Vocations awareness activities in Soufriere, St Lucia

Students, youth groups, congregations at weekend Masses, indeed, anyone who would listen heard the message of listening and responding in love to God during the recent Vocations Awareness Week that ran from January 8 – 15.

Sr Bernadette Offiajiaku speaks to students. At right, Rosemary Scott of Living Water Community, and Sr Noblyne Ajuonuma. Both sisters are from the Sisters of Jesus the Saviour, based in Nigeria.

Vocations Awareness team at Soufriere Composite. Deacon John Bonaparte, Laura Ann Phillips of Living Water Community and Sr Bernadette Offiajiaku of Sisters of Jesus the Saviour and school principal Joan Hippolyte.

In what often seemed a whirlwind tour of the schools and parishes in Soufriere, St Lucia and its environs in St Lucia’s north-west, the Sisters of Jesus the Saviour (SJS), lay ecclesial movement Living Water Community (LWC) and permanent Deacon John Bonaparte of Soufriere’s Our Lady of the Assumption parish, encouraged young and old to open their hearts to whatever the Lord was asking of them.
Apart from school visits, a display of the work and charisms of the communities that serve in Soufriere and the surrounding villages was mounted in the Assumption parish during the weekend Masses at the beginning and end of the week. In St Philip & St James parish, in the neighbouring village of Fond St Jacques, a special presentation was made to the Confirmation candidates there.
The Vocations Awareness theme was also carried the entire week on Decouvé Pouvois Bon Dieu (“Discover the Power of God”) – a live, hour-long, daily Catholic programme of prayer, praise and teaching on the day’s Gospel produced by the Living Water Community. The programme featured live interviews, testimonies and teachings on the various calls to the priesthood, diaconate, married life, lay consecrated state, religious life and the single life.
The week’s activities ended with a youth lime on Jan 13 for Soufriere’s confirmation candidates, Living H2O Youth – Living Water’s youth group – the Assumption Parish’s young adult group and the youth ministry from St Anthony’s parish, Canaries, a parish 20 minutes north of Soufriere.
Presentations were made by the SJS and LWC, as well as Deacon Bonaparte, a young married couple who were active in the Church before and since their wedding, and Fr Will Howard, parish priest of St Anthony’s Parish, Canaries.
The week’s activities were planned by the parish’s PIC (a Synod implementation committee), with Fr Raymond Laurent, FMI, parish priest of Assumption and St Philip & St James. Fr Laurent has served in Trinidad’s San Juan parish, and is perhaps best known as the father of the COOL Youth Ministry that flourished there during the 1990s. - Laura Ann Phillips