MALAWI: Pontifical Mission Society trains seminarians in missionary work
The Pontifical Mission Society (PMS) in Malawi has introduced missionary animation training targeting national seminaries to equip the future Church leaders with skills required for a priestly and missionary work.
The Society has already conducted a series of training sessions to the 169 students who are pursuing their studies at Kachebere and St. Peter’s Major Seminaries in Mchinji and Zomba, respectively.
At Kachebere, the training took place from June 3-7, 2019 and the students underwent courses in the Society of the Holy Childhood, also known as Missionary Children.
Through the course, the seminarians were taught how they can assist the people of God to know much about the PMS.
They were also taught on how they can provide some information to Holy Childhood to animators, parents and other pastoral agents about the society of Holy Childhood; how best they can prepare children to be missionaries; and how to prepare for the celebration of the Missionary Day for Children in dioceses, deaneries and parishes and other levels of the church.
In one of his presentations, the PMS National Director Father Vincent Mwakhwawa said amidst growth of the Catholicism in Africa and Asia and the dwindling of number of Christians with deep-rooted faith in Europe today, it is manifested that there is inadequate understanding of the missionary nature of the Church.
Mwakhwawa therefore pointed out that there is need for seminaries to take a holistic approach when forming future priests.
“We have noted lack of focused, strategic and contextual missionary/ pastoral approaches in the Church today. Everyone, every community is doing their own things. You and I must engage into prayerful, biblical, liturgical, sacramental and academic as well as theological and missiological activities in order to re-awaken our missionary zeal and recapture the real sense of the Missio ad Gentes of the Church,” he said.
Father Mwakhwawa, speaking in an interview, stressed that priests need to start sharing experiences with seminarians while they are still undergoing formation. He said this is critical in building and forming priests with solid foundation and sound faith in the Catholic faith as well as missionary work.
The rector for Kachebere Major Seminary, Father Patrick Simutowe, said the training has helped the seminarians to acquire knowledge on how the Catholic Church works in its call to evangelise the world.
Simutowe added that the training has also enlightened the seminarians on how much the Church values formation of priests.
“Seminarians need to know how much the Church cares about the whole process of evangelisation and how it mobilises resources for evangelisation. I would like to believe that the seminarians will disseminate the knowledge acquired across the country since we are a national seminary,” he said.
In his remarks, the dean of the students, Fred Nyadanga of Chikwawa Diocese, thanked the PMS for organising the training. He said the training has come at the right time when seminarians are preparing to go for pastoral insertion in their respective dioceses.
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By Watipaso Mzungu, Contributor
