PUMA, Tanzania — A flourishing missionary congregation in the Tanzanian desert, founded against the odds by a holy and diminutive Bavarian-born religious sister who had an unwavering trust in God, celebrated its 50th jubilee on July 21.
More than 800 local laity and religious, led by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, took part in the festivities, which recalled the remarkable life and witness of Mother Maria Stieren (1923-2008), the founder of the Mothers and Missionaries of the Holy Cross in Puma, near Singida in central Tanzania.
“Here in Puma, and other places where the Mothers and Missionaries of the Holy Cross work, is the true springtime of the Church — a time where the flowers again flourish and bring light and joy,” said Bishop Schneider during the jubilee Mass.
Mother Maria founded the congregation in 1976 after receiving, like St. Teresa of Calcutta, a “call within a call” while she served as a German missionary Benedictine sister in Ndanda in the southern part of Tanzania in the 1960s and ’70s.
Impelled by a need for greater reverence for the Eucharist, and after much discernment,
