Students from the SVD formation house, Dorish Maru College, have closed their text-books for another academic year and are heading off to local parishes to gain first-hand pastoral and intercultural experience.
Seven newly arrived students who have been undertaking their English-language courses or their first year of Theology studies at Yarra Theological Union will participate in the SVD Students Summer Acculturation Program.
The program consists of two parts. From December 17 to January 7, they will undertake short pastoral placements as part of the ‘Come and See’ Program in SVD-administered parishes around the country.
They will then take part in various cultural workshops at the SVD retreat centre at St Leonards, in Victoria for two weeks, from January 8 to 21.
Gusty Siga has been assigned to St Mark’s Parish, Inala; Krisna Papalesa has been assigned to St Maximilian Kolbe Parish in Marsden; Khanh Ngoc Nguyen, who is in Australia as part of the SVD’s Overseas Training Program, will head to Emerald Parish in Rockhampton Diocese; Thuc Van Truong will go to Macquarie Fields Parish in Wollongong Diocese; Luong Cong Tran will go to Alice Springs; Khoa Quoc Duong has been assigned to the Good Shepherd Pastoral Region, Townsville and Jacob Wang will go to the Marsfield SVD Community in Sydney.
Formation Director, Fr Linh Nguyen SVD says the objective of the ‘Come and See’ program is to help new students to acculturate themselves into Australian culture and society by living in parish settings.
“The aim is for them to observe the life and mission of SVD confreres in various parishes as well as to learn the lives of the Australian people, to practice their English and to experience the multicultural community in Australia,” Fr Linh says.
“Our hope is that they will then bring back those experiences to share in their cultural presentations in the Summer Acculturation Workshops.
“We envisage that our students will go to their various parishes with an open mind and heart to learn and to experience a broader sense of the Church and its missionary mandate in the Australian context.”
Fr Linh says the parish experience will also help to foster and strengthen the students’ religious commitment and missionary vocation as Divine Word Missionaries in preparation for their future SVD missionary and priestly life.
“The program also lets the new students gain and develop practical skills to make the multiple cross-cultural transitions required of a candidate to the priesthood and the missionary life of the Divine Word Missionaries,” he says.
“They will gain experience in ministry to people in need, and experience in a personal way the principles and practices of caring for the marginalised and the disadvantaged of society through a hands-on approach.”
The students will also gain adequate knowledge of and experience in pastoral ministries and become more aware of the Safeguarding and Professional Standards issues in the context of the Australian Church and society.
“Finally, the purpose of the program is to assist the students to discern the possibility of their future assignments to the SVD’s mission abroad, living and serving in an intercultural Church and society,” Fr Linh says.
Also this Summer, senior student, Peter Wang will complete a Summer Clinical Pastoral Experience (CPE) Program at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, while two other senior students, Cuong Dang and Neftali Fabian will take their first home leave this Summer.
PHOTO: The SVD students from Dorish Maru College in Melbourne.