Ateneo's citation of Fr. Mark Lesage CICM, Bukas Palad Awardee 2017
FR MARK LESAGE CICM
Bukas Palad Award
Fr Mark Lesage, a missionary of the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM), was ordained during Vatican I but being a dreamer, his heart ran ahead of history.
Early in his first parish assignment in 1962 in Kapitolyo Pasig, seeing the same handful of people in different church meetings, he thought of how the whole ‘people of God’ could live and participate in church life and mission.
In 1969, he was assigned to the Parish of St Joseph in Las Piñas, where he would stay for 30 years. The wind of Vatican II in his wings, he spent all his energy in facilitating the emergence of small faith communities in neighborhood settings (popularly called basic ecclesial communities or BECs) and, in a special way, built up the leadership responsibilities of everyone involved.
In 1999, as he turned 65, an age when others hang up their gloves, Fr Mark entered a new arena by founding Bukal ng Tipan, a pastoral center that would serve dioceses in the Philippines, Asia, and Europe and would continue the community-building and communal leadership passion of Fr Mark.
The Parish of St Joseph in Las Piñas developed from a priest-centered church to a participatory church through the affirming leadership of Fr Mark. Believing in the innate goodness and giftedness of people, he gradually built up the leadership groups in the parish. From the traditional parish council made up of the leaders of the mandated organizations, he set up a think-tank group that would brainstorm on how to increase participation in church life and mission. Working groups were organized per parish activity, composed of people who were not involved in the mandated organizations and whose task was to think ‘out of the box.’
In the early 1970s, working groups flowed into lay ministries, which responded to the bigger needs of the Las Piñas parish community, especially in terms of social action as the majority of the parish community came from the poorer sectors. The heads of ministries formed the Parish Coordinating Group in 1975.
In 1980, the Parish Pastoral Council was renamed LINGAP (Lingkod ng ating Parokya) with the clear intention of fostering a pastoral servant attitude among its members.
By 1985, the leadership structure had widened to the barrios and by 1990, the zones also had their own leadership teams. General parish assemblies attended by about a thousand people representing the different groups and areas in the parish started in 1986, as an integral part of the whole pastoral planning process for developing parish programs. This process entailed evaluation, decision-making, and goal-setting. Believing that leadership does not reside in one person but that every person has a leadership responsibility, Fr Mark thought of ways of including the baptized in decision-making by asking churchgoers their opinion regarding pastoral programs and activities. In 1987, the first parish survey was conducted during the Sunday masses. A few years later, those who did not go to church were also consulted. The results of the consultations were then forwarded to the Parish Council before it started its yearly evaluation and planning.
For Fr Mark, building up leaders does not start with the question: What kind of leaders does the Parish need? It starts with the question: What kind of Church do we want to become? The growth in leadership, therefore, was in line with the vision of a participatory church. Fr Mark’s goal was to maximize participation from as many people as possible, especially the poorest, in all areas of parish life—from liturgical celebrations to formation seminars, decision-making, pastoral planning, and financial management—therefore engaging them in the life and mission of the greater church.
A most important instrument Fr Mark saw early on, as early as the 1970s, for participation to increase was the Basic Ecclesial Communities, a concept which was just starting at the time in the country. Hearing about it in Mindanao, he attended the first Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conference in 1971. He continued visiting parishes all over the country that were also searching for new ways of being Church, especially through BEC. He went to a parish in Cebu and in Leyte and attended a number of BEC seminars there. In 1991, he and lay worker Estela Padilla went to Lumko in South Africa to study their BEC approaches and tools.
Gradually, BECs—neighborhood groups meeting regularly to build up their faith in Jesus through liturgical activities, formation and awareness-raising, and social engagement and action—strengthened to the point that the Parish of St Joseph became an exposure site for participatory church and BECs among Philippine parishes and dioceses. By the mid- 90s, the parish also became an exposure site for pastoral ministers, clergy, and lay from Asian countries, especially those studying in the East Asian Pastoral Institute. In 1993, Fr Mark and Estela became co-founders of the BEC Desk in Asia under the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. The parish BEC team also started giving BEC seminars to other parishes in the country and in Asia, and was also invited to teach about BECs in Metro Manila’s theological seminaries.
In 2001, Father Mark founded the Bukal ng Tipan Pastoral Training Center with six lay pastoral workers from the Parish of St Joseph. Bukal’s mission is to journey with peoples towards a participatory church in the world. From its parish experience of two decades, when these six lay pastoral workers became active agents of moving the parish from a priest-centered to a participatory church, Bukal’s main pastoral programs, tools, methods, and processes were designed. Presently composed of ten people—eight lay and two priests—Bukal has a BEC/Local Church Unit and a Youth Unit. It partners with different commissions of the Philippine and Asian Bishops’ Conferences, especially the BEC, Youth, Bible, and Theological Commissions.
Consistent with Father Mark’s passion for community-building and communal leadership, Bukal’s fundamental approach in pastoral work is accompanying and partnering with diocesan teams. Aware that it will always be an outsider, and respecting the history and culture of dioceses, Bukal starts with immersion and exposure to the social and church life of the different dioceses it works with. It makes sure that it partners with a local team from the very start of its involvement in another diocese or parish. Believing that they cannot give what they do not have, the Bukal ng Tipan team takes its community life seriously, as it does its relationship-building with the diocesan team it works with.
To date, Bukal has worked intensely with about 30 dioceses in the Philippines, Asia, and Europe. Although it started as a pastoral center where people come and attend programs, it soon became a team that goes to dioceses and journeys with them. Bukal moved from a center to local areas, and in doing so became context-based, responsive to specific needs and, thus, more mission-oriented. From giving pastoral courses, it moved to facilitating processes of local church development. From pastoral consultants, Bukal became more conscious that they are partners and co-disciples with the different teams they encounter.
For devoting more than 40 years of his life pursuing his vision of a participatory church, which, in his words is, “a church where everybody has the opportunity to participate, a church that is listening to people, a church that is concerned with the lives of people, a church where everybody has a place and a space, especially the poor,” the Ateneo de Manila University, in this Year of the Parish as Communion of Communities, confers on Fr Mark Lesage CICM the 2017 Bukas Palad Award.
