Three Catholic young adults have spoken of living their faith in the workplace as opposed to preaching it, hoping that their witness of the love of God through their everyday activity will bring their colleagues to the fold.
Manni Nepomuceno, Fleur Carvalho and Fatima Leung-Wai spoke at an event hosted by the Auckland Catholic Young Adult Community titled “How to be a Catholic in the Workplace?” on February 21. It was a hybrid event, which meant some of the participants went in person at the Christ the King church in Owairaka, while others tuned in using Zoom.
Mr Nepomuceno said he was supposed to go in person, but was advised that he was a close contact of someone who tested positive for Covid-19. Ms Leung-Wai’s parents were close contacts of another Covid-positive person, so she also decided to join the discussion via Zoom.
Mr Nepomuceno noted that he and Ms Leung-Wai were breaking the stereotype. He is working as an ICU nurse, in a female-dominated field, while Ms Leung-Wei is an engineer working in a male- dominated field.
“We often think that, as Christians or Catholics, we have to do something radical, like scream out today’s Gospel or daily reflections or sing out Gregorian chants in the middle of work. For me, I’d rather take a more subtle approach,” he said.
“As Christians we are called to do one thing: live out the Gospel to reflect Christ in our day-to-day lives.”
Mr Nepomuceno said that he does this by the way he presents and holds himself at work, maintaining honesty and integrity and taking accountability for his actions.
More concretely, he lives out his faith by praying with and for patients and their families, advocating for the patients in his care, and holding a dying person’s hand.
“There was this one case when a patient was alone in her final hours because she was waiting for her daughter to arrive from overseas,” he said.
“The world is in desperate need of witnesses,” said Mr Nepomuceno, stressing that we need to see our workplaces as places of mission.
Youngest
Ms Carvalho, the youngest speaker at 22, talked about how she maintained her faith through university and work. She said she had been working since her teens and through university.
Ms Carvalho described herself as a cradle Catholic from a very religious family, and being happily the “Jesus kid” throughout high school.
However, all her Catholic friends were a year below her, so that, when she went to university, all she had were “secular” friends.
“My secular friends were great, but it’s hard to grow in your faith when you don’t have any Catholic friends around you. You can’t expect your secular friends to help you because they are not on the same faith journey as you. You end up falling into the secular world without being aware of it,” she said.
Ms Carvalho also suggested that, when dealing with people of other faiths, she finds it better to listen than to preach.
She said that some of her workmates were vocal about their faiths, which gave her the confidence to be equally vocal about hers.
“I think the key to become comfortable in those conversations with other religions is hearing what they have to say and not preaching at them. I think people are way more receptive in hearing what you have to say when you actually hear what they say first,” she said.
“You’ve planted a seed of thought and, if someone wants to come and talk to you about it, they know that they can come back and talk to you about it.”
She also found wearing a scapular or having other religious items at the workplace can be a way to open conversations about faith.
Hard core
Ms Leung-Wai also described herself as a cradle Catholic with “hard-core” Legion of Mary parents, but said her young faith was “not internalised” despite being “forced” to go to Mass every day at the church near her house.
Ms Leung-Wai had nothing but praise and love for her parents, who both came from broken homes, but worked hard to ensure that their family would grow in love and faith.
She said that, when she moved to New Plymouth for an engineering job, her faith was tested. She became worldly and was embarrassed to let people know of her faith.
But when she went to World Youth Day in Brazil in 2013, she “realised I needed to own up to my faith”. She was later selected to meet with Pope Francis at World Youth Day 2016 in Poland.
Her faith life was further enriched by her subsequent experiences of travelling overseas, joining non-profit organisations like the Society of St Vincent de Paul and Family Life International.
Now that she’s back in the engineering field, she said she subtly preaches her faith, like having a St Josephine Bakhita water bottle, or talking about how she spent time at a monastery.
“Where the real magic happens, where the real evangelising happens, is in the kitchen when we are going for our coffee,” she said, explaining that it could be as simple as doing the sign of the cross as she gives thanks to God for her meal.
Being a member of the “water team” at her organisation, and working on water projects, she said she also had “to take courage”, not only with people in her organisation, “but I have to take courage and share my faith without speaking it to our clients and contractors”.
“Where I am today is a testimony of God’s love for me. And being able to open my heart and allow him (Jesus) to work through me, and receiving his love and being able to share that, that’s so important for each of us. . . . not just once but every day of our lives,” she said.
“The Christian of the future will be a
mystic or not exist at all”
Fr K.Rahner SJ
In the workplace or out
of it, if you are not a mystic
you simply are somebody else.
Listening skills…a MUST.