On 12 September, the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) marked the culmination of a year-long celebration of its 60th anniversary.
The EAPI is an ongoing formation institute based in Manila, Philippines providing pastoral renewal, leadership, and sabbatical programmes through an in-residence experience of over four to six months.
Established to promote the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, it began its flagship programme on 15 September 1966 with 37 participants from 12 Asian countries. Now, more than 120 clergy, religious, and lay persons from over 20 countries around Asia, Oceania, Africa, and elsewhere come each year for their sabbatical renewal, pastoral and theological updating, and leadership development formation. Participants include parish priests, diocesan lay and clergy leaders, as well as religious sisters, brothers and priests in leadership, education, pastoral ministry and other roles. The current Director of the institute is Fr John Chong Chechon SJ.
What’s unique about the EAPI programme is its focus on holistic formation. From its beginning, EAPI has brought clergy, religious, and laity together for a shared formation experience in which they learn side-by-side with one another.
The courses comprise a range of spiritual, pastoral, theological, and human development modules, using a pedagogy that emphasises not only the learning of theories but also the integration of context, experience, and practical application. Participants also engage in regular group sharing so as to gain from the mutual exchange of knowledge and experiences.
What is most significant for many of the participants is the multicultural nature of the programme. They experience and learn to interact, work, and pray with each other across a wide diversity of cultures not only in the classroom but also in community life, liturgy, and other activities. This has given everyone a strong sense of a multicultural church and a concrete experience of synodality long before the word became more widely known.
Presiding at the Eucharistic celebration of the 60th anniversary, the Most Rev Ryan P Jimenez DD, Archbishop of Agaña, Guam, and President of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific, highlighted paragraph 143 of the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality that “formation provided by the Christian community be integral, ongoing and shared.”
He noted that these aspects of formation have been present at EAPI since its beginning. At the same time, he urged the staff and participants of the institution to remember the past in order to see the workings of God’s Spirit, to renew their commitment while updating the programme to present needs, and most of all to remain in Christ so as to be fruitful in Christ’s mission.
The 60th anniversary celebration saw more than 70 alumni returning to EAPI from around the world to join in the celebrations.
Fr Pyo Joong Kwan, a diocesan priest in South Korea for more than 45 years, attended the EAPI programme several years ago. Being in his senior years was no deterrent for this septuagenarian priest from ongoing formation and learning to learn again. He was very happy to meet fellow alumni at the celebrations and said that the transformative formation experience at EAPI “became part of our life story”. He praised the institute for having “excellent formators and teachers” and said to his fellow alumni, “Let us embrace one another again—not simply as former classmates, but as brothers and sisters who have come home.”
Sr Everlyn Paiyor, a Missionary Sister of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus from Papua New Guinea, has just started the current semester four weeks ago and said that already, the EAPI experience so far has helped her interact more confidently with others, find her voice, acquire leadership skills, and even begin the process of healing.
In commemorating its 60th anniversary, EAPI launched a book entitled Walking Together as a Synodal Church: A Formation Toolkit for Asian Contexts. This is a user-friendly group self-study guide for synod teams, formation teams, catechists, and other educators, including clergy, religious, and laity, to better understand synodality, integrate the Asian perspective, and prepare formation sessions on synodality for a variety of audiences. The book is available for free download here.
Related story: One Body: 60 Years of the East Asian Pastoral Institute
