine which Fr Gérard administered had its effect on him, and, a few days later, he was to stand beside the grave of this burnt-out apostle and pay tribute to the one who, even on his death-bed, had called him to repentance.

After his stirring rally Fr Gérard sank back again. He was watched over by the Oblate missionaries and a nursing sister and seemed embarrassed by their anxious attendance. He preferred to do without medicine and took only a little mealie-meal in water; that was all he wanted - nothing more. Sometimes he reminded the Basotho who made a noise that his room was next to the Church. Sometimes too, when his mind wandered, he asked: "Where is my horse? I have to go to visit my sick", and in imagination he rode Artaban again. They heard him clicking his tongue and tapping the sides of his bed as though they were Artaban's flanks. The superior of the mission came to give him a blessing on the evening of Friday, May 29. Fr Gérard was still conscious; he lifted his hand, made the Sign of the Cross and when he answered 'Amen', it was, in St Paul's magnificent phrase, his final 'Yes to God.'

CHAPTER SIX

THE HARVEST

(1914-1988)

The bells that only a month before had rung out to celebrate his 60 years as a priest, now tolled heavily to announce his death, and people came from near and far. They passed by his remains in a constant stream to look for the last time on him whom they had called affectionately Ntate Gerata. On June 1 which was Pentecost Monday they gathered to bury him among those for whom he had given his life. Fr Le Bihan who had known him in Natal and then in Lesotho, for 54 years, sang the Requiem Mass which was attended by fellow Oblates, by the brothers and sisters (from the colleges and convents that had been sprung up over the years), and by the great flock of the faithful who had lost their shepherd. Fr Pennerath preached the panegyric taking as his text the words of Ben Sirach (c.44;v.1).

"Now let us call the roll of famous men that were our fathers long ago. What high achievements the Lord has made known in them ever since time began!"

After the Mass, they walked eight-a-breast to the cemetery. On the way they chose, spontaneously, to sing hymns of joy - no funeral dirge for their Fr Gérard -and the hills against which he, as a young priest, had thrown his voice in order to practise his preaching, echoed their happy sorrowing.

At the graveside, a chastened Maama, addressed Paramount Chief Griffith:

I offer you my condolences on the death of this priest... and I thank you for having come yourself to his burial. Fr Gérard came to us a long time ago. At that time I was still a young boy and it was then that I got to know him. When I was older I met him often, and when I called to see him during his final illness he spoke so impressively that I shall never forget his words. It was Fr Gérard who carried prayer and food to Moshoeshoe over there at Thaba-Bosiu while the Boers were besieging it. How be passed through their lines I cannot understand... Fr Gérard was certainly an extraordinary man, a man who never spared himself in his priestly ministry, who bad the same concern for the chief and the pauper; be was a man who went into buts so dirty that even we Basotho would have found them repulsive. Yet you could find him, our Father, on his knees beside a sick-bed, praying and instructing the invalid in the things of God. Fr Gérard was a man who, you might say, did not eat food but fed himself on prayer, and if prayer is something with which one can feed the people, then he has fed us Basotho too for a very long time. "

It was not only Maama who regarded him as a holy man of God; he was generally recognised as someone special and his French biographer, Fr Aime Roche, says that his totally selfless life was the result of his being true to his calling as an Oblate of Mary Immaculate.

