MY MISSION AS A DOMINICAN MISSIONARY
FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
After finishing my studies – with a Bachelor’s and Licentiate degrees in Theology like my classmates in the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, my superiors assigned me to Santo Domingo Convent in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Here I began my teaching of moral theology at the then Dominican studentate of the Province (my first assignment, assistant parish priest of a wonderful priest, Fr. Damian Villegas). There I spent two wonderful years, and I came to know and love the miraculous Our Lady of the Rosary of La Naval, the beautiful image which saw our missionaries say goodbye to her before going to mission lands: Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, etc.
Thereafter, our Superiors assigned me to the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the Catholic, Pontifical and Royal University of the Philippines, founded in 1611 by archbishop Miguel de Benavides, OP and our fathers. I spent 45 years of my life there, and I continued teaching at UST (for 10 more years) Moral Theology, Spiritual Theology, Social Ethics and Bioethics. At the University, I was appointed to work in different offices. Three years, in particular, helped me to be of service and to grow intellectually, spiritually and socially: the Faculty of Sacred Theology, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and The Social Research Center. What I loved most, through all these years in UST, was my preaching and my teaching/writing of theology, social ethics and bioethics, and also my pastoral-spiritual work. While I was teaching bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, I was appointed member of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) in the Vatican (2000-2015), which helped me – in the yearly meeting at the Vatican – be more committed to bioethics and to life issues and concerns. I became very much involved with the Alliance against the Death Penalty which fought peacefully for the abolition of the death penalty: (it was abolished in the year 2005). I was also a member of the Pro-Life movement which fought prayerfully against abortion.
In September 2009, I was assigned to our St. Dominic’s Priory in Macau where the studentate and the Center of Studies of our Dominican and missionary Province are located. By January 2010, I began to teach moral theology and the social doctrine of the Church at the Faculty of Theology or Christian Studies (later, Religious Studies) of the Catholic University of Saint Joseph (USJ), Macau, where I also taught – later on – spiritual theology, and Christian marriage and Family (2009 -2019).
In Macau, I had, at the beginning, a difficult time while adjusting to the new environment and activities: it is not easy to be uprooted when you are a bit old! (I was already 72). I like my teaching and my community life here and also the more serene and quiet atmosphere (I became more “a solitary bird” on the roof of life). I miss my joyful and full pastoral life in Metro Manila. In Macau, my pastoral life is rather limited: some Sunday Masses with the people, in English here and there. In particular, I enjoyed and was enriched by my weekly Mass with the Missionaries of Charity.
One pastoral activity that I am committed to, since 2015, is as a columnist of O Clarim, the Catholic Weekly of the Diocese of Macau. I started to write a simple column intermittently (twice a month at the beginning), under the general title A Pilgrim’s Notes. I was happier when the editors began to translate some of the columns in Cantonese, and later on in Portuguese, too. Since 2022, and thanks to the generosity of the editors, all the columns are translated from English into Cantonese and Portuguese. The columns in Cantonese give me special joy for it is my little apostolate with our Chinese brothers and sisters.
Since I came to Macau, I have been much involved with other formators in the initial and permanent formation of our Dominican Province. In initial formation in Macau, with our student brothers. In permanent formation, by visiting our missions in Asia. A project I loved very much was the visitation to all our missions in Asia: I imparted short courses on permanent formation, often with spiritual retreats. I had the great joy of visiting and sharing Mass and table with our brothers in the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Myanmar, Timor Leste and Hong Kong – also in Rome. The core of integral initial and permanent formation (human, spiritual, theological and pastoral) is this: to help our brothers to acquire and perfect a form (formation), the form of Christ, which implies the following and imitation of and the transfiguration into Christ, God and man: following the Lord by the path of our Father and Founder Saint Dominic: through the tripod of community life, prayer and study ordered to preaching, and preaching directed to the salvation of humanity. Amazing grace – like all other vocations!
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