MY VOCATION JOURNEY
Everything has a history, a history of how it came about. For man, as long as he lives, every second, minute, hour, day, week and year marks a history for him. It is to this regard that I as a person, being a man that lives within the spheres of second, minute, hours,, days, weeks and year also have a history; a history that brims itself in different spheres of life which include spiritual, cultural, educational, and vocational spheres of life. I would however consecrate this page on the vocational sphere.
Being born into a catholic family and educated in catholic schools, and being involved in church activities such as altar servers’ ministry, legion of Mary etc. I developed the desire to be a catholic priest. These served as a bedrock that helped me to respond favourably to the calling. With this, the question surging was: which kind of catholic priest was I intending to be, a diocesan, a religious or a missionary priest? This question couldn’t have a response until in 2003 when I participated in the priestly ordination of Rev Fr Edward Muge, sma, an ordination that brought people from far and wide, anglophones as well as francophones etc. There I came to know that though the priesthood is one, it is blessed with diversity.
After my primary and secondary education at Fatima Private School Pankshin and College of Mary Immaculate Zawan Jos respectively, I proceeded to University of Jos. After a year there, I got admitted into the SMA. My journey with the SMA started in the year 2009 with series of interview in Kagoro and with Propaedeutic year in the formation house in Kagoro. It sounds somehow funny to say that none of my family members was aware of me seeking for admission and even admitted into the SMA, despite me leaving my family to Kagoro for interviews on several occasions. My people got to know about my admission barely one week to resumption. Brief, all this, is because I believe that my vocation is my personal journey with God. Little wonder, I was able to overcome the trauma of not being ordained in my country of origin, accompanied by my biological family.
Furthermore, having successfully terminated my preparatory year in the year 2010, I got admitted into the seminary of Saints Peter and Paul Bodija Ibadan, for my philosophical studies. I arrived the SMA Formation house Ibadan in the early hours of 20th of September 2010. It has been a wonderful four year experience in the Bodija’s formation house. However, the experience became bitter when four out of the seven in the set couldn’t make it to the next level of formation. That shows the mystery behind the vocation, “Many are called but few are chosen”.
I was admitted into the International Spiritual Year House in Calavi for the spiritual year, in the year 2014. It has been a year of serious reflections and meditations as well as of manual work. It has been for me a year of intense vocation’s crisis, of which through the help of God, I was able to overcome this crisis. In Calavi, I experienced another face of the SMA formation outside an academic environment. It has therefore been a year of profound discernment, which helped me to move forward and to say no to any form of discouragements and vocation’s obstacles.
At the end of in the International Spiritual Year, I was admitted to take the temporary oath into the SMA. This came with my appointment into the then region of Ivory Coast for my pastoral year 2015/2016. On arriving in Ivory Coast, I was sent to the diocese of San -Pedro to work among the kroumens as well as the morsis, precisely in the parish called Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, Grabo. It had been an enriching year, full of missionary experience. Having successfully terminated my pastoral year, I was appointed to Foyer Père Méraud Ebimpé, Ivory Coast for my theological studies in Institut Catholique Missionaries d’Abidjan.
After a profound reflection and discernment, I consciously applied for the permanent membership into the SMA, that which was granted to me on the 20th of June 2019, and on the 22nd of June 2019, I was raised to the order of deaconate by Most Rev. Dr. Maurice Konan Kouassi, the Catholic Bishop Emeritus of the diocese of Daloa, Ivory Coast. My one year of deaconate pastoral has been an enriching one, being the first to work as a deacon, in the SMA Provincial House Chapel (Notre Dame des Apôtres, Abobo Doumé, Côte D’Ivoire). Furthermore, by the grace of God, on the 04th of July 2020, I was raised to the order of the presbyterate in the same SMA Chapel, where I was ordained deacon and where I had my diaconate stage.
My vocation history has been God all through. God himself chose me with my weaknesses in order to announce the Good News to the most abandoned. I have that strong conviction that that same God who chose me, has given me and will still give me all the graces I need to be faithful to the calling. What I am today and what I will be tomorrow, is and will be by his grace. “But what I am now, I am through the grace of God, and the grace which was given to me has not been wasted. Indeed, I have worked harder than all the others not I, but the grace of God which is with me”, (1Cor 15, 10).
REV. FR. KISHAK GONAP, SMA