The SVD Lay Partners group at Marsfield recently took part in an international meeting of Lay Partners via Zoom, where they continued to deepen their formation and grow in understanding of their mission in the Arnoldus Family.

AUS Province Mission Secretary, Fr Viet Nguyen SVD says the meeting, hosted by the SVD Generalate in Rome included Lay Partners from SVD provinces in Asia and the Pacific.

Countries taking part were India, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, East Timor, South Korea, Japan, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

The meeting was moderated by Fr Raymond Festin SVD – General Councillor in Rome. Presentations included ‘St Arnold Janssen, Lay Partners and Challenges Today’ by Fr Jurgen Ommerborn SVD from the Netherlands; ‘Formation of Lay Partners’ by Mission Secretary in Rome Fr Stanislaus Lazar SVD; as well as presentations on the formation program of the lay groups in the Philippines and Indonesian provinces, by Fabian Pagaduan and Susan Noronha. There was also opportunity for sharing among the participants.

“It was my first meeting with the SVD Lay Partners of the ASPAC zone,” says Fr Viet. “It was great, a very fruitful meeting.

“Fr Jurgen Ommerborn’s presentation on ‘St Arnold Janssen, Lay Partners and Challenges Today’ provided the SVD Lay Partners, especially those of the AUS Province, with deep insights, and so helped them to seriously reflect on how to devotedly carry out God’s mission in today’s world in the post-COVID time.

“The presentation on ‘Formation of Lay Partners’ by Fr Stanislaus Lazar assists the Lay Partners to set the vision and action plan for future implementation.”

Teresa Tiu, who was one of the Lay Partners from the AUS Province taking part, says she found the meeting both informative and inspirational.

“Having given an insight into the early SVD Lay friends/benefactors, way back before the Steyl mission house was inaugurated (in1875), I realised that we, the present SVD Lay Mission Partners, are not different from them. All along, we have been following their footsteps in one way or another,” she says.

“Like our SVD lay predecessors, we have witnessed the piousness and sincerity in the hearts of some Arnoldus family members, and, from these personal encounters, we gained confidence that our contributions to the Society, be it through financial assistance, talents, and/or skills and time, in small domestic tasks or big scale projects, are ways of offering back to our Lord the gifts and blessings we have received from Him.

“Again, like our predecessors, through the stirring of the Spirit within, we understood clearly that we cannot on our own be able to reach out to the wider community, but by partnering with the Society, we believe it is not impossible.”

Teresa says the meeting provided guidelines and examples to help Lay Partners be able to realistically identify challenges they are facing or will face at the local level, as well as to eventually establish their identity in relation to the Arnoldus Family, to develop the formation required and to be able to make their mission concrete.

“It also provided me personally with a clarity on the SVD slogan, ‘Our name is our mission’,” she says.

“The Society of the Divine Word is about being companions of the Incarnate Son. To take this on as a lay partner, it means learning how to live more intentionally as His disciple, in ‘imitatio Christi’, to journey from knowing to being.”

PHOTOS: Members of the SVD Lay Partners group at Marsfield take part in an international Zoom meeting of Lay Partners from the ASPAC region.