Province Commissions 9 Lay Missioners

By Fr. Mike Mendl, SDB

(Stony Point, N.Y. – August 19) – Led by Fr. Dominic Tran, SDB, the province of St. Philip the Apostle commissioned six men and three women as lay missioners for service in three countries during the coming pastoral year. The commissioning took place during Evening Prayer on August 14 in the chapel of the Don Bosco Retreat Center in Haverstraw, N.Y.

The nine include four men who will go to mission territory in Amazonian Ecuador: Brendan Moorehouse from New Hampshire; Matthew Heidenreich from Ohio; Richard Lytle from North Carolina; and Keaton McCollum from Ohio. Two women will go to Montero, Bolivia: Noelle Chmelik from Idaho and Veronica D’Andrea from our parish in Etobicoke, Ontario. Craig Duff from Hawaii and Ephraim Black from South Dakota are going to Okinawa, Bolivia. Joanne Maher from Chicago will serve at the FMA provincialate in San Antonio.

The two sites in Bolivia have a long history hosting SLMs, although they haven’t done so in the last few years.

The nine SLMs went through three weeks of orientation in Port Chester, New Rochelle, and Haverstraw, including mission inculturation, introduction to Don Bosco and the Salesian charism, safeguarding, service, a retreat, and a hike in Harriman State Park.

About 25 Salesians participated in the commissioning liturgy, along with the participants in the Stony Point Gospel Roads program and a handful of returned SLMs.

Fr. Dominic’s homily focused on God’s call to make Christ present, whether we do that in the missions or in our ordinary lives at home. The Virgin Mary models that for us; when she visited her relative Elizabeth, both Elizabeth and unborn John recognized the presence of Jesus immediately on Mary’s greeting her cousin, before she did a single thing.