New wave of missionaries
01.08.2008
Fr Jude Genovia is the first Filipino Columban Vocations Director and talks to The Far East about the challenges of vocation work.
Fr Jude Genovia belongs to the new wave of Columban missionaries. He is one of a dozen young Filipino Columbans now serving the Church in China, Japan and Peru to name a few countries. After his ordination in December 1998, he was appointed to South Korea for four years before being recalled to work in the Philippines in vocation work. He became Director of Vocations in 2005 and is the first Filipino Director of Vocations.
Johannes Magno (named after the late Pope, John Paul II) has worked for the Columbans in the area of vocation since 1992 when he was asked by Australian Fr Brian Gore to work with him. Since then he has worked with five vocations directors.
Johannes has three children, two girls aged 11 and 13 and a boy of eight. He holds a degree in psychology. His wife is presently doing a residency in paediatrics at a Manila hospital.
A priest and a married man promote Columban mission. It is a sound combination. Not only do they challenge young men to become Columban missionary priests, they also promote the different missionary vocations under the Columban umbrella: Columban sisters, lay missionaries and associate priests.
Fr Jude said, “We promote the ‘Columban family.’ The common element is mission for all. We help young people to decide if they want to join us by using a programme of ‘accompaniment’ through which they can come to a mature decision about answering the missionary call.”
Johannes added, “We target young working professionals and college students and invite them to a series of seminar/programmes over a period of time. For college students, it is an accompaniment over the course of their studies and college degrees take four years to complete. With working professionals we have twelve months accompaniment. A college degree is required to enter the Columban formation programme.”
Both Fr Jude and Johannes agree,
“You can’t wait for young people to come to you. We go out and look for them. You have to promote before you can recruit. Young people are interested but they don’t know what to do about their interest. We find that they enjoy getting together with like-minded people to discuss things. We take them on a trip, it might be to the mountains, where they get a chance to assess us and we do likewise. We involve them in pastoral work and get them involved in Columban appeals in parishes. They receive spiritual direction too.”
The late Pope John Paul II challenged the Filipino Church to be a missionary church. Fr Jude said, “The consciousness is not present as a sending church. We are used to receiving missionaries but not sharing ourselves outside the Philippines. We challenge young people to be part of this mission going out. We could do more in the world.”
“The missionary journey is going out; we are on the move a lot, asking permission of universities and colleges to present a mission seminar. The young people involved with us get a sense that missionary means being on the move. It’s hard work but we enjoy it. We are on the road the whole day or the whole week. We go to many different places now. We are exposed to new situations and that is good for us. We have to challenge young people. The success of the programme might be that those no longer in the programme do our recruiting for us.”
Fr Gary Walker SSC editor of The Far East.
Read more from The Far East August, 2008
