Br. John Wong, Definitor General of the Conferences of Asia and Oceania, is visiting the fraternities of South-East Asia. The Curia OFM receive and publish his story from Laos.
Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a socialist state that embraces communist values. This land has the oldest recorded human settlement in South East Asia, and it has been inhabited since at least 46000 BC. It was once part of an ancient Hindu Empire. Today, it has a firmly established Buddhist local culture, with a majority Buddhist population.
The Catholic Church in Laos originally was part of Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Siam. Today there are 4 Apostolic Vicariates in Laos, with a total of around 60,000 Catholics in the entire country. Since 1979 it’s officially recognised by the Lao Front for National Development, and the relationship between the Church and the government has been gradually improving.
The Order of Friars Minor have been present in the southernmost Apostolic Vicariate of Pakse since 2012. There are around 22,000 Catholics spread over 57 parishes across 60,000 square kilometers. There are 8 diocesan priests, with 2 candidates for ordination, and the Franciscans are among the very few male religious in the Vicariate. The Franciscan fraternity in Laos currently comprises 4 missionary friars from the Province of St Francis in Vietnam, 2 of whom are ordained priests, with 1 deacon and 1 lay brother.
The main community house is outside of city of Pakse, in a mostly Catholic village that was originally founded by a French missionary priest as a leper colony, around 40km from the border with Thailand. The work of the friars is very much one of restoring and building the local Church, including construction of physical church structures, building up the people of God, developing the future of Church on Laos. The friars directly care for 5 mission villages and are responsible for the pastoral support of 4 missions in indigenous villages around 180km away towards the border with Vietnam. They also provide pastoral assistance for 10 other parishes.
Over the past 10 years, the friars have completed the construction of 5 concrete and brick churches and an additional 4 wooden chapels, as well as the main Retreat and Training Centre, all for the Vicariate. They are currently constructing another 2 new churches and 1 wooden chapel. In addition, they have completed a number of electricity and clean water projects for poor rural communities and are assisting the local Bishop to develop a plantation property for the Apostolic Vicariate.
The friars presently run 2 student hostels to provide education and mentorship for 15 boys from poor villages, as well as around 50 scholarships of students in need from primary school level to university. They also assist at the local diocesan seminary and in 2 migrant ministries. The friars in Pakse enjoy an excellent relationship with clergy and religious in local church, and Bishop Andrew Souksavath has expressed the high regard that he and the local people have towards this small community of friars, for their poor and simple lifestyle, and for their humble and hardworking nature at the service of the people of God.
My visit from 11-14 February 2023, together with the Secretary for Missions and Provincial Definitor of the Vietnam Province, Br. Gioan B. (John Baptist) Đậu Quang Luật, was the first visit of a member of the General Curia to the Franciscan presence in Laos since its inception.
Friar John Wong is currently serving as one of the OFM General Definitors since 2021 and will end his term in 2027. He is overseeing and taking care of the friars in Asia and Oceania.
Br John Wong meets the new Definitory of the Province of St Francis in Vietnam.
On 9 February Br John Wong, General Definitor for the Conferences of Asia and Oceania, met the new Provincial Definitory of St Francis Province in Vietnam. The Provincial Chapter, in which the former Provincial Minister Br Inhaxiô Nguyễn Duy Lam and the Visitator General Br Rufino Lim Han-Wook took part, was held in Ho Chi Minh City and elected Br Gioan Thiên Chúa Nguyễn Phước as the new Provincial Minister.
At their special meeting on 9 February, the new provincial government affirmed their commitment to Fraternity, Formation (with special emphasis on the formation of future formators), Mission (in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and abroad), and to the continuous updating and implementation of their Province’s Security Plan for the Safeguarding of Minors and Vulnerable Adults.
Since 2019, the Province of St Francis has initiated 7 new local missionary communities, most of them initiated by the Province in response to invitations from local Bishops. All Franciscans live among the isolated poor and ethnic minority communities. The missionary presence in Vinh Chau began in 2021, has 3 friars and covers a 50 km stretch along the southern Mekong Delta; it is a 2,5 hour drive from the nearest friary, which is in An Phuc Can Tho. Most of the population in the area is ethnic Khmer and the prevailing culture is strongly Buddhist; the people are simple, kind and very friendly. The main mission of the friars in Vinh Chau is to be with the people. There are about 250 Catholics in the whole area and most of them are Vietnamese.
Before the arrival of the friars three years ago, there were no priests, no other religious, and no chapel to pray in. A Vietnamese Catholic family that runs a small restaurant has built a small chapel on their property so that the friars can celebrate Mass with the locals. The brothers simply live among God’s people and witness to the Gospel with their life as lesser brothers among the poor. Besides celebrating daily Masses, they perform pastoral and social services, give music lessons to children and adults and help poor students: all freely, joyfully and without discrimination.
