Two great missionaries, St. Paul and St. Daniel Comboni, have been inspiring me for quite a long time. I am Fr. Randy Recalde, a Comboni Missionary. I was born in the city of Calamba, Laguna, Philippines. I am the youngest of nine siblings (five girls and four boys). I was blessed to be born into a fairly religious family that helped cultivate my missionary vocation.
My mother was a member of the Apostleship of Prayer and the Legion of Mary. All of my siblings had attended the catechism program of the parish, and some of them became volunteer catechists. I enjoyed catechism and going to the Oratory, and the Salesian priests and brothers administered the parish pastorally.
When I was a young man, I was actively participating in the parish as a volunteer catechist and animator of altar servers. The joy and satisfaction I found in serving as a catechist and as an animator and in participating in various religious activities helped in the birth of my missionary vocation, although at that time, it was not yet clearly articulated.
Little by little, the vocation in me was taking shape. I felt restless and unsatisfied with the service I was performing in the parish. I wanted it to be more constant and permanent. Not just during the weekends. I felt happier when I was in the parish than in the university. In one of the prayer encounters we had in the parish, I had the inspiration to dedicate my life to the service of the Church.
Immediately, I applied to the nearest and the only known seminary to me, the Salesians of Don Bosco. Sadly, I was not accepted. Only lately would I realize that God had another plan for me. I re-enrolled in college and pursued a Bachelor’s in Secondary Education degree. In the last year of college, the desire to dedicate my life to the service of the Lord was rekindled.
WORLD MISSION
In the library of the College Institute, I discovered the World Mission magazine. I was amazed by the experiences of the Comboni Missionaries working in different parts of the world, but most especially in the continent of Africa. At the same time, a Spanish Comboni Missionary arrived in our parish to have his Tagalog language exposure. We became friends, and I also started inquiring about the Congregation. After a year of vocation discernment and finishing college, I decided to enter the seminary of the Comboni Missionaries.
It took me some years to prepare as a missionary. Aside from the formal study of philosophy and theology, we received inputs on our personalities’ cultural, psycho-emotional, and spiritual aspects.
Exposures were privileged formative opportunities. I had an exposure in the Aeta community in Porac, Pampanga, a job exposure in Capitol Medical Center as a janitor, a pastoral exposure in Victoria Laguna, in an orphanage in Mabitac, Laguna, a prison ministry in Bilibid, Muntinlupa, and Pietermaritzburg Jail, in the slum of Kwasikujana, South Africa. These experiences helped in purifying my intentions and clarifying my vocation. They taught me how to go beyond myself.
I was ordained a priest on the 26th of January 2008 in Mary Help of Christians Parish, Mayapa, Calamba, Laguna, after which I worked as a vocation promoter in the Philippines. After three years, I received my first missionary assignment to Peru.
MISSION IN PERU
I arrived in this Latin American country in 2011 and remained there until 2021. I studied Spanish for a year and was then sent as an assistant priest to St. Martin de Porres, Pangoa, a parish in the Selva Central of Peru. Then, a year later, I became the parish priest. The people of Pangoa are generally migrant farmers originating from the Andes mountains, where Catholic practices are strongest on fiesta days. Pangoa is a very big parish with more than 300 villages, about 175 of which are indigenous Ashaninkas and Nomatsigengas. We used to navigate the Ene River for about 12 hours to reach the furthest community.
I was still in Peru during the coronavirus pandemic. It is here that I realized that a missionary must strive “to become all things, to all people.” After the initial shock of the pandemic, I had to overcome fear and find ways to continue to enrich the parishioners spiritually despite the restrictions, to help those who have nothing to eat and those who are suffering because of the disease. I looked around and started finding solutions from the Philippines and everywhere: live streaming of the Mass and other celebrations, motorcades instead of processions, and community pantries. The parish, with the civil society, was able to build its oxygen generator.
In 2021, I was reassigned to the Philippines to open the first pastoral commitment of the Comboni Missionaries in the country, the St. Daniel Comboni Parish in Duale, Limay, Bataan.
