FATHER ALEJANDRE VERGARA, SOLT – Wherever Filipinos go, the Church is the first thing they look for

– Marco Carvalho

Founded 60 years ago in the United States of America, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity was entrusted by the Diocese of Macau with the responsibility of covering the spiritual needs of the Filipino community that lives and works in the Special Administrative Region. In Macau since 1999, the congregation has chosen teamwork – and an effort of coordination between priests, religious sisters and laymen – as its favorite method to spread the Word of God. The lack of vocations and the fall of the number of seminarians is one of the biggest challenges the Society faces. Father Alejandre Vergara explains why.

The Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity was founded sixty years ago. What makes it different from the other Catholic congregations?

First of all, I would like to introduce to you our founder, Father James Flanagan. He died two years ago. He belonged to the diocesan clergy in the Boston diocese, but, having seen in the war a lot of divisions and a lot of woundedness, he had the inspiration to create the Society and to bring unity to the world, having as a reference the unity of the Blessed Trinity.  The Blessed Trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – are united in love and Father Flanagan was convinced that it was the only way to promote the healing of relationships. According to our founder, there was a lot of broken relationships. Broken relationships with God,  among fellows and broken relationships even within ourselves. The vision he had was that we have to bring people to unity. But we can only bring people in unity in God.  We refer to that vision as “All peoples in unity with the Trinity, through the discipleship of Jesus and Mary.” It is only by partnering our lives with Jesus that we can also bring unity to the world.

The Society attempts to promote that unity through an innovative approach …

The Congregation has three major communities: the priests’ community, the religious community and the lay community. The intention is for us to form one whole community, because there are needs in the Church that cannot be attended to only by priests. However, they can be attended both by religious and by laymen. That’s why we call it “teamwork.” Our founder was an athlete. He used to say that we could only reach victory if we were working as a team. We can only bring unity to the World, we can only bring success to our mission if we work as a team.

This is a quite new approach. Can the future of the Church depend on this particular focus on teamwork?

Our founder was looking forward to the moment that we could be of help to the whole Church. Of course, different congregations have a different charisma and different grades of that charisma are given to them. One of the missions given by the Holy Spirit to our founder was precisely to focus on teamwork in the Church. Only focusing on teamwork we can be successful in our missionary activity. In the Philippines, we have already this established, but our mission in Macau – since we still don’t have many members among the sisters and the lay persons – what has been expected from us, from our Congregation is to work with the sisters already present in Macau and with the lay faithful. That is why we have been inviting some religious sisters to work with us, especially on counseling and some other activities in which they can be of help.

What are the main challenges here in Macau? What kind of people do you work with?

The Bishop of Macau entrusted us mainly with the Filipino migrants. We have about 30.000 Filipino migrants here in Macau and that’s the community we are attending to. However, there are also some other migrants who come to us for help. We are now extending our action to other migrants, especially the English-speaking migrants, so that we can answer their needs. Every year we try to gather the migrants who live and work in Macau. This year, supposedly we would do it in January, but the Vatican postponed it to September, so we will be having this celebration next year in September. We will try to gather all the migrants that work in Macau and the Bishop will be there to celebrate with us. The Bishop asked us mainly to be concerned about the Filipino migrants because there are many [of them]. In fact, we have a lot of activities and we invite them to participate, with the purpose of nourishing their spiritual life. There are other needs that they do have, especially counseling. We connect them to others who have expertise in that matter …

Macau is a quite rich place, but not a very welcoming one for migrants, both in terms of legislation and in terms of cost of life. Can the Church play an important role in order to integrate the Macau community in Macau society?

Yes. I think it already does. We don’t have any experience of being unwelcome. In fact, I always felt welcomed in Macau. Every territory has its own regulations and we should submit to them. We ask for the approval of the activities related to the Church and most of them are being approved. We need to state clearly that we can express our faith here; that is why so many Churches are being filled with Filipinos. We will be having once again this December the “Simbang Gabi,” a traditional celebration in the Philippines. “Simbang Gabi” is a nine-day novena of Masses in preparation for Christmas. It will start in December 15th for the evening Mass and December 16th for the dawn Mass.

Where will it be celebrated … In Saint Augustine’s Church?

We will have Masses in Saint Augustine’s, at eight o’ clock. We have in the Cathedral, at eight thirty. We have at Fatima Church at nine thirty and he have in Saint Lawrence’s Church at five thirty, in the early morning. We have been doing this for several years already, so that the people could fulfill their traditions as if they were in the Philippines.

The number of Filipinos participating actively in the activities of the Church here in Macau …  Is it increasing?