Fr Gérard's devotion to Our Lady had grown up with him. In his youth he had been greatly influenced by the simple faith of his mother who had taken him with her on Marian pilgrimages. Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours and NotreDame de Sion were household words in those days, and Mary's devotees carried the inspiration they found at these shrines back to their homes and their fields. Joseph Gérard's decision to leave the diocesan seminary in order to become an Oblate had apparently been motivated by his desire to share in the Oblate missionary apostolate, but it seems likely that his innate love for Our Blessed Lady explains it even more. It is noteworthy that he named one of his early missions in Natal after Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, and throughout his long life in Lesotho he tirelessly promoted devotion to her. The Basotho had a proverb that to embrace a child is to embrace its mother; consequently, once they had opened their hearts to the Good News of Jesus Christ they had no inhibitions about their love for Christ's mother. Fr Gérard instructed and encouraged them. Under his direction they celebrated her feasts, said the rosary, and honoured her with a devotion akin to that of the peasants of Lorraine. They learned to greet each other with the salutation "Praised be Jesus Christ", and the response "And Mary Immaculate". Gérard himself had a decided preference for Our Lady's title of Immaculate but he was also drawn to her as the Refuge of Sinners. When other means of conversion had failed she was always his stay against the onslaught of sin. He prayed to her fervently:

"I confide to you all with whom I am charged. As you are the Mother of the Good Shepherd guard them from the enemies of their salvation, from paganism, from heresy, from demons, and from evil ways. "

His people regarded him not merely as a holy man but also as a miracleworker. They gave him the title Ramehlolo, Father of Miracles, and their traditions have preserved many accounts of allegedly extraordinary events. They said that when their fields were parched he opened the clouds with a word and closed them again when the fields were soaked, and that he exercised a similar power over the animal world. A young boy claimed he had accompanied Fr Gérard on a journey during a storm when hailstones parted to make way for them. Others claimed that he used to stop, in the course of conversation, to address invisible persons and seemed surprised that those with him did not notice the intruders. It was said that he saw lights dazzling enough to make him shield his eyes, and that at night-time when no one else dared venture out he rode his horse across rocky paths as though it were still daylight. There were people who believed that they had seen him engulfed in a halo of light while he prayed, and a group of women reported that they had once found him flanked by angels.

Whatever miracles did happen in his life were of little concern to him, but the people he served grew to accept them and also to expect them after his death because he had promised that he would continue to care for them from on high. Ever since they have prayed fervently for his intercession on their behalf and they have formed the habit of taking away handfuls of the soil that shelters him. They have claimed that extraordinary results, such as instantaneous cancer cures, have followed the application of the soil to the bodies of sick people, much like the cure of the blind man in Chapter 9 of St John's Gospel, when Christ spat on the ground, made a paste with his spittle, and then daubed it on the eyes of the man whose sight was restored. A South African newspaper, in April 1987, had an article on Fr Gérard with a large headline, The Miracle' Soil of Saint's Grave. The report made a good point in saying that, though thousands of healings have been attributed to him, only three meticulously documented cases supported by medical evidence have been submitted to Rome for rigorous examination. It is customary for the Vatican to ask that at least one alleged miracle be authenticated before anyone is declared Blessed, and in Fr Gérard's case it accepted one of these three as in fact a true miracle. It was the cure from blindness of Florina Phakela.

Florina was a little girl who lost her sight in 1928 when she was only six years old. She was taken to Dr Hertig, the mission doctor, who diagnosed the affliction as incurable. She was then taken to Fr Pennerath, the parish priest at Roma, who suggested a novena of prayer to Fr Gérard Her parents agreed; one of the sisters took a little bag of soil from Fr Gérard's grave, tied it around Florina's neck, and they all began a novena to Ramehlolo. In 1940 when the life of Fr Gérard was being officially investigated by the Church, Florina gave this evidence:

"One night during the novena a priest whom I did not know appeared to me; he put his hand on my eyes saying "You will be cured my child and you will see again". When I got up in the morning... I was cured. "

And indeed she was as eyewitnesses of the event testified. Florina went on to say:

"I asked my mother to take me to the mission to see the Father who had visited me during the night when I was still blind. The Fathers were all there, having come for their retreat. I could not find the one I sought amongst them. Father Pennerath showed me six photographs of Fathers; on five I could not find him either, but on the sixth I cried out, "That's him, he's the one who came to visit me at night."

The photograph was that of Father Gérard. In later life Florina was examined by two eye-specialists who, from the texture of the scar tissue in her eye, confirmed the original diagnosis of Dr Hertig. Medically speaking she should still have been blind but her sight remained normal until her death, on 7 December, 1982.

