I. Introduction

For the greatest Glory of the Sacrosanct Trinity, I will write these lines about my priestly and missionary vocation.

I am Father Federico, I am 36 years old, Argentine, and I belong to "Saint Elias" Congregation, which is a small religious institute that, for its charisma, announces the Good News to remote villages where there are no Catholics, this is, to very remote places of difficult access where our divine Saviour is still not known.

By the Grace of God, I am a missionary in the Far East, on the Tibetan Plateau, in the border of India, Chinese Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan.

II. About the Discovery and discernment of the missionary and priestly vocation.

Due to the admirable Providence of the Celestial Father and the secret action of the Holy Spirit that moves the souls to the supernatural epic, when I was nine years old and was preparing to receive the First Communion, I was amazed by the idea of preaching the Gospel in remote lands where our divine Savour is still ignored… That was (and is) the deep yearn of my soul. I experienced the first missionary desire when I was nine, but then I grew up physically and started to forget that idea. But then, many years later, that desire was reborn in my soul with an intense and supernatural strength, and confirmed that the Mission is my life’s ideal. But, how was this ideal reborn in my soul? I will tell it briefly.

When I was studying Law, at the middle of my career, I began to ask myself what I was going to make out of my life. Many options approached to me, and valuable (humanly considered). I had a saint family, many good friends, a beautiful girlfriend, I played rugby, worked, travelled a lot,  I was studying what I liked and was doing very well… But in my interior, an aspiration of something much higher was beating, I mean, a great ideal of heroism. I knew that there wasn’t anything greatest than heroism. I had it clear; I had it engraved with fire in my soul… That is why it was impossible for me to be content with limited sacrifices.  I wasn’t pleased to just "do something I like". It felt too little for me. My soul was claiming for an heroic life… That is what I wanted: being a hero”.

I knew that I didn’t have to (necessarily) be missionary or priest to be a hero. I knew that there were many ways of living the heroism, but I didn’t know which heroism God was inviting me to. Thus, I long reflected about it until I saw very clearly which heroism God wanted for me since the entire Eternity: the missionary epic!

I didn’t want to accumulate earthly pleasures nor the applauses of the masses. I wanted to live a heroic existence for God and for the good of the others. I wanted that: to be a hero!

I didn´t want to pursue the rewards of the world but to entrust myself to convert the world "with the madness of the preaching" (cfr. 1 Cor. 21). Even though I am a sinner, mi dream was (is) to be an instrument of God in an evangelizing epopee in the pagan world domains.

To sum up, God shook me and called to sanctify in the apostolic battle of the missionary effort.

III. From the priestly ordination to the missionary adventure.

On September the 1st, 2012, I was ordered priest. I asked my superiors permission for going to a mission in some remote country where God wasn’t known, to win them for the Church and for God, to take them to Paradise. To Heaven. I asked to be sent to Tibet or the Meca. I was sent to Taiwan (former Nationalist China), where I spent two years evangelizing and learning Mandarin Chinese, trying to win for Christ those who still didn’t´ have the joy of meeting him, which are the most.

I was very happy in Taiwan, but in the prayer, from the Sanctuary and the Altar, God invited me to go closer to the Tibet and set the Cross and proclaim out loud that there is no other name under which we can be saved but our Lord Jesus Christ (cfr. Acts 4, 12).

I discovered the ancient Sikkim Budist Kingdom (22nd state of India since 1975), an unknown settlement at the middle of the Himalayan mountain range, home of the Rong and Buthia tribes and, as well, some Pariahs and Indian-Nepalese. Since then I have been preaching and evangelizing in the North of Sikkim. I am the only priest that lives in the northern district of Sikkim.

Besides the apostolic means, the main action is the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the centre of my life since it has an endless value and since is the focal point of every missionary activity.

Praise the Lord!

Father Federico, S.E.

St Elijah’s congregation
Missionary in the Himalaya,

Kishangangj, Bihar,

September 9, 2017