The An Phuc (‘Grace’) Social Service House, on the outskirts of Can Tho city in the Mekong Delta, is a Franciscan Conventual community and ministry located 160 km southwest of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). Here, the fraternity was founded in 2013 to serve patients with mental illness. Today nine brothers live in this community and serve a residential facility of 50 male patients that is part of a foundation administered by the Bishop of Can Tho. The youngest patient is 16 years old and the oldest is 60. The friars also provide free tuition to poor local students, and the convent grounds provide a safe environment for local youth to play sports. In addition, with the support of the local church, the friars run a small ‘supermarket’ that provides free food to the poor. This presence and mission of the Franciscans is an opportunity for inter-religious dialogue and evangelisation through living the Gospel in daily life, through humble service and hospitality.
Most of the residents in the surrounding area are believers of a traditional religion of South Vietnam, but all are very supportive of the work of the friars, whom they recognise as serving today’s ‘lepers’ in the spirit of the Poverello of Assisi, who is the patron of the Province of St Francis in Vietnam.
The new Provincial Definitory is composed by: Gioan Thiên Chúa (John of God) Nguyễn Phước (Provincial Minister) Giuse (Joseph) Phạm Văn Bình (Provincial Vicar) Gioan B. (John the Baptist) Trần Khắc Du Vinh Sơn (Vincenzo) Trần Đức Hạnh Đaminh (Damian) Phạm Văn Đổng Giuse (Joseph) Ngô Ngọc Khanh Gioan B. (John the Baptist) Đậu Quang Luật
An Phuc Can Tho friary community meeting with Br John WongAn Phuc Can Tho friary community meeting with Br John Wong
Did you know that there is a rich Franciscan Intellectual Tradition?
The Franciscan Friars of the Custody of St Anthony (Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei) are pleased to be able to offer in April an opportunity to learn from Friar Wayne Hellmann OFM Conventual, a distinguished Franciscan academic and scholar.
Friar Wayne Hellmann OFM Conv
Friar Wayne will speak about his latest insights and scholarly research on Franciscan Spirituality in Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore.
Register here :
For Sabah 12 & 13 April 2023: Email to fsicsabah@yahoo.com (Sr Lilian Unsoh, FSIC)
For Sarawak 15 & 16 April 2023 : Email to genssfs@gmail.com (Sr Rose Wong, SSFS)
For Singapore 19 & 20 April 2023 : Sign up using Google Form.
We invite you to come and listen with your head and with your heart, to learn how Franciscan Spirituality can impact your life of prayer and your perspective on faith and living.
Conference on Franciscan Spirituality in SingaporeConference on Franciscan Spirituality in Singapore
Fifteen young men joined the Franciscan Vocation Discernment Retreats held in Singapore and Kuching last November and December. The aspirants accepted the invitation to Come and See Franciscan spirituality and the Franciscan way of life for different reasons, but they all shared the same desire: to seek the will of God in their lives.
Friar Giacomo Bini OFM, former Minister General of the Franciscan Order, said, “Nowadays, fraternal holiness is more effective than personal holiness.“ Inspired by this wisdom, the retreat was planned to help the aspirants learn more about God and about themselves through a fraternal living experience.
Over four days and three nights, they prayed, reflected, ate and shared as a fraternity. It was a safe space where everyone could be open and honest in sharing. The aspirants came as individuals, but it did not take long for each to feel a sense of belonging to the fraternity they formed during the retreat.
Vocation Retreat in Kuching, Sarawak, East MalaysiaVocation Retreat in Singapore
Eight aspirants (from Singapore and West Malaysia) at the retreats in Singapore (3-6 November and 15-18 December) and seven (from Sarawak, East Malaysia ) at the retreat in Kuching (1-4 December).
The new “fraternity” in Kuching was even inspired to compose a song together. They titled their song “Panggilan Hidupku” (My Vocation).
The aspirants left the retreat grateful for the brief experience of Loving God the Franciscan Way. Some expressed interest in discerning more intensively about a vocation to the Order in the next few years. Others said that the experience had opened their eyes to new possibilities and would help them make more informed decisions.
The friars involved too were grateful for the retreat experience. As Friar Robin Toha, who is part of the Vocation Team, said, “It is a joy to share life with the aspirants. Often, their stories inspire me and renew my commitment and desire to love and serve God and others as a friar.”
We ask for your prayers for these young men as we continue journeying with them, that they may discern the will of God for their lives.
Unanimous. At our Custody Chapter last October, the friars voted in unison to adopt the Fraternal Life Project for all our communities. This was a dream come true for me, as I feel that my call as Custos is to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood by the grace of God. From this lived authentic relationship with one another, we can strengthen the way we reach out and serve God’s people and creation.
The inspiration for fraternity comes of course from St Francis of Assisi. In his Testament, which he dictated before he died, Francis said, “the Lord gave me some brothers”, thereby making the point that his radical way of life includes living and serving with brothers – brothers not of his choosing, but “given” by the Lord.
