“Your sharing and talk has helped us confirm the different things that we need to do to help nurture vocations” said Ate Lory, the leader of the Philippine Catholic Lay Mission. Indeed it was an afternoon of affirming and confirming firstly our individual call as lay missionaries and highlighting different vital elements needed to nurture vocations as we shared with members of the Philippine Catholic Lay Mission (PCLM) at their Annual General Meeting of leaders. Reflecting on Luke 10:2 “The harvest is rich but the labourers are few so ask t
he Lord of the harvest to send labourers to do his harvesting”, the members of the PCLM were interested in ways to encourage more lay people to respond to God’s call as missionaries. In her presentation, Esther drew from the members the key elements of their own call to the mission and highlighted the importance of these elements in their efforts to nurture vocation. She also encouraged them to identify their core identity as PCLM to be able to communicate that clearly to those interested.
Reflecting on Christifidelis Laici, the apostolic exhortation of Pope John Paul II on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the world, the Church affirms the present urgency for a re-evangelization and our 'responsibility to foster the birth and growth of vocations...in the lay state, specifically directed to the missions" (#35). The vocation of lay missionaries is indeed a vocation that is needed in the Church and needs to be presented and fostered so that others may discover and respond to this particular call.
There was a question whether there is still a need for lay missionaries. Quoting the late Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia in Asia, “The peoples of Asia need Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Asia is thirsting for the living water that Jesus alone can give”, all agreed that this is still a big need, and that unless there is someone who will preach and share Jesus Christ and his Gospel, the thirst of the peoples of Asia will remain unquenched! As lay missionaries, our aim is primarily to share Christ and his Gospel.
We also shared our individual testimonies of how we responded to God’s call to be a missionary.
Domisiano and Caroline shared their story of encountering God and answering His call from the perspective of a married couple.
From our shared experiences, we concluded that the most effective promotion is the witness of our lives as missionaries, our prayer for more labourers, our passion for the Lord, and reaching out to others in love and inviting them to a deeper encounter with Jesus through ‘come and see’ experiences. The internet, media and publicity materials are then additional supports that would help stir and nurture the vocation in others.
We ended the session with a time of prayer, offering our lives anew to the Lord and asking the Holy Spirit to renew the members in their call and in their various mission fields. It was a blessed afternoon indeed, where we, ourselves, were refreshed by the time spent with brothers and sisters who were passionate to respond to the Lord as lay missionaries.
For more information on the Philippine Catholic Lay Mission, please visit their website http://www.philcatholiclaymission.com/index.php
From 7 – 9 February 2011, I had the chance to teach on evangelisation to the participants of the School of Witness (SOW) 2011. The School of Witness is a 6 week course organised by the Catholic Youth Ministry Office, Singapore in collaboration with the ICPE Mission. The 1st SOW was held in 2009 and this year, the 3rd SOW had 22 participants from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. I was very blessed to spend these days with them reminding the youth once again that we are all called as missionaries to share Christ and his Good News to all by virtue of our baptism. The youth were challenged as to whether they themselves are evangelising or in need of evangelisation since ‘the test of truth, the touchstone of evangelisation: it is unthinkable that a person should accept the Word and give himself to the Kingdom without becoming a person who bears a witness to it and proclaims it in his turn’ (Evangelii Nuntiandi #24). As part of the SOW, there were opportunities for them to share the Good News in their lives, and the climax of SOW 2011 was an evening for youth, Testify to Love, where they were not afraid to proclaim their faith in Jesus, and testified of God’s unconditional love, forgiveness, healing, salvation in their lives. Many were blessed through the sharings, dramas, worship and ministry. As a Singaporean, I was very blessed by my younger brothers and sisters bearing witness to Christ and sharing his hope in our midst. May the SOW 2011 keep sowing the seeds of faith wherever they are!
On 27 February 2011, thirty men and women expressed their commitment to love and follow the Lord as his disciples, to grow together in faith, to share and support each other, and to serve in Christ’s mission to reach out to others. Of the thirty, ten were expressing their commitment for the first time. Most of them had been attending the Balikatan ministry meetings in the past year. The remaining twenty had made their first commitment in January 2010 and were renewing their commitment for another year.
There was much joy as the members made this commitment. It was apt that the Gospel for this day was from Matthew 6:24-34. In their daily struggle for survival, many of the Balikatan members face challenges to choose money, other values to be their gods. On this day, they chose clearly that that they want to serve God, and no other. Jesus’ words not to worry about what we are to eat, drink or wear, spoke into their reality since often, many of our Balikatan members and families do not really know whether they will have something to eat, drink or wear. His assurance that “your Heavenly Father knows you need them all” strengthened them to make this commitment expressing their desire to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and trust that all other things will be given them as well by the Father who knows and loves them.
