Yesterday I was invited to come with Fr. Frank Pupkowski, scj, and Fr. Khoa Nguyen,scj, to Dansolhon for the 08:00 Mass to be followed by the blessing of the new convent that  will  be  the  home  to  3  SCJs.  First  off  I  must  explain  to  you  that  here  in  the Philippines a convent or also called a convento as they say applies to both a convent for nuns and a rectory for priests.

At present Jesus Nazareno functions as a Chaplaincy that I can best describe as a sub-parish, it currently has 35 out stations, and if you add them all up about 1100 families. It is staffed by Fr. Jan Krzysuok, scj, and Fr. Elpido Luza, Jr., scj. Fr. Jan is a missionary from  Poland  while  Fr.  Elpido  is  a  native  Filipino.  They  will  soon  be  joined  by  Br.Yohanes Sismadi, scj, who is a missionary from Indonesia. As you can see this a real international SCJ community.  According to Fr. Frank, the regional superior, though it is a chaplaincy,Jesus Nazareno really is functioning as a parish.

By: Fr. Tom Cassidy, SCJ