I feel so. When I first arrive to Macau, in 2014, there were only two English language Masses at Saint Augustine’s Church. There was an extra Mass at the Cathedral and we had another Mass at Mount Carmel, in Taipa. Now we also have Masses at Saint Lazarus, we added two new Masses at Saint Augustine’s and another one at the Cathedral. We added four Masses already and the Bishop asked me if I wanted to add more, but we have to look for other churches so we can add more services.

Father James Flanagan died two years ago, almost six decades after he created the Society. Does it still resent the death of Father Flanagan? Or Father Flanagan is still the main reference … His spirit is still leading the way that the Society works?

Yes. Still. I think his spirit is still there. He kept a very active presence right to the end. His mind was still perfectly sharp and clear and whenever we had meetings, he would always direct the community. That’s why we keep following his direction and why we are still seeking for Pontifical approval. We are canonically recognized. We can exist as a community and there is no problem with that in canonical terms, according to the law of the Church. But we want to have a Pontifical approval so we can have stronger links to Rome.

When do you think Pontifical approval can be a reality?

I hope that we can gain the Pontifical approval soon. It depends upon them, because all the requirements were already submitted to them. It depends upon the Vatican to approve.

Sixty years ago, when Father Flanagan created the Society, he chose three regional centers: one in Texas, one in Spain and one in the Philippines …

We call them regions. We have only two regions: the American region and the Asia-Pacific region. Originally, we also planned to have the Euro-african region, but we are just developing. We have some members in Ghana to begin our Region there, but right now we have only two regions: the area where the Society was founded and Asia-Pacific. In the Asia-Pacific region we have missions in Macau, in Thailand, Papua-New Guinea, Australia, Vietnam and the Philippines. In the Philippines we are in several places: we have parishes there and the Regional Priest Servant pays also visit to those places. That’s how we operate.

What would you say are the main challenges for the next 60 years?

When the Society first came to the Philippines, we had a lot of vocations. A lot. The challenge now that I see here is … Since we have vast invitations to go for mission, we are facing a decreasing number of vocations in the Philippines. We still have priests being formed, but we cannot really attend to all the invitations to send missionaries to all the places where we are needed. Even in the Philippines there are several Dioceses inviting us to go there, but at the moment we cannot answer their needs because we are already committed to different Dioceses now, in different places. The new requests we receive, we cannot give them an answer because of the decreasing number of vocations. A few years ago, we had several ordinations, but that number as fallen. Recently, we had only two ordinations, two new members in the community. Before, we used to have six, to have eight priests ordained and, as for the sisters, we also had a lot. At the moment, that is the challenge, even for other communities. It’s not just us. There are other communities feeling this, especially in the Philippines.

What are the main challenges that the Filipino Catholic community faces in Macau? You were saying that in the last few years there are more and more Masses, attending to the spiritual needs of the Filipino community. Is there anything else that the Diocese can do in order to improve the assistance it gives to the community?

We are always in close connection with the Dioceses and now we were given the mission to tap into young people. We were invited by the Diocese to try to tap into young people, to convince the Filipino youth, particularly, to participate in the different activities that we will organize next year. I am thankful to the Diocese. They really support our action, they support whatever activity we have, particularly concerning the nourishment of the spiritual life of the Filipino people. We usually present our plans to the Bishop and he is always very welcoming. The Diocese already realized that a lot of Filipinos are coming to the Church. This isn’t happening only in Macau. It’s happening in different parts of the world. Wherever Filipinos go, the Church is the first thing they look for. I told the Bishop that happens because we hold on to our faith. I also told them: “When one goes to the Philippines, his faith increases. His faith will get stronger.” This happens because the Church is the kind of home we can hold on to. The greatest challenge that we face concerns what we can do to gather all of them and attend to their needs. In fact, my intention was to visit them at their houses, but I can’t do that, except at nighttime. Our work in Macau is mainly conducted at nighttime, because that’s the time they are available, apart from Sundays and holydays. Those days they are also off. Sometimes I visit them in their houses, we have a little conversation, I bless their house, their families and they feel relieved of their fatigue and the stress they face at work. That’s one of the ways I try to reach all of them, but with 30,000 Filipinos it is not easy. I suppose they are not all Catholics, but mainly they are. Let’s suppose that at least half of them are Catholics … We cannot accommodate 15,000 in all our Masses at Sundays. This is a great challenge. How can I draw them to the Church and allow them to truly grow in their faith? That is the reason why I try to talk to them wherever I encounter them: around the road, in buses. We have a little conversation there. I usually use my collar, so they can recognize me and talk to me. That’s how I evangelize them, how I attend to their needs.