By Sean Sprague

Mass ends at the Home of Compassion in Kigera village on Sunday morning and the congregation shuffles or is wheeled into the sunlight and greeted at the portal by Father Michael Bassano. Singing out the recessional hymn in African rhythms, the community of Tanzania's underclass—old women with swollen legs, impoverished children, survivors of trauma, the terminally ill and the mentally challenged—breaks into a joyful dance with the priest before turning to the daily routines.

For this Maryknoll priest from Binghamton, N.Y., the routine is changing the bedpans of elderly and disabled men.

"As we go from Eucharist to bedpan, we pray, but unless prayer is grounded in grassroots service of compassion then it is just prayer," Father Bassano says. "We have to live that compassion of God in a real concrete way."

At the Home of Compassion, on the shore of Lake Victoria in northern Tanzania, the poor, sick and homeless find shelter. The 63-year-old missioner, who has lived here since 2008, is no stranger to human suffering, nor is he squeamish about bedpan ministry. Before coming to Tanzania, Father Bassano served for 10 years in Thailand, where he happily worked changing adult diapers on dying men while offering love, solace and understanding at an aids hospice in a Buddhist temple.

The size of a large city block and located in the countryside, Home of Compassion consists of a courtyard surrounded on four sides by one-story mud and corrugated metal buildings. The self-contained compound of dormitories, kitchen, dining room, clinic and private quarters for the workers, including a room for Father Bassano, frames a church in the middle. Water runs from a few standpipe taps scattered throughout the dirt yard.

Father Bassano begins his work by lifting an elderly man named Ernesti out of his wheelchair, being careful with the man's delicate stumps, what remain from the ravages of Hansen's disease, or leprosy. One leg is chopped below the knee and he has no usable hands, so Father Bassano gently rubs oil into the old man's flaking skin. That chore lovingly fulfilled, the priest walks across the yard and gets down on his haunches to comfort Kangayangoli, a tearful, older woman crouching sadly in the dust. A man with tuberculosis strides over for a chat. The Maryknoller then pushes a wheelchair for Consolata, who was paralyzed after falling from a tree.

Wherever he goes, and to the delight of all the people he helps and comforts during the day, Father Bassano radiates nurturing and charisma, always with a smile on his face and twinkles in his eyes.

"I believe in the gift of mission, and that's what Maryknoll is for me," he says, "being in service to other people."

Home of Compassion was started in 1988 by Father Godfrey Biseko, a local priest who was shocked by the many homeless and sick living on the streets of the nearby regional capital, Musoma. He opened the home to provide them with shelter and care, and later opened two smaller homes, all financed by donations from local benefactors. Father Godfrey is well known around Musoma as he travels in a red ambulance, always on the lookout for destitute and sick people needing his help.

Besides Fathers Godfrey and Bassano, a group of 12 women who call themselves "Servants of Love" care for the home's 40 residents. With no affiliation to a religious order, the blue-robed women were organized by Father Biseko to serve people in his three centers and follow the teachings of Saint Francis. They live and act like Sisters, taking basic vows, and are dedicated, like the two priests, to serving the poor.

"Everyone is welcome here, no matter what they are struggling with, whether they're mentally challenged, physically challenged, recovering from leprosy, or homeless teenagers, or battered wives, or sexually abused women and their children," says Father Bassano. "They come here and we treat each other as a family."

Father Bassano was learning Swahili at the Maryknoll language school in Musoma when he met Father Godfrey and was invited to visit the home. "Once he brought me out here I knew this is where I wanted to be," says the missioner, who started working at the home as soon as he finished language school in December 2008.

People are not used to a priest serving them in this way and sometimes ask him why.

"They say, 'You're a priest. You are supposed to be above me, or better than me. So why are you here?' " Father Bassano explains. In reply he says, "Well, I've come to be with you. Whatever you need, I will help you in your needs here. And you can help me as well. It's reciprocal. They know that you want to be here, first of all, and that you see them as part of your family now. And they see compassion shining through your life."

That idea of compassion is a central theme in Father Bassano's mission life, linking his ministries in Tanzania and Thailand and his first mission in Chile, where he used his musical talents—playing guitar and singing—to preach the Gospel of Matthew in song on the streets troubadour style.

He describes his vocation journey as combining those ideas. "It's more than just a priest, more than just a missionary. It's to be a troubadour of compassion," he says, "but a troubadour who is really a little servant."

Trained in drama and with a love for Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Father Bassano has written a simplified version of the Gospel to act out in Swahili.

In the late afternoon, the missioner presents his dramatization on the grass under a big mango tree just outside the gates of the compound. Lake Victoria shimmers in the distance. A few fishermen carrying nets stop and gaze. A dozen older residents sit placidly in the shade while young children run to gather at the priest's feet. In white robes he stands, arms outstretched to preach the Sermon on the Mount to the delight of attentive or giggling children.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," he recites, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Sean Sprague, a photojournalist and writer based in Wales, is a regular contributor to Maryknoll magazine.

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