Mandalipau vocation promo draws 120 youth

MANDALIPAU –  The Initiation Year (IY) seminarians took the opportunity to promote the priestly vocation to 120 youth when Fr Rayner Bisius invited them to facilitate the Altar Servers camp at St Dominic Savio here on 22-23 June 2018.

The camp, themed ‘You are the salt and light of the world’ (Matthew 5:13-16), was organised by St Theresa Kogopon.  It attracted youth from the parishes of St Joseph Papar and Holy Rosary Limbahau.

The camp has three main objectives: 1) Formation of altar servers; 2) Cultivating the spirit of solidarity; and 3) Responding to God’s calling. The camp also hoped to boost the service of altar servers especially in the outstation zones.

Also present at the camp were the Franciscan Sisters (FSIC), who were invited to promote religious vocation to the youth.

Novice Angellia Gumis shared how she responded to God’s call. When she was deciding whether to choose between a career or serving God, she came across the bible verse from Matthew 6: 24 ‘No one is able to serve two masters. For either he will have hatred for the one, and love the other or, he will persevere with the one and despised the other.  You cannot serve both God and wealth.”  Touched by it, she entered the congregation in 2014. She ended her sharing by asking for prayer and urging the youth to seek their call with earnestness.

Seminarian Jerimia Domingo then shared his story. He heard God calling him when he was an altar server.   He shared with them his formative experiences as an IY seminarian.

He said that he believed the reason he is still strongly pursuing his vocation is because of the prayers of his parents, his personal prayer and help of his co-seminarians. He ended his session with a short video showing the activities of the IY seminarians up t0 April this year.

The session ended with a prayer for vocation which was joined by all the participants. The camp closed with Mass presided by Fr Rayner.

Fr Rayner thanked the organisers from St Dominic Savio and reminded them that the success of the camp was due to their trust in God and in upholding their needs to God in prayer.

He also told the youth that God has indeed called them to be “the salt and light of the world” to their family and to all. Most importantly, he said that God has called them to be children of God. – Adrian Linus