Wonderfully Made! Posted on 18th Jul 2009, 10:21pm by admin

Wonderfully Made!
“…I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well…”
Psalm 139:14

WM! is a Catholic Medical Guild (CMG) supported ministry for young adults based primarily on Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”. We had an unlikely birth in Feb 2003 when a group of young Catholic doctors was invited to run a workshop for catechism teens at the St Mary of the Angels parish. The initial experience was positive and very well received; it was interactive – involving skits, slide shows, movie clips, props, sharings; the energy of the interaction with the teens over the two weekends was infective.

This energy has remained constant in WM! programs.

Since 2005, WM! has been invited to over 13 parishes – many ‘repeat customers’ – in various parts of the island, as well as having had the privilege to work with our friends in sharing the TOB with youth, catechists and parents in neighbouring Kuching and Brunei.

We have found that with each workshop, we were constantly being invited to further evolve, and  that our goals were constantly being refined. We started running programs concurrently for teens and parents; later this was expanded to 3 groups – teens, their parents and facilitators (youth/young adults of the parish) who became the facilitators of the teen program.

Not surprisingly, it became increasingly exhausting to meet the needs of all the requests we received. So it was only natural that we further evolved.

In our discernment retreat in January 2009, we were invited to consider that our target audience was young and young-at-heart adults, in particular those involved in mentoring teens/youth. Our purpose is to nurture a community of TOB-convicted Catechists/Speakers/Facilitators who would then eventually run TOB programs of their own for the youth in their home parish/communities. We felt it was important that each community has their own TOB-inspired role models that the teens could look up to and journey with.

We’ve been privileged to have Dominican Fr David Garcia as our Spiritual Director and Formator; and in line with our discerned needs, we were blessed to receive an engaging 10 sessions of teachings on the basics of Morality which – we happily learned – was less about ‘not sinning’ and more about “how to be truly happy”. This was organised as a 10 weeks “Foundations of the Theology of the Body” program from March to May 2009. We are thankful and encouraged that of the 28 people who joined us at the start, just about all stayed with us for the three months to the end.

In the midst of the 10 weeks, we supported a core team of catechists from Holy Family who joined us in the formation program. They courageously designed, organized, brainstormed and presented/will be presenting a workshop on the TOB for their Con 3 teens over the weekends of 24 and 31 May 2009. We were also privileged to support friends from St Teresa’s Church – some of whom joined us in the formation program – in some segments of a 12 week Theology of the Body for Teens program at STC; these experiences that came our way unexpectedly convinced us that we are somehow on the right track.

We believe that if our presence in a parish has not in some way helped that parish to form its own TOB program, we would have considered our mission in that parish unfulfilled.

What’s up ahead for WM!? We intend to stay the course with forming and supporting catechists/parents in running TOB programs for their own catechism teens/family life groups. We are exploring further refining and increasing accessibility to the formation which we found very helpful under Fr David’s tutelage.

When we started out, we were merely responding then to what we saw – and still see now – as the need to cultivate a “culture of life” among youth and families in the life of the church and community.

Now we have come to understand that: In a world that is hostile to the family and to the dignity of persons, and that often misunderstands or is even hostile – painfully even by our own fellow Catholics – to especially Church teachings on sexuality, contraception and marriage; we as a community of believers need to be a sign that the work of understanding and living out our vocations in its fullness – whether in marriage, as religious, or as singles – somehow protects us from the storms of the brokenness in families and relationships.

We need to be the sign that somehow in our believing in a love that endures to the very end, in believing in a love that redeems in the grime and sweat of family; and that by simply being Catholic, our lives – and relationships – are somehow more … meaningful (and consistent with the teaching of moral theology…more “happy”).

WM! exists to make ourselves obsolete. When every parish in Singapore has its own thriving TOB program impacting teens, youth, young adults, parents…. and our families are finally spared the brokenness of the world at large, we would then have finally accomplished our mission.

And then perhaps we may finally rest.

For more on Wonderfully Made! click on www.wonderfully-made.org/

Dr Victor Loh
Wonderfully Made!
Catholic Medical Guild

27 May 2009