by Mike Snyder | Feb 24, 2020 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
To assist those looking to the future with an eye towards Catholic mission service overseas we will be offering a discernment retreat during Holy Week for men and women thinking of becoming missionary Priests, Brothers, Sisters, Short Term Volunteers or Lay Missioners. This will take place at our Maryknoll headquarters in Ossining, NY just 20 miles north of New York City. Arrival is on Wednesday April 8th or at the latest on the morning of Thursday April 9th. Talks and discussions about these missionary vocations will be accompanied by moments of prayer and the liturgical celebrations of the Sacred Triduum. The retreat will end with the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday night with departure anytime on Easter Sunday April 12th. If you are interested contact us at vocation@maryknoll.org for further information.
by Mike Snyder | Dec 31, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
Fr. Rodrigo Ulloa recently returned to the U.S. to serve with us in vocations ministry. The following is a touching note written to the people he served in China.
In the past six years you were my home and I thank you for your warm hospitality all throughout. You taught me a language deeply rooted in characters as well as stories, you introduced me to an ancient culture grounded in family meals, you let me live with your people whom I greatly respect. Thank you for being patient with me especially when I was learning how to speak, for introducing me to wonderful places where I felt welcomed and safe. There are no words to describe the first time I was understood saying Mass in Mandarin but not before breaking through the fear of pronouncing that second rising tone which I still struggle with. How fondly I remember celebrating Chinese New Years, Christmas and Holy week, events that touched my faith in such a way that made me a better person, a better disciple and a better priest. I never expected to make the marvelous discoveries I had, namely, to learn that God exists and extends beyond the narrow confines of culture and history. With a profound appreciation of God “天主” among the people I worked with, I leave China as a better equipped missioner to take a new challenge in our Maryknoll mother house in Ossining, New York, to work for our vocations department for a 3 year term, perhaps more. Dear friends of Dalian, Shenyang, Jilin, Changchun and Fushun, keep me in your prayers and when you stop in the big apple, let’s meet.
by Mike Snyder | Dec 31, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
“The mission of the Christian in the world is a mission for all, a mission of service, which excludes no-one; it requires great generosity and in particular the gaze and heart turned heavenward to invoke the Lord’s help. There is so much need for Christians who bear witness to the Gospel with joy in everyday life. The disciples, sent by Jesus, ‘returned with joy’. When we do this, our heart fills with joy.”
Pope Francis (July 3, 2016)
Our beloved Francis is a missionary pope. He understands the heart of Maryknoll. For 101 years we have served God’s mission in countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. Pope Francis characterizes this mission as one of joy, something that echoes true for us as our hearts have indeed been filled with joy through the sharing of our lives, our faith, our hope and our love for God through the many experiences and friendships established with the people we have come to serve.
We seek out and welcome men here in the United States and from countries where we serve who are willing to answer the call to be priests and Brothers. In 2019 year we welcomed four young men who wish to become priests and another wishing to become a Brother. We also ordained a new priest and welcomed the lifetime oath of a new Brother. With sixteen men in our formation program and perhaps six more joining us in 2020 we are excited as young men continue to answer the call expressed so eloquently by our Holy Father. As we move forward perhaps you may be one of them!
by Mike Snyder | Dec 31, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
As part of the training to become a priest or a Brother we have an Overseas Training Program where we send our candidates overseas for two years first to learn the language and afterward to live and participate in pastoral activities with our missioners to gain firsthand experience of missionary life. We have five candidates in Cochabamba, Bolivia right now. The photo here has three of them posing with local people at a festival.
by Mike Snyder | Dec 31, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
We have accepted two new seminarians to our Initial Formation Program and it is with pleasure that we welcome them to Maryknoll!
Dr. Paschal Madukwa M.D.
Paschal is 27 years old and comes to us from Mwanza, Tanzania.
Nicholas Mulei
Nicholas is 23 years old and comes from Machakos, Kenya.
by Mike Snyder | Nov 12, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
We held a vocations retreat at our Chicago Initial Formation Residence over the Columbus Day Weekend. Retreatants hailed from Texas, Arkansas, Illinois and Washington State. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, others who are interested in a vocation with Maryknoll were not able to attend. Some of our seminarians and Brother candidates joined us and were able to spend time with the retreatants talking about their experiences with Maryknoll. Our vocation director, Fr. Mike Snyder, opened the retreat on Friday evening. On Saturday morning some of our youngest priests, Fr. Rodrigo Ulloa and Fr. Daniel Kim and Deacon Greg McPhee, gave testimonies to their first years in mission overseas. In the afternoon retreatants traveled to a food pantry where some of our seminarians and Brother candidates volunteer. The evenings included social time and a Zoom conference call with Fr. Peter Latouf serving in Hong Kong together with a young man from his parish who too is interested in joining Maryknoll.
Our next vocation retreat will be held at Maryknoll headquarters during Holy Week (April 8 – 12, 2020). Please contact Fr. Mike at vocation@maryknoll.org for more details.
by Mike Snyder | Sep 6, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
Recently we read a letter from Br. Bill Firman SFC, the Executive Director of Solidarity with South Sudan. Since gaining independence in 2011 as Africa’s newest country this nation has been plagued with violence that has left hundreds of thousands harbored in refugee camps seeking safety. Some ask if missionaries are still needed in the world today. We’ll let you answer that question.
