A Colombian priest's mission from South America to Bangladesh
Rome (AsiaNews) - Fr Danilo Gomez, 35, comes from the Diocese of Sonsón-Rionegro in Colombia, and will shortly leave for Bangladesh with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME). This choice, he told AsiaNews, "was already born when I received my priestly vocation. I always thought that I could go anywhere since one can do good everywhere. I never imagined though that I would end up in Asia, but when the time came, the Lord fulfilled my wish. God leaves no one alone."
Notwithstanding such a drive towards the universal mission, it is rare for a Latin American priest to leave his continent. This was the case for Fr Danilo as well.
After he was ordained on 21 November 2009, he was initially sent to two separate villages in his diocese to serve as the local parish priest. Later, he was sent to a seminary to teach.
"When I started as an educator," he explained, "I thought I would do it for five years, and then be finally ready to go on mission." His head was still full with what Mgr Tobón Ricardo Restrepo, the previous bishop, had told him when he was a student: "In his heart, every seminarian must have a mission, [a desire] to be a missionary, anywhere, even if this might mean elsewhere."
Mgr Ricardo's advice had an impact on him because of a new experience undertaken by his diocese and the Church in Colombia. At that time, between 2000 and 2007, a small group of priests, also associated with PIME, had gone to Bangladesh for the first time. Significantly, a meeting with one of these priests years later would push Fr Danilo to make the final choice of going to Bangladesh.
"Fr Hector Ramirez told me that no one in our diocese was ready to leave for Bangladesh, but that the country needed it," the priest said. "I realised that the meeting with this confrere was a response to the desire I had experienced long ago, a desire that God grasped immediately making me meet Fr Ramirez."
Thus, in early 2013, this new phase in Fr Danilo's life began. Soon, he will leave with Fr Belisario, another of his confreres. Admitting fears and concerns, he knows however "that the Lord will show me the way. I am in his hands."
As part of their training, the two priests are now perfecting their English, and are set to study Bengali over the next two years.
"I know," he noted, "that their culture is very different from ours. They tend to think about facts, about concrete things. For my part, I want to learn to read their hearts and bring them everything I have, i.e. Jesus. This is the greatest treasure."
Reflecting on his future life as a missionary, Fr Danilo said he found great comfort in Pope Francis, who like him comes from "the end of the world" and "has an exceptional ability to communicate because his words are always very practical."
For the young priest, the pope's constant call to go out to "the fringes of society" is "fundamental, because too often we are 'just' happy to be priests, to stay in this or that parish, or do this or that pastoral work. Instead, it is our duty to go out because there are so many people who need Jesus."
During his short stay in Italy, before leaving for Bangladesh, Fr Danilo was able to see the birth of the Spanish edition of AsiaNews. "It seems a coincidence, another sign of the need to build a bridge between two different worlds, that of Asia and that of Latin America."
Yet, "At this moment in our history, as globalisation takes hold, it is important for people who speak my language to have the opportunity to know something more about Asia. Typically, the news we receive from that continent relate to large-scale disasters, whether manmade or natural, like wars, earthquakes, or tsunamis. Of course, these are things we have in common . . . . But is this the only thing that brings us closer? I think not. I think there are many good initiatives, many positive stories that need to be shared and disseminated. This way, we also learn more about ourselves. Then, two different people might find out that they are much more similar than they ever believed."
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