Diocesan priest takes mission trip to Guatemala

Friday, Oct. 18, 2024

GUATEMALA — Father Sebastien Sasa Nganomo Babisayone, administrator of Saints Peter and Paul Parish in West Valley City, recently traveled to Guatemala for a missionary trip. 

“We wanted to respond to the call of Pope Francis for World Mission Day 2024; namely, to go and invite everyone to the banquet,” Fr. Sasa said about the purpose for his trip to the parish of Saint Catherine of Alexandria of the Municipality of New Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, Sololá in Guatemala.

There he learned the culture and faith of this parish with its 23 communities.

The trip, from Sept. 22 to Oct. 4, was part of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish’s Great Mission Project, “which implements one of the elements of the four points of the diocesan Pastoral Plan: Eucharist and Catholic Identity: Unity in Diversity,” Fr. Sasa said.

The Diocese of Salt Lake City’s Pastoral Plan suggests providing formation and resources to the clergy to assist them in educating the faithful to respect and embrace cultural diversity, and also to teach about the country, language, customs and culture of the immigrant priests who minister in Utah.

Each year, the Sts. Peter and Paul community puts a country at the center of their parish life, Fr. Sasa explained. In 2021 they focused on Mexico, in 2022 on Venezuela, last year on Nicaragua and this year on Guatemala. 

The Guatemalan parishioners of Saints Peter and Paul “paid for the entire trip to live this wonderful missionary experience,” Fr. Sasa said, adding that “this community and the entire parish community sent me on a mission to the parish of Santa Catalina of the Diocese of Sololá-Chimaltenango.”

Fr. Sasa also visited Totonicapán, San Marcos and Escuintla as well as Santa Catalina de Alejandria-Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan and its communities (Virgen de Fátima-Nuevo Chuicutama, Pentecostés-Chirijox, San José Esposo de la Virgen María-Nuevo Xetinamit, San Francisco de Sales-Chiquisis y Sagrado Corazón de Jesús-Xeabaj) and of Santa Teresita del Nino Jesus-Xojola. 

“The great part of our missionary experience was concentrated in the Diocese of Sololá-Chimaltenango,” he said. “The Church exists to evangelize. The nature of the Church is missionary,” as the Second Vatican Council document Ad Gentes (On the Mission Activity of the Church) states, he added.

The missionary trip experience was joyful from the beginning, when he was met at the airport in Guatemala City by more than 30 people “singing songs of joy,” he said. “I was with tears of joy to see my brothers and sisters joyful to give me the welcome in this ‘country of the eternal spring.’”

That emotion continued, he said, with “the joy of having lunch and sharing about the mission with the Bishop of the Diocese of Sololá-Chimaltenango, Monsignor Domingo Buezo Leiva, who came to greet us. The joy of sharing our priestly, pastoral and missionary experiences with brother priests [who minister in Guatemala]. The joy of celebrating and living the mission in several parishes. The joy of sharing and exchanging spiritual and material gifts. The joy and pride of being together members of the apostolic Roman Catholic Church.”