As you may be aware, conflict returned to South Sudan in late 2013 testing the resolve of the Catholic Church to continue the mission. As the South Sudanese Bishop Erkolano expressed so succinctly at a Solidarity With South Sudan Board meeting,
“If the missionaries leave, the people lose hope.”
This organization, Solidarity With South Sudan, is a collaborative effort by many religious congregations to send missionaries to live and work among a suffering people and identify even more with the Passion of Christ, and his challenge, ‘Could you not watch one hour with me.’
Father Mike Bassano celebrating Mass in the camp
The facts are that, although they have only been able to maintain a presence in Malakal through Maryknoll priest, Fr Mike Bassano, working as chaplain in the UN Protection of Civilians Camp, their other enterprises are thriving: they have 123 students in residence following three-year programs to become registered nurses or midwives in their Catholic Health Training Institute (CHTI) in Wau where Maryknoll Fr. Tom Tiscornia serves; and they have 121 resident students in their Solidarity Teacher Training College (STTC) in Yambio where Maryknoll Lay Missioner Gabe Hurrish is serving. The quality graduates from these well-resourced institutes are highly regarded throughout South Sudan and are now helping their own people significantly.
Their Pastoral teams continue to offer many programs training local pastoral workers, including trauma healing facilitators, and provide two of the four permanent staff at the new Good Shepherd Peace Centre just out of Juba. Further, they have a thriving 50 hectare ‘model farm’ providing training in best self-subsistence agricultural techniques, and employing up to 80 workers daily, while providing food in support of their STTC and the 6000 Internally displaced people clustered around the Church in Riimenze.
In spite of the setbacks, Maryknoll has served with this organization, Solidarity With South Sudan, through these ten very productive years since the organization was founded.
by Mike Snyder | Sep 6, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
Former Superior General, Fr. John Sivalon, once described Mission this way:
A tangle of twigs lies drying in the sun,
and then a spark catches one, and she,
Astonished by divinity, topples and tumbles and ignites
Another and another and another and
Soon the whole tangle is aflame
Gibber jabbering in many tongues!
Chattering and blabbering until babbling comes
Singing – in so many harmonious parts even the twigs can’t count them!
These words reminded me of the Apostles at Pentecost: “Suddenly, from up on the sky there came a noise like a strong, driving wind which was heard throughout the house where they were seated. Tongues as of fire appeared, which parted and came to rest on each of them. All were filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to express themselves in foreign tongues and make bold proclamation as the Spirit prompted them.” (Acts 2:2-4)
As the Apostles boldly went forth proclaiming the saving message of Jesus so too have generations of men and women who have followed in their footsteps. They have been like twigs filled with the fire, the passion for God’s Mission as lived in the Paschal Mystery that is Jesus. For the past 108 years Maryknollers have been among those twigs generating sparks that have ignited others and others and others. We continue to go forth and invite you to join us for the short term as volunteers, the long term as lay missioners, and the life term as Priests, Brothers, and Sisters. We welcome you to Maryknoll!
by Mike Snyder | Sep 6, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
For several years now we have been broadcasting podcasts about the transformational experience of a life of mission overseas, answering God’s call to serve the least among us.
Entitled Among The People, with each episode we bring you the voices of our missioners, authors and the people we serve, who share their impactful stories of life long mission, serving the poor, sick and marginalized in the most needed parts of the world.
So please join us at https://maryknollsociety.org/podcast
by Mike Snyder | Sep 6, 2019 | Vocations - Blog, Vocations - Events
There is a beautiful line in the film, “Of Gods and Men” – “Let God set the table here. For everyone. Friends and enemies.” This particular line is spoken in the story by the superior of a Trappist monastery in the mountains of Algeria. Based upon the true story of the monks of Atlas Abbey in Tibhirine, the film depicts the community’s final months before seven of its members, including their superior, were kidnapped and killed by an armed militia. Their deaths, and those of thousands of others in Algeria, were the bitter fruit of a society polarized by extreme rhetoric, religious intolerance and violent prejudice.
I think often of these monks in my own ministry of vocational accompaniment. I suppose it’s reasonable to ask, “Why?” After all, their deaths took place in a predominantly Muslim country some 23 years ago. What do they have to do with the lives of young men discerning God’s call today? Well, it was a Muslim woman who showed me how.
Then, I was serving as a Maryknoll missionary in East Africa the same year as the monks of Tibhirine were slain thousands of miles away in northern Africa. I worked in partnership with a small legal project that assisted poor Kenyans in securing their basic human and legal rights, especially land rights. One day, I stopped by their office and noticed one of their administrative assistants, an attractive and sophisticated young Kenyan woman, wearing a hijab, a dark scarf she wore loosely over her head. Since I had not seen her wear it before, I asked her in a friendly but respectful way, “What gives?” She smiled and replied, “I’m wearing this as a sign of my hope that I can overcome my own selfishness and pride. These are things that keep me from experiencing God’s love. And, if I cannot accept God’s love, how can I share it with others? This struggle against selfishness and pride is what we Muslims call ‘jihad’.”
In becoming better acquainted with this Muslim woman, she took it upon herself to share with me how her own “jihad” against personal pride led her to reach out to Christians and to others so that she could recognize the surprising ways that God’s love was present in each person she met. The film, “Of Gods and Men”, depicts beautifully – and painfully – these same experiences in the discipline of selfless love embraced by the monks of Tibhirine.
