Testimonies - Fr. Michael Watae, CSSp

On February 2nd, 2003 (Libermann Day) Michael Watae became the first Papua New Guinean to be ordained as a Spiritan Priest.

On the Road to the Priesthood

The north coast town of Aitape, Papua New Guinea had never experienced a diaconate ordination of such magnitude. It was October 9, 2002 and native son Michael Watae had come home to celebrate this next to last stage on his long and varied road to becoming a priest.

Approximately 4000 people took part in the day long celebrations that began at 9:00 a.m. with a ceremonial procession of the national flag and the playing of the national anthem.

Then came the entrance procession. Dressed in his traditional costume. Michael sat in a specially built traditional house and was escorted in by eight people while a 'singsing' group from his own clan danced around the house. Midway to the sanctuary a tribal elder called Michael out of the house so that all present could see him.Michael's parents and a cousin came to meet him, joined by leaders from four Protestant churches and a Catholic elder. The elders divested him of his traditional costume and clothed him in his Spiritan robe. When Michael and his parents arrived at the sanctuary they handed him over to the parish priest who in turn handed him to the bishop.Refreshments and traditional 'singsing' followed the ordination ceremony until 8:00p.m. The last group of people were transported home at 2:00 a.m.

Michael comes from a family of eight boys and three girls. The three girls have died and five of the eight boys are married. His mother believed that since his twin sister had died at the age of three, he should not become a priest, but get married and have children who would resemble both him and his twin. So he finished high school and went to study business at the University. But he left there in his second year to help his older brothers support their youngest one.

From Papua New Guinea to the Philippines

Canadian Spiritans Colum Corrigan, Pat Doran and Michael Doyle influenced Michael to become a priest. He lived in the Spiritan House of Studies and when it was closed he continued living with the Spiritans for five years while working in the diocese of Aitape.

Sent to Manila, Philippines, to study at the East Asian Pastoral Institute, he prayed continually, "Lord, if you are able to show others what they should do, tell me clearly whether I should be a priest. Is that your plan for me?"

On February 23, 1994 he took a walk after dinner and said his Rosary. "I said to Mother Mary, 'I'm saying the Rosary to ask your Son to show me where I'm going." The next morning at 5:00a.m. when he woke up, two Scripture texts were on his mind. He took them to be an answer to his prayer of the previous evening.

"Now, my son, do not be negligent any longer, for Yahweh has chosen you to stand in his presence and serve him by conducting his worship and offering him incense." 2 Chronicles 29:11

"You will be called priest of Yahweh and be addressed as minister of our God." Isaiah 61:6

After two years in Manila he returned home. Pat Doran had only one question for him. "Have you made up your mind?" Without hesitation he answered, "Yes." He then went to the seminary in Arusha, Tanzania where the person who most influenced him was East African Spiritan, Augustine Shao. Now Bishop of Zanzibar, he will ordain Michael to the priesthood.

From Tanzania to Trinidad

Three years in Tanzania were followed by Novitiate in Trinidad. "I never thought I'd come across the world like that. I didn't even know where Trinidad was. When Fr. Brian Cronin told me that I was going there I couldn't believe it. I wanted to stay with my classmates."

Fr. Herbert Charles was his Novice master. "Two words remain with me from that year-responsibility and freedom. He prepared me to become someone who could stand on my own feet and be faithful to those who had guided and advised me. Trinidad gave me my philosophy of life: 'Look at people. Don't just see their weaknesses. People are good.'" Because of his Spiritan training Michael believes that his priestly work will always have a missionary component. "People will see me not as a diocesan priest, not as a Franciscan, but as a Spiritan- a missionary priest, always a missionary priest. The true marks of a Spiritan are simplicity, hospitality and brotherhood. I read these words in the Spiritan Rule of Life and I saw them lived out in the Spiritans I was with in Papua New Guinea, East Africa and Trinidad."

I saw the cross and I changed my mind

In Trinidad at Fatima College, Port of Spain, Michael had another reassuring experience.

"I was sick for a few weeks and I felt very low and forgotten. I made up my mind to leave Trinidad and come to Canada so that the Spiritans there might decide what to do with me. I wanted to continue as a Spiritan, but I didn't want to die! I packed my belongings, said my night prayers and asked for the grace to be strong enough to tell the Trinidadian Spiritans I was leaving. It was very painful - my first experience of Gethsemane. Next morning, February 26, 2001, when I woke up, the text of Leviticus 20:26 came to me: Be consecrated to me, for I, Yahweh, am holy; and I shall set you apart from all these peoples for you to be mine.

"Right outside my door was a big cross. The moment I saw it my tears fell down and I said, 'If you can suffer for me, then my pain shall not stop me.' I felt Jesus saying, 'I had my pain. You have yours. Consecrate your pain to me.' In a period of doubt and difficulty, I wanted to leave. Then I saw the cross and I changed my mind."

The final significant text came to him in Laval House, Toronto last summer where Michael spent some weeks before and during World Youth Day. On June 29 he visited a Trinidadian family and got talking about his journey to the priesthood. He told them about the texts that guided him in Manila and Port of Spain. As he opened the Manila text to copy it for his friends, he found he had written Romans 15:16 nearby. "I heard myself saying, 'Why did I put that text there? Check it out'. I was given grace to be a minister of Christ Jesus to his people; dedicated to offer them the gospel of God, so that they might become an acceptable offering, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. It seemed to summarize the other three significant texts.

"The fact that the final text came to me in Toronto makes me very happy," Michael told Spiritan Missionary News, "because in my heart I believe that what I am undertaking is not my own doing but is due to the Canadian Spiritans and their support. The Spiritans I've encountered have been men of prayer, holy men. I hope to show these qualities to those who come into my life."

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