(The two scholastics of the Province of Australia, along with a prenovice, spent their holidays travelling around the province to promote the Oblate vocation during this “Year of Oblate Vocations”. Here are some excerpts of their travel journal…)
Over the 6-week study break, the St Mary’s students have been travelling around to our Oblate communities promoting vocations as a part of the Year of Oblate Vocations. Scholastics Brothers Joshua NASH and Duc Thuan BUI, together with prenovice Chris Villanueva, left Melbourne on the 16th June for a country-wide tour of Oblate schools and parishes with one goal in mind: vocations. With this year being the Year of Oblate Vocations, the seminary students wished to do something special to promote the Oblate vocation and to encourage young men to discern such a vocation. So, it was decided to try and get to all Oblate communities around Australia throughout the year to be present, to share our stories, to witness to our faith and our calling and to promote the Oblate way of life. It is important for the students to get to the communities outside Victoria, so that young people and the many other people with whom we work get to see that there is a great new life in the Oblate congregation and there is a future for the Oblates and the religious life.
We started our travels in the West, with nine days spent in Fremantle. We spoke at all the masses the first weekend we were there and then rotated the following week, so that each mass time got to hear from at least two different guys. We would use the Gospel of the day to give a short reflection on our vocation after communion, and then be around after mass to meet and greet people. As it is in many places, there aren’t many young men attending mass at Fremantle. There are a few however, and it was good to have a chance to speak with them, be a witness to them and provide them with our contact details. The other important part of it was to speak to the regular parishioners and to allow them to see that it is important to pray and support vocations in their own communities and the wider Oblate family. …
From Perth we headed over to Adelaide for two weeks. … we spoke to the students of the various schools and we sought out other opportunities to engage young practicing Catholics wherever they be. We visited St David’s Parish School, St Pius X Primary School, Gleeson College, St Paul’s College and Blackfriars Priory School. …
We noticed very quickly with the work in the schools that talking about vocations is very hard when the students don’t even have faith and very little knowledge or connection with Catholicism. We worked out quite quickly that primary school students will just ask as many questions as they can, and we loved that. With high school students they won’t ask any; if we present for the whole class on our order, our charism, our vocations, then they won’t pay much attention. If we come in, sit beside them, engage with them with what they are doing in class and help them, then they will notice. They will notice how we care, how we pay attention to them and how we are unashamed to witness to our faith. This, we realised, is a much better “presentation” of the Oblate vocation. We feel we did some amazing work with the students in Adelaide and it made us understand how lucky our Oblate schools are and the importance of our dedication to Catholic education in this country. …
We feel it has been an amazing trip, opening many new doors in terms of vocations, but also in terms of mission and ministry. It has been wonderful to spend time with our brother Oblates and we thank all the men who have welcomed us to their communities and worked with us in this mission trip. We reflect constantly on the parable of the sower, which coincidentally was the Gospel for the first Sunday of our trip. “It is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” We have gone far and wide in this trip, scattering seeds all over the place. We do not know how they will grow, for that we place our trust in God. Continue to pray for vocations every day; do not be afraid of speaking openly about vocations in your communities and especially to the young men you meet. In this Year of Oblate Vocations let us be proud to be Oblates and to share the joy and generosity of our vocation. (Joshua Nash)
