One Church Many Cultures Spring Summer 2025 Called to Serve, Bound by Love: An API Journey to the Priesthood in the Jubilee Year

Called to Serve, Bound by Love: An API Journey to the Priesthood in the Jubilee Year

By: Deacon Christopher Derige Malano, CSP

Hope doesn’t wait for the perfect moment—it calls us forward now. The Jubilee Year 2025, with its theme “Pilgrims of Hope,” is a time of renewal and mission. For me, it marks a significant milestone as I prepare for ordination as a priest of Jesus Christ. As an Asian Pacific Islander (API) in the United States, this journey has been shaped by cultural heritage, personal challenges, and the call to serve in a Church that is still growing into its diversity.

Like many API Catholics, I was raised with a deep responsibility toward family. Being the first in my family to earn a higher education and enter a professional career, I struggled with the tension between providing for my parents and answering God’s call. Walking away from financial security for religious life felt like a departure from my duty. Many API discerners experience this struggle—how can one be faithful to family and to God’s call?

The Jubilee Year reminds us that hope meets us in these tensions. Faith is not just something we profess; it is something we live. Growing up in Hawaii as a Filipino American, I saw how faith was intertwined with relationships, hospitality, and community. These experiences shaped my understanding of ministry—not as leaving behind my roots, but as fulfilling them in a new way.

The Paulist Fathers are committed to encountering, accompanying, and engaging in dialogue—a mission that deeply resonates with the API experience. Many API Catholics navigate dual identities, balancing cultural traditions with life in a Western society. In my journey, I have wrestled with questions of belonging: How do I bring my whole self into ministry? How do we create a Church that reflects the diversity of its people? While the majority of the Church in the U.S. is made up of immigrants and believers of color, national and diocesan leadership has not yet fully reflected this diversity, making it difficult for API and other Catholics of color to see themselves represented. And yet, the Jubilee Year calls us to move forward in hope, recognizing that change begins by making space for new voices.

As a future priest, I hope to foster spaces where API Catholics can fully embrace their faith without feeling the need to deny or to minimize their cultural expressions. But this requires more than individual effort—it calls for a shift in families, parishes, and dioceses. We need to create mentorship programs for discerners, encourage families to see vocations as a blessing rather than a loss, and actively seek diverse leadership in the Church.

Pope Francis, just days after beginning his pontificate, reminds us, “Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us.”^[1] This hope is my guide as I prepare for ordination, knowing that API Catholics have gifts to share with the Church. The Jubilee is not just a celebration; it is a call to action. It is an opportunity to walk together, proclaiming that our faith, rooted in Christ, is a source of hope for all.

^[1] Pope Francis, Homily for Palm Sunday, Vatican, March 24, 2013 (https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130324_palme.html), 1.