For decades, SMA missionaries traveled to Angola to proclaim the Gospel, serve communities and help build the local Church. Now, something new is taking shape.

Sebastião Moniz Dejoro is preparing on Saturday, August 29, to become the first Angolan priest of the Society of African Missions (SMA). His ordination is therefore more than a personal milestone. It represents a significant moment in the missionary journey of both Angola and the SMA: a Church that has received SMA missionaries is now increasingly becoming a Church that sends them.

“I am bringing Angola to the SMA in the same way that the SMA was brought to Angola by the first missionaries,” Sebastião says.

For him, the story is one of continuity. The missionaries who came to Angola planted a seed. Now, he sees himself as one of the fruits emerging from that seed.

“The missionaries who came to Angola planted a seed. I now have the grace to become one of the first fruits that has grown from that seed.”

From receiving to giving

Angola has a long history of receiving missionaries. Sebastião sees his own vocation within that history, but also as a sign of something changing.

“We have received much from missionaries, and today we have a growing Church, with a lot of potential, a lot of talent and a lot to give.”

That change is important to him.

Becoming a missionary does not mean leaving Angola’s missionary history behind. Rather, it means carrying that history forward.

“We can receive from other Churches, but we can also give.”

For Sebastião, the movement of missionaries between Churches reflects something fundamental about the universality of the Church. The Gospel is received, lived, shared and passed on from one generation and one culture to another.

“I believe that Angola is ready to open its horizons to the SMA.”

He sees the emergence of Angolan missionaries as something that can enrich not only the Churches to which they are sent, but Angola itself.

“We can carry our faith, our culture, our experience and our way of being Church to other places.”

A missionary vocation born at home

Sebastião’s vocation also reflects the growth of missionary awareness within Angola itself.

After returning to active participation in the Church as a young man, he began noticing the need for deeper catechesis in his own community. While preparing for his own Confirmation, he was already helping a catechist teach children preparing for Baptism and First Holy Communion.

But his vision did not remain limited to his own parish.

He began thinking about people beyond his immediate community, beyond his province and eventually beyond his country.

“I began to feel a desire to go out and share what I had heard and what I had come to know of Jesus.”

The missionary dimension of his vocation therefore emerged gradually: from serving children in his own community to imagining a ministry that could cross geographical and cultural boundaries.

In the SMA, he found a concrete expression of that desire.

“I discovered a family and a missionary identity that gave direction to that desire.”

“Being the first” means holding the door open

Sebastião is conscious of the significance of becoming the first Angolan SMA priest. But he does not see the distinction as a source of personal status.

“First of all, it is a grace to be called the first. I receive it not primarily as a title, but as a gift and a responsibility.”

He describes that responsibility as a “sacrificial responsibility”, a willingness to carry something for the good of others.

His greatest concern is not that he should remain the only one.

Instead, he hopes that his vocation will make it easier for others to imagine themselves following the same path.

“I do not want to take the place of being ‘the first’ as something that gives me importance. Rather, I see it as an invitation to hold the door open for others.”

That image captures what he hopes his ordination will mean for the future of the SMA in Angola.

If other young Angolans are discerning missionary life, they will now be able to point to someone from their own country who has already walked that path.

“I would hope that they could look back and simply say: ‘Because he went before us, we know it is possible.’”

For Sebastião, that would be one of the greatest fruits of his vocation.

The flame has not gone out

The future of vocations in Angola is not without challenges.

Sebastião recognizes that social transformation, secularism and economic difficulties can make young people hesitate before making decisions about priesthood and religious life. Young people naturally think about education, employment and how they will build their future.

Yet, he does not see these challenges as evidence that the desire for vocation has disappeared.

“There are young people who are asking serious questions about their lives and about what God may be asking of them.”

He believes that the task is to accompany them, create spaces where they can encounter Christ and help them discern what God may be calling them to.

“The flame has not gone out. It simply needs people who are willing to protect it, nurture it and allow it to grow.”

For him, the presence of the SMA in Angola can help young people see missionary life differently.

Angolans are not only people who receive missionaries. Angolans too can be sent.

A new chapter

As his ordination approaches, Sebastião speaks of gratitude and joy, but also of the importace of priesthood.

He wants to serve the poor and abandoned, accompany people in their joys and struggles, and remain available wherever the Church sends him.

But beneath all of these aspirations is a simple conviction:

“Before being a priest, I am a disciple, and I must remain close to the One who has called me.”

The significance of Sebastião’s ordination does not lie simply in the fact that he is the first Angolan SMA priest.

It lies in what might come after him.

The SMA missionaries who came to Angola planted a seed.

Now an Angolan is preparing to carry that mission beyond his own country.

And if the story of his vocation makes it possible for another young Angolan to answer the call, then being first will have meant far more than being first.

It will have meant opening the way. And that is what Sebastião Moniz Dejoro wants more than anything.

Prior to his ordination scheduled for August 29, Sebastião Moniz will be on retreat from August 23 – 28, remember him in your prayers.

Brice Ulrich AFFERI