Khoi Nguyen MSC: Ongoing Formation Program

Report on the Sexuality Program 4-10 July 2021 – Ongoing human development

Thanks to Trieu Nguyen for photos

This sexuality program was initiated by Chris McPhee in 2020 as he saw this aspect needing attention and focus, especially for our young men who are still in initial formation and for those who have just been ordained and coming from overseas.

In July 2020, this program was cancelled due to Covid-19 lockdown and restriction. This year, a similar situation happened but we decided to have it via Zoom. This was my first time running anything via zoom but because of the great participation from our men, Peter Anthony, Bartha Panayadimal, Danh Doan, Trieu Nguyen, Michael Nithan, Daniel Magadia, Anh Nguyen, with Mark Hanns sitting in, we were able to have very honest, enthusiastic and meaningful discussions and exchanges of ourselves and understanding about human sexuality.  

Robyn Reynolds OLSH

During the week-long program, we have Darren Burge fms, Robyn Reynolds olsh, and Phil Malone msc on the topics of sexuality and intimacy, sexuality and spirituality, sexuality and morality. These were great days of input and open sharing. We appreciate our guest speakers, for their wisdom, knowledge and sharing of their own experiences with us. I, myself, ran the rest of the program based on a reflective, discussive and sharing approach on the topics of ‘what is sexuality?’, gender issues, homosexuality, and self-care. There are more aspects that we can cover but time is a limit to the program. Apart from the group sessions, each participant has an hour individual time talking to Darren about anything they want to talk about or explore more.

I would like to thank each participant for their enthusiasm and energy they brought to the group, and especially thanking for who they are and being genuine about it.

I thank Chris for his driving force behind this program. Frank Dineen called me yesterday just to let me know that they had been praying for us as we were doing our program. Peter Malone kindly asked me to write up this report for our website. So, thanks to all!  

Philip Malone MSC, Zoom concentration

I have learned many things through running this program and by listening and understanding people’s different experiences in their sexuality. One thing comes to my realisation during the week. If there are as many spiritualities as there are people, I think we can say that there are as many sexualities as there are people. Each person has their own sexuality that we need to respect and understand. But we also share in the same sexuality that we call human sexuality and sexuality that is embedded and incarnated in all creation, that we can call universal. The call is to realise that the unity and the uniqueness can co-exist and co-present in life in different ways. We all are struggling with, and at the same time, enjoying our sexuality, together and in our own ways.

The way we live our sexuality today is the way how we incarnate God’s love in the world, whether we struggle or content, whether we fail or remain faithful, whether we dare or take caution, God never stops the flow of divine energy within our sexuality. Whatever God gives, God gives abundantly and unreservedly.

Sheer grace!