A Franciscan document on building fraternity entitled “You Are All Brothers” (2004) states, “to say that the brother is a present from the Lord, is to say that the brother is not without purpose, is not cost effective or productive, or functional or negotiable. The friars are to love the brothers more than a mother loves her own son or daughter. So the friars are there to give birth to other friars.”
This is a very profound insight of Francis: that being a brother to one another is to give birth, to give life to brothers.
The document says this form of fraternity is “to proclaim that the centre of all is in the interpersonal relationship of the friars among themselves. It is to underline that the friars are brothers if they have relationships amongst themselves and in the measure that they have them. It is to state that reciprocity is the constitutive principle of the fraternity, understood as relationship between brothers”.
In simple terms, a Franciscan Friar who is not committed to relationships with other friars in community is not a true Franciscan Friar.
However, this brotherhood is not an end in itself. The long-held motto of the worldwide Franciscan Order is “fraternity-in-mission”. This means that this bond of brotherly love is meant for mission. When we go forth on our missions, we do so by the spirit of our brotherhood, by the way we love, forgive, connect, empower, purify and attune.
In the last decade, an adjective – “contemplative” – was added to this motto. This emphasis reminds us that without God, we are nothing. If there is no vertical connection with God through contemplation, then there will not be any authentic and graced internal connection amongst brothers, nor will there be a horizontal connection with the people we serve. This contemplative dimension echoes the top priority of the Franciscan Order – prayer and devotion. As St Francis told St Anthony of Padua, “it is wonderful that you are teaching the brothers theology of this kind, but never extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion”.
Reviewing the trajectory of the life and history of our Custody, and discerning where the Lord is prompting us to journey forth, we have seen the signs and connected the dots and we feel compelled to go back to basics – relationship with God and fraternity.
As the document “You Are All Brothers” beautifully says, “Fraternity is our way of being in the world and in the Church.” The Franciscan life does not exist except as fraternity; our vocation is to be brothers; and our basic law is that of love. On the other hand, the basis of our fraternal life consists of opening ourselves up, of comparing ourselves, of accepting ourselves and of dialogue; these are instruments for enlightening, strengthening and putting our common gospel project into action; these are the conditions for the birth of new motivations that would stimulate creativity and help us to recover confidence in ourselves and in others.
“Gift and task, the fraternity is received but is also constructed. Divine call and human reality. As a divine call, fraternity is fed on prayer, listening to the Word, the Eucharist, pardon and reconciliation. As a human reality, the fraternity has its own laws, demands and means; authentic relationships, familiarity, friendship, joviality, courtesy, service …”
So, as we receive the wonderful gift of brothers from the Lord, we need to work at building relationships with our brother friars. This requires structures and plans, which is essentially what the Fraternal Life Project is. In practical terms, the Fraternal Life Project is simply discerning and deciding together how and when we pray and eat together, how we celebrate brotherhood in our recreation times, how we intend to share struggles and dreams in the midst of discussing finances and maintenance issues etc. It is very basically drafting our fraternal hope into concrete plans and then from time to time, evaluating the plan and discerning refinements.
We ask for your prayers as we work at building fraternity with all our brothers. In this New Year, let us unanimously commit ourselves to relationships – with God, with fraternity-family, with all around us!
AIR ITAM, Penang: Parishioners of the Church of the Risen Christ (RCC) hosted a dual get-together on December 30, 2022 at the parish hall to thank outgoing parish priest, Friar Arul Mariadass OFM, and Postulant Director Friar John Soh, OFM. The event was also to welcome the incoming parish priest, Friar Esmond Chua OFM, and assistant priest, Friar Crispus Mosinoh, OFM.
Friar Crispus assisting Friar Arul at the altar.From Left : Friars Crispus, Arul & EsmondFrom Left: Friars John, Crispus, Esmond and Arul
The change comes with Friar Arul completing his two-term (six-year) tenure as parish priest at RCC. The evening began with a thanksgiving Mass presided over by Friar Arul, with Friars Esmond and Crispus concelebrating.
In the speeches by the PPC chairman, Senior Citizens group, and the Mandarin Apostolate coordinators, it was evident how Friar Arul captured the hearts and minds of parishioners across all ages. His down-to-earth simplicity and immense grasp of the scriptural teachings in dealing with the realities of Basic Ecclesiastical Communities left a lasting impact on the community.
During his stewardship, parishioners grasped a better understanding of the principles and tenets of the Franciscan way of life, which is to proclaim the Gospel of life through an intense life of prayer, penance, and poverty. One prominent aspect is the practice of community living, a life focused on togetherness in brotherhood and communion and existence for one another.
The speakers also thanked Friar John for his tireless contribution and unconditional service to the parish. In his departing speech, Friar Arul thanked the congregation for their loving support throughout his tenure and added that this gives him the impetus to move on and accomplish his new mission in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The event ended with a sumptuous dinner and parishioners mingling with the friars. Christ’s love was felt everywhere.
Friar Esmond last served as the assistant priest at the Church of St Mary of the Angels, Singapore.
