Maryknoll Missionary Disciples

The restaurant was on the water, and it was after the margaritas had arrived that Bob said he wanted to talk about a show he had seen about someone facing dementia. In one scene, a man and his friend were sharing a beautiful meal and time together when the man, diagnosed with dementia, said to his friend: “You know, before long I won’t remember this evening. And I probably won’t remember you either.” Bob, with tears in his eyes, said quietly, “That will eventually be me.”

I said to him, “That may happen. And if it does, I’ll remember for both of us.”

I think that’s one of the sacred tasks we take on when a loved one dies. We hold the memories. We share the stories. And as Christians, we do more than that. We hold on to hope.  It is the hope of those first disciples on Easter morning that there is more than an empty tomb, that the story doesn’t end in death.

Parkinson’s, with its dementia, took its toll on Bob. It cruelly played tricks on his mind making him see things that weren’t there, leaving him questioning, doubting, regretting. He may not have been able to hold the memories. But we can. And there are so many amazing stories about him and how he tried to faithfully live out his life as a missionary disciple.

About ten years ago, Pope Francis released The Joy of the Gospel, reminding us that true joy comes from leaving the comfort of the shore to encounter God on the margins. Bob didn’t hesitate to weave that vision into Maryknoll’s mission promotion ministry, because like so many Maryknollers, he had been living it all along.

One of Bob’s favorite stories came from his early days serving in Kibera.  It is a vast slum, about the size of Central Park in the center of Nairobi, with about a million people jammed into a labyrinth of tin houses without reliable water or electricity. Raw sewage runs through ditches along the winding paths. One evening, while walking with a parish catechist to a house gathering, Bob slipped and fell into one of those ditches, ending up covered in waste. If you knew Bob, you knew he could hardly tolerate an unironed shirt—let alone being filthy. He was mortified. But the catechist reached out his hand, helped him up, and smiled: “Now, you are one of us. Karibu.” (“Welcome.”) Bob saw that moment as his baptism into the community.

I had the privilege of returning to Kibera with Bob several times on immersion trips. When he celebrated Sunday Mass at the parish there, it was always a joyous homecoming. People asked him again and again when he would come back to stay, and he’d laugh: “Hopefully someday.” He was beloved. They even named a borehole—a community well—after him. I teased him about having a borehole with his name on it, but in truth it was deeply symbolic. He encountered God there. On his last trip to Nairobi with a group of college students that joy was evident as danced with them and a group of homeless boys. 

His favorite Swahili phrase was Mungu yupo—“God is present.” For him, it meant God was present in the good times, in the daily struggle to get by, and even in suffering and grief. He lived his life believing that, though in his final days he sometimes had to work harder to find it.

Mungu yupo. God is present here. And I believe Bob is too, especially as we hold the memories and share the stories.

Fr. Bob Jalbert, MM was a Maryknoll priest for 46 years, who served in Tanzania and Kenya, as well as the Director of Mission Education and Promotion in the U.S.  He passed away on September 20, 2025 at the age of 79 years old.