The Maryknoll community embraces two new deacons preparing for the priesthood.
This article was updated on May 13, 2024.
In his message for World Mission Day last year, Pope Francis spoke of “hearts on fire, feet on the move.” For two Maryknoll seminarians ordained to the transitional diaconate in 2023, the road to ordination as Maryknoll missionary priests is, quite literally, a journey.
Joshua Maondo and Charles Ogony, from Kenya, are making final preparations to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders on June 8. With hearts ablaze and their bags packed, the three will carry on anew Maryknoll’s mission to bring help and hope to the world’s most disadvantaged.
Following in Footsteps
For Joshua Maondo, 29, the path to priesthood was envisioned from a young age. Born in Kakamega, in western Kenya, Maondo says his faith was nurtured at home. “The Catholic faith came through my grandmother,” he says. “When she married my grandfather, she converted the whole family.”
When Maondo became an altar boy after his First Holy Communion, his grandmother could not have been prouder, he says. She encouraged her grandchildren to go to catechism classes and reviewed with them what they learned. Maondo would often discuss with her ways in which the Church’s teachings could be practiced within African culture.
Maondo first learned of Maryknoll missions as a student of linguistics and literature at Kenyatta University in 2012 from Father Lance Nadeau, then a chaplain at the university.
Although he had dreamed of becoming a priest since childhood, Maondo felt that the Maryknoll experience was unique: “You can easily single out [Maryknollers] from the rest of missioners. The way they handle people, with a lot of care, a lot of compassion — the way they move with the people.”
Joshua Maondo assists at a parish celebration at St. Basil Church in Chicago. (Courtesy of Joshua Maondo/U.S.)
He began his overseas training — a two-year-long experience of mission formation for Maryknoll priest and brother candidates — in Cochabamba, Bolivia, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. He says that despite the risk, he resolved to remain by remembering that he was following in the steps of early Maryknoll missioners.
In Cochabamba, Maondo participated in ministry to prisoners at the maximum-security prison El Abra. He also served as a tutor for children after school at Hogar San Martín-San Vicente, a home for at-risk children and youth.
“You can see hope in them,” Maondo says of the students he was tutoring then. “You look at their faces and you can see gratitude: ‘I’m glad I’m here … I look forward to a brighter future.’”
When Maondo returned to Chicago to continue his studies at Catholic Theological Union (CTU), he volunteered at the Aquinas Literacy Center to teach English to the immigrant community. He currently serves as a deacon at St. Basil Visitation Church and also assists at St. Benedict the African Church.
Maondo says the word “community” sums up his thoughts about mission. “Community lifts you up,” he says. “At the end of it all, it’s you in service to the community.” He wishes his grandmother, who passed away in 2016, could have seen him become a priest.
When talking about his own dreams for the future, Maondo says he wants to see “a blossoming Maryknoll.”
Charles Ogony helps with a reforestation project in Cochabamba, Bolivia. (Courtesy of Charles Ogony/Bolivia)
A Sign of Peace
Charles Ogony’s first steps in his vocation began in childhood, guided by his family in Migori, Kenya. His grandfather donated a plot of land for the construction of a small chapel and his father became a catechist. That was when, Ogony says, he began walking in the faith.
When Ogony was only 6 years old, he witnessed robbers violently attack his father as they attempted to steal from his home. The attack left a huge impression on him, yet instead of resorting to resentment, the young boy began considering what he could do to foster harmony among people.
“I saw priesthood being a sign of uniting people together,” he says. “If God calls me, I should respond so that I can be a sign of peace.”
Ogony also encountered Maryknoll in 2012 as a student of education, geography and history at Kenyatta University, where, he says, Father Nadeau’s homilies were exceptional: “He could make students from different churches, different religions, come to the Catholic Church.”
With Father Nadeau’s encouragement, Ogony met other Maryknollers. “We saw the same spirit of welcoming, of compassion,” he says. He remembers thinking that Maryknoll must be “special.”
Ogony began his overseas training in Bolivia in 2019. When the outbreak of COVID-19 prompted lockdowns and caused many international volunteers to flee the country, Ogony remained to help in any way he could.
Alongside fellow Seminarian Matthew Sim and Maryknoll Brother Ryan Thibert, Ogony volunteered at Hogar San José, a home run by the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly for senior citizens at risk of homelessness. “Changing their clothes, serving them food, that was the mission,” he recalls.
On his own initiative, Ogony also began a ministry to accompany the homeless population of the city. Soon he became known as Hermano Carlos (Brother Charles) to the marginalized street people he befriended. Fresh from language school as a learner of Spanish, Ogony shared meals with them, singing and listening to their stories. “The way they received me was quite humbling. I fell in love with that ministry.”
Back in Chicago in 2021, Ogony continued his studies at CTU while he served at the Blessed Sacrament Youth Center, tutoring children from violent neighborhoods in an afterschool program. He also currently assists at St. Benedict the African Church.
Ogony, 30, is open to going wherever mission will take him: “Being a missioner is to go out and meet the marginalized and listen to their stories. That is the gospel we can write in their life — and they’ll also write the same in our life.”
Featured image: Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia (center) celebrates Mass during the ordination to the diaconate of Charles Ogony (left) and Joshua Maondo (right) on October 21, 2023. The seminarians will be ordained Maryknoll priests on June 8, 2024. (Diane Mastrogiulio/U.S.)
