Photo: canva.com/gustavo quiroga
For almost three decades, I have worked with young people. It has been part of my ministry as a parish catechist in my home country, the Philippines, and now as a Columban Lay Missionary in Ireland. For this, I owe and give credit to, a dear Columban priest, who was my first-ever “boss”: Fr Donal Bennett.
I write this as a tribute to his great passion and love for young people. Fr Donal had an amazing gift of empowering the young people in the parishes where I was assigned. I was a witness to this wonderful ministry.
After graduating from college as a religious and values education teacher, I was employed by Fr Donal as a full-time parish catechist. My role was to be an assistant youth coordinator. The first thing Fr Donal asked me to do was attend a Youth Encounter Seminar for a week in Virac, Cacanduanes, in Bi-col.
As a 21-year-old new graduate, it was my first time travelling by plane to attend a national seminar with young people from all over the Philippines. The Youth Encounter Seminar was my baptism of fire in my journey as a youth minister. Through it, I was led to understand the role of young people in the Church and my own role as a youth minister.
After attending the Youth Encounter, we worked towards gathering our young people in the parish. This gave birth to the SAYA Group (St Anthony's Youth Association).
We began taking part in “Youth 2000”, which was a group of young people focusing on the new millennium. It has since become a big organisation, even in Ireland, which creates space and a platform for young people to express their faith and feel they belong and are important in the life of the Church. We travelled to different parishes in our diocese and the neighbouring diocese for Youth 2000.
When I resigned from the parish to join the Columban Lay Missionaries and begin cross-cultural mission work, I thought I would have to give up youth work. Little did I know that working with young people would not end but rather be intensified when I came to Ireland. Pope John Paul II, now St John Paul II, was known for his love and confidence in young people. Just like Fr Donal, he worked for the youth in his parish during his younger years as a priest in Poland. And with his great love for youth, he initiated the World Youth Day (WYD). This concept has been influenced by the Light-Life Movement that has existed in Poland since the 1960s, where, during two-week summer camps, young Catholic adults celebrate a “day of community”.
As the biggest gathering of young people, WYD is a celebration of faith and prayer that no other gathering in the world has ever surpassed. I have been privileged to attend this youth festival of faith. The first was in 1995, before I joined the Columban Lay Missionaries. It was held in Manila, Philippines, and over four million attended. Of course, this was by far the biggest youth gathering I had ever attended.
During my first year on mission in Ireland, I was invited to represent my parish of Ballymun on the Dublin Diocesan trip to the World Youth Day in Rome in 2000, which I saw as a gift. For the second time, following Manila, I saw Pope John Paul II.
Then, in 2005, while working with the Redemptorists’ youth ministry team, I was asked to be one of the leaders in bringing over twenty young people to WYD 2023 in Lisbon with the Spiritan missionaries. There we met Pope Francis.
In my lifetime, I have never known what God had in store for me. But working for young people continues to be and will always be, my passion - just as it was for Fr Donal Bennett. In 2023, Fr Donal left this world and went home to God. Hopefully, all those young people he cared for and supported will continue his legacy and pass on this ministry to the next generation. This is what I continue to do.
Certainly, to journey with young people in prayer and in the celebration of faith at these WYD events has been a great gift in my life. It is also my hope that at the next World Youth Day in 2027, I will see some Columbans accompanying young people to Seoul.
It will be a gift for them.
Columban lay missionary Angie Escarsa lives and works in Ireland.
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - May 2026
