By Anthony Barich
PERTH’S Voice of the Voiceless ministry that prays for and financially assists seminarians and the poor around the world has spread to Melbourne, London and Nigeria.
Nigerian-born Fr Nicholas Nweke, 47, founded Voice of the Voiceless started in 2006, inaugurated by Archbishop Barry Hickey in 2008, based on the charism of the late Pope John Paul II, who had personally inspired him to the priesthood.
Two lay people showed interest in VOV when they met Fr Nicholas while he was on retreat at Jensen Spirituality Centre in Boronia, Victoria, and introduced them to a group of 40 at their Bayswater parish in Melbourne.
He will return there with Perth VOV members Tanja Mallard of Ellenbrook, Freddie Low of Willetton and Marica Mudri of Beaconsfield on 1 May – the date of John Paul II’s beatification – to celebrate a Divine Mercy Mass with them.
Former Ellenbrook parishioners and VOV members Claude and Louise Felix and their family have also moved to London and gained the support of their parish to start the ministry there, and Fr Nicholas hopes to visit next year to formalise its foundation. The parish is already praying according to the format that VOV members currently pray every Friday at St Brigid’s Church in Northbridge from 7.30pm.
With exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, they pray the Rosary with meditations on Our Father, along with a Litany of Jesus and Divine Mercy prayers. During this time they pray for God’s mercy on the sick and suffering around the world.
VOV also started faith formation late last year with Scripture study and further reflection. Every fourth Saturday he also offers a Healing Mass at St Brigid’s Church.
Fr Cyprian, chaplain of a leper colony with over 200 patients on Oji River in Nigeria which VOV has fundraised for, will also start a VOV ministry there this year.
Fr Nicholas will also visit an orphanage and leper colony in Vietnam from 20-26 May to assess how VOV can help and to “give what we have”. He is being assisted here by Perth Catholic Dr Leonard Chan, who is part of Christian Health Aid Team, a group of doctors who work in poor areas around south-east Asia.Dr Leonard is negotiating a place through a priest in Ho Chi Minh and Frs Nicholas and Bonaventure Echeta and Perth couple Maureen and Darion Wylie are being sponsored by families from Singapore.
VOV, whose members span across the several parishes Fr Nicholas has been based at since his ordination in 2005, started off with a prayer group which sang Christmas carols at aged care homes and helped teach English to overseas-born St Charles Seminary students. In 2008 VOV financially helped Fijian seminarians.
With a foundation of prayer and Scripture study, VOV seeks to reach out to people both locally and abroad through personal connections, as the late pontiff did.
VOV’s very ministry seeks to make a critical point – that Christianity and indeed Catholicism is more than praying and attending Mass once a week, said Fr Nicholas, now Hamilton Hill parish priest. He seeks to dispel the misconception that his ministry is simply about Healing Masses.
“People think Sunday Mass and private prayer is all there is to being Catholic, but it’s about reaching out to others so they can feel Christ in others,” he said. “Mission is about caring.”
The key, he said, is to create time in one’s life to build loving relationships with God and to reach out to others, first in one’s own family and inner circle, then to others.
This ministry helps people understand why VOV takes John Paul II as its mentor – because he “stood up from his chair and travelled the world to touch the hearts of the sick and the lonely who nobody would touch; the disabled man who nobody would reach”.
A trip to an orphanage in the Philipines last year which he and fellow Nigerian-born Perth priest Fr Bonaventure Echeta visited, gave rice to and offered Mass for taught him much about the nature of the Christian life.
“Seeing the joy in these children during our visit showed that a personal encounter means more than a million dollars,” Fr Nicholas said. “I was humbled and touched. Jesus was visibly among these people, not just me.”
This also sent a critical message that priests must do more than just preach love from the pulpit, but “actually go out and meet people with problems, as Christ did to people begging for healing, both physically and spiritually.
“He not only gave them Scripture but touched them personally. That’s why VOV embraces the spirituality of John Paul II, and its motto is “Gather my people” – as it is about “letting people know about Jesus and how to love each other”.
This can only come about through personal renewal, he said, because “you cannot give what you do not have”. “You must have peace in your own life, your own family, before you can reach out to others. Otherwise it is false.”
To assist Fr Nicholas’ ministry, call 9331 7105 or email jr_nnweke@yahoo.co.uk.