Volume 35 No. 2 | Winter 2025 8 Society Matters Faith, people and cultures the pillars of Fr Jan’s decades of missionary service As he looks back on 46 years of missionary service, Fr Jan Szweda SVD says he is most grateful for the people he encountered in Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa and Australia, the different cultures he experienced, and the shared journey of faith. Fr Jan is heading back to his home country of Poland, where he plans to enjoy his retirement by spending time with his 96-year-old father and continuing to live his priestly calling. “I plan to continue serving the Lord in a new, quite conservative, Church situation that is so different from the time I left Poland,” he says. Fr Jan left Poland in 1979, about four months after being ordained a priest in the Society of the Divine Word. Poland was still under Communist rule at that time. He was assigned to be a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and after spending some time learning English in Ireland, he arrived in PNG in 1980, to work in the Diocese of Wewak, an experience he describes as a time of adventure, while also coming to terms with the new and unexpected. “I had read a lot and listened to the stories of missionaries who came to the seminary, but the reality was quite different to the way I imagined it to be,” he recounted in a video for the Melbourne Archdiocese. “So, it was quite a challenging time … and I had to learn Pidgin English and also get to know the people, to accustom myself to a new place and find my footing in a new culture. It was a very, very enriching time for me, because it widened my horizons very much.” During his time assigned to PNG, Fr Jan spent two years of study in the Philippines and also undertook one year of mission in Samoa. In 2011, he joined the SVD Australia Province and was assigned to Alice Springs in Central Australia, working with both the Arrernte Aboriginal people and the town’s broader multicultural community. It was, he says, another big change of culture. “The community was wonderful there in Alice Springs. The township was like one big community and there were many denominations, people belonging to different churches, but www.divineword.org.au A Newsletter of the Divine Word Missionaries Inc - Australia Province Donations to the SVD AUS Province Overseas Aid Fund can be made online at www.divineword.org.au or by mailing to Divine Word Missionary Appeal Office, Locked Bag 3, Epping NSW, 1710, Australia. +61 2 9868 2666 @svdaus Society Matters we were all one community and close to one another. I felt very accepted there.” After four years as parish priest in Alice Springs, Fr Jan volunteered to go to Nhulunbuy in isolated East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, where he again found the people friendly, open and very appreciative of having a resident priest. Two years later he was asked by the SVD Provincial to move to the suburban Melbourne parish of Preston, a change he says he was apprehensive about because he had never served in a city before, but once again, while the noise and pace of the city took some getting used to, the people welcomed him warmly. His final assignment in the Australia Province was to Townsville in North Queensland, where he enjoyed working in parishes, including at Sacred Heart Cathedral. “Looking back at my 46 years of missionary service, I have been blessed indeed to live in so many countries and places, among so many different but wonderful people, who accepted me in their communities,” he says. “Every new assignment offered me new experiences by immersing myself in their culture, serving them in different roles and ministries. “I was sent in 1979 from Poland to PNG to ‘bring the Word of God to people who do not yet know God’. But as time when on, I realised that I myself am in search of ‘my’ God. And so, we journeyed together as followers of Christ, accompanying one another in our earthly pilgrimage. This has been my mission.” Fr Jan says he is most thankful for the many, different, good people the Lord placed on his missionary path. “From them, I have learned to try to be more humble and grateful for the gifts they have shared with me,” he says. “The motto on my ordination card was ‘It is my joy, O Lord, to do your will’. After 46 years I know that the joy of serving the Lord in his people is a great reward for the commitment to my missionary service.”
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