Back home my fellow Americans are wrapping up their 250th Anniversary Independence Day celebrations. Half a world away, American missionaries are wishing they were Stateside for this historic moment and yet even the patriotic nostalgia cannot rob our hearts of our contentment to be in the mission field in foreign lands.
As a way of honoring my homeland, I want to make good on a promise to share with you a little more about an American missionary bishop, Leo Arkfeld and the opportunity I had to visit his tomb here in Papua New Guinea. This time, however, I have a new visit to share with you; one I made only a few weeks ago with someone very dear to my heart: my mother and sister, Sr. Confidence.
By the grace and will of God, mom was able to visit us here in the mission. During her time here, I wanted to make sure that she got to visit Wewak, visit Bishop Leo’s tomb and see the monumental work of evangelization he did in Wewak after World War II.
The trip was a debt of gratitude I owed to her and my ancestors, but also one that she herself wanted to make considering that Bishop Leo’s little brother Clem was my mom’s godfather and that several of her cousins who are Bishop Leo’s nieces donated money to help mom pay for her flight.
This time around we did not go to Wewak by road, but by plane. Since our time was short, the choice was one of practicality more than anything. In retrospect however, traveling to Wewak by plane was also the most appropriate way since Bishop Leo was so well-known as the “flying bishop”. We can say that we went the “Bishop Leo way” to Wewak.
Our arrival at Wewak was a simple one. You walk off the plane onto the tarmac to deboard. There’s only one building at the airport. There is no intercom overhead. No direction signs or advertisements vying for your attention. We didn’t even step foot inside a building to exit. We exited right through a cast iron gate…only after the security guard who was late came running with a key to open it. As simple as the arrival was, the welcome prepared by the Rosary Sisters was splendid.
The sisters greeted us with flower laces and took a dozen photos. They then drove us to their motherhouse where we were greeted once more with flowers. They had decorated the fence gate with flowers. They had hung flowers on the doors. And they even tossed flowers in front of the car as we entered the property. They not only welcomed us with flowers, but also songs. They had prepared a welcome song for mom’s visit and sang it with such affection right after she stepped foot out of the car onto the front lawn.
After the welcome song and greetings, we immediately had Mass and breakfast with the sisters. Then the rest of our day was a whirlwind tour of Wewak and all the works of Bishop Leo. We visited his tomb in Wirui Cemetery, the Bishop Leo Arkfeld Foundation, the House of Prayer Retreat Center, the Sacred Heart Brother’s home, the Boys’ Town orphanage, Tangugo Pastoral Centre, and the Rosary Sister’s Formation House where they have three postulants and perhaps 10 more on the way. We also visited the St. Joseph’s vocational workshop, Bishop Leo Secondary School, Mercy Secondary School for girls and Divine Word Teacher’s College. The whole visit was a living memorial. We walked on the ground he walked on. We touched the walls he touched. And perhaps most importantly of all we talked with the people he talked to and loved.
It was in talking with Sr. Marie Therese that I learned something new about Bishop Leo on this visit. Maybe “new” is not the correct word, for I am sure in my reading about him and my previous visit, I had already “learned” about it; but nevertheless, I gained a new appreciation and a new insight into the person and spirituality of Bishop Leo by listening to Sister Marie Therese. Several times she repeated this same phrase: “He built everything with Mary.”
It wasn’t just a pious statement of a religious sister devoted to Mary, but a statement of fact. Humanly speaking, Bishop Arkfeld had a monumental task ahead of him when he arrived in Wewak. He was tasked with the responsibility of rebuilding an entire diocese after the Second World War. How did the man do it? Well, the answer, I believe, lies in Sr. Marie Therese’s statement, “he built everything with Mary.”
The last time I heard her say this was when we were sitting at the airport that same afternoon waiting for our evening flight back to Vanimo. “He built everything with Mary.” I realized then that the immense work done by Bishop Leo was not the initiative and result of a hardworking farm boy from Iowa or the gung-ho of a fearless and practical young priest—however much these human qualities of Bishop Leo certainly helped him in his missionary work—it was the Marian fervor of his heart and the Marian devotion of his life that made it all happen. “He built everything with Mary.”
Bishop Leo did not work alone. He worked with Mary. And that, I believe, was the key to his missionary success. His example serves as a reminder to us all, especially those of us in the mission field. No matter what country we may come from and no matter what place we may be sent to serve, missionary work in the Religious Family must always be an endeavor carried out with Mary. We must be both missionary and Marian. The marriage of these two realities can bear much fruit. Their divorce will only lead to evangelical sterility.
Bishop Leo’s love and dependence on Mary bore much fruit in the lives of men, women and children in East Sepik. But it did not bear fruit in their lives alone. It also bore fruit in Bishop’s own life, especially through the virtue of simplicity and humility. I conclude by sharing one detail that gives witness to these two virtues.
Before he retired, the last thing that Bishop Leo built was the House of Prayer retreat Center on Mission Hill. In that retreat center he also had the workers build a little room for him. We visited this little room. It was about four meters long and four meters wide with a little bathroom attached. Bishop Leo’s intention was to spend the rest of his days after retirement in this little room until the day he died. He didn’t plan on just living there but also working there until he died. H wanted to be there so he could preach retreats, hear confessions and offer pastoral guidance.
What a way for Wewak’s Flying Bishop to spend his last days! What gave him this idea? What motivated him? I believe it was the simplicity and humility of a man whose heart had become Mary’s. Mary shaped his heart to be like hers, simple, humble, and never-tiring in the effort to bring people to Christ.
Of everything that Bishop Leo “built with Mary”, perhaps the most important of all was the place he had built in his heart for her. He made his heart all hers.
Fr. Christopher Etheridge, IVE
Missionary in Papua New Guinea