St Augustine once said, wisely, that miracles are rarer but not greater than ordinary happenings and certainly for Fr Gérard. what was most important was the ordinary day-to-day growth of the Kingdom of God. Since his death that growth has been constant and vigorous especially since the arrival of the Canadian Oblates in 1930. When he died there were 15 000 Catholics in Lesotho and today, according to the latest statistics available, there are about 675 000 in a population of 1200 000. In 1952, the Church in Lesotho got its first indigenous Bishop, Emmanuel Mabathoana, a great-great-greatgrandson of Moshoeshoe; he was ordained Bishop of Leribe. In 1961, he became Archbishop of Maseru and he died in 1966. Today, of the six Bishops in Lesotho five are Basotho, one of them, Alphonsus-Ligouri Morapeli, having succeeded Emmanuel Mabathoana as Archbishop of Maseru.

There are 149 priests in Lesotho and of these 74 are Basotho; there are 46 brothers of whom 25 are Basotho, and 690 sisters of whom 625 are Basotho; there are 103 Basotho students for the priesthood. The Church manages 467 primary schools (136 000 pupils), 64 secondary schools (195 000 pupils), and has a total teaching force of about 3 000. It also directs 4 hospitals, 65 dispensaries, 45 maternity hospitals and 55 mother-and-child clinics.

Roma itself is a kind of replica of Rome with all its institutions. There is the parish church beside which is the grave of Fr Gérard. and the parish house which still has the room in which he used to celebrate Mass. Then, at the National University of Lesotho, which was formerly Pope Pius XII University College, there is the campus chapel, the campus chaplaincy hall, the office and library, the monastery for priests involved in teaching at the University, and the hostel for sisters studying there. There are St Joseph's hospital, St Augustine's major seminary and St Theresa's minor seminary, the Oblate scholasticate, the Salesian novitiate and scholasticate, the Sacred Heart Brothers' juniorate, and the hostel for the students of the Institute of Christ the Priest. There are also the convents of the Holy Family Sisters (who as well as have a novitiate and a contemplative house), the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, the Sisters of St Joseph, the Grey Nuns, the Holy Cross Sisters, the Handmaids of Christ, and the Daughters of the Sacred Heart.

Last but not least there is the daily Christian life and activity in 76 missions and 419 outstations that are the life-blood of the Church in Lesotho. In these the pastoral work so loved by Fr Gérard continues, with the celebration of the Eucharist and the other Sacraments, prayer meetings, the reading and preaching of God's Word, many church groups and societies, the education of the young, the care of the sick and needy, and a host of other concerns - all taking their origin from the courage of Bishop Allard, Fr Gérard and Br Bernard when they broke new ground in Lesotho in 1862.

Last year (1987) there was a great gathering in Roma on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, to celebrate 125 years of Oblate missionary activity. Among the huge crowd of Bishops, priests, brothers, seminarians, sisters, and Jay-people, were, fittingly, King Moshoeshoe 11, a direct descendant of Moshoeshoe 1, and Fr Marcello Zago, the recently-elected Superior General of the Oblates. Fr Zago, as a successor to Blessed Eugene de Mazenod, is the leader of over 4,000 Oblates throughout the world, 466 of them in South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia. He remarked that the Catholic mission in Lesotho had developed in a wonderful way to the extent that Lesotho has become one of the most Catholic countries in Africa.

For this much of the credit must surely go to the pioneer, Joseph Gérard, who blazed, for Christ, a trail of suffering as well as of glory, and left to those who follow him an example of utter dedication. Once in a moment of deep reflection he wrote:

"The world belongs to the person who loves it most and proves it. I imagine a priest, a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate, in a mission. He wants to see everything with his eyes, know with his heart, give joy to everybody by his presence, be all things to all people to win them over to Jesus Christ. "

And that precisely is the kind of priest Fr Gérard had been