"Just to know Jesus and to belong to him, is really the greatest joy of all.”
Jacqueline Marie | Jan.16, 2025
For the last 11 years Father Patrik has been serving in Taiwan where Catholics make up just 1% of the population. He says, “From the missionary perspective, there is a lot to do.”
Originally from Slovakia, Father Patrik has had a deep love for evangelization since childhood. He recalls trying to evangelize his classmate in third grade. Father Patrik laughs: “he was not baptized, and I was talking to him and trying to sort of persuade him.” He smiles, “I even remember in that moment…I think the passion of sharing the good news of Jesus…I just felt it from my early childhood that just to know Jesus and to belong to him, is really the greatest joy of all.”
In his journey towards the priesthood, he studied philosophy in Rome where he met two sisters from mainland China – sparking a desire in him for the Chinese people. Father Patrik eventually joined the Divine Word Missionaries and seized an opportunity to take part in an overseas training program in Taiwan. He describes the training program as an opportunity where, “a seminarian can apply to go abroad and have a missionary exposure, learn language, and then have a kind of a pastoral experience.” Afterwards his superiors allowed him to stay and finish his studies there. “I felt like a fish in the water…it is a joy to be here.”
As he progressed through seminary formation and was ordained a transitional deacon, he was sent to a Taiwanese parish: the parish was in a new building and had a good number of people attending. However, issues of pastoral maintenance were overwhelming: “I just didn’t know how to process that. It was just so frustrating and there was no vision.” The experience in that parish made him want to do campus ministry or work with a media ministry. He began to question if his vocation was to be a parish priest at all. There was no evangelization, no fruit, Father Patrik explains, “we were just going through motions, it was like a slap on the face.”
"There was no vision... What are we actually doing here?"
“I was trying to discern my way through this” when he began reading books on parish renewal. He stumbled across Father James Mallon’s videos with Peter Herbeck and then the book Divine Renovation: Bringing Your Parish From Maintenance to Mission. He felt a deep connection with Divine Renovation’s focus on the power of the Holy Spirit, the primacy of evangelization, and the best of leadership: “I would devour all the other stuff from Divine Renovation.”
He prayed. He felt God still wanted him to be in a parish setting and to lead change.
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A little over a year ago, he was made parish priest of St.Joseph Freinademetz Parish in Linkou, New Taipei City. After years serving, first as a deacon and then as an assistant priest, he now had “the authority” to implement his learnings about parish renewal. He feels it was all God’s timing. He had been, “reading these things, and trying to process and prepare for close to five years.” Now he realizes, “God gave me the time to prepare, so that I could go forward.”
When he first arrived at St. Joseph Freinademetz Parish, “there wasn’t much going on.” COVID restrictions had a long lasting impact in his region and there was division in some of the ministries. “Basically, mismanagement and lack of leadership, a lot of things that went on during many years. It was piling up.”
They had a parish council that would discuss everything, somewhat jumbled together, “It was like a non-functioning body of decision making and of power…there was no vision.” He felt there was a sense of confusion, “What are we actually doing here?”
So, Father Patrik immediately started trying things he had learnt: preaching in a series, using visual aids, and PowerPoint, all of which were “pleasant changes for them.” But the big issues in the parish were structural. However, “it was really amazing and really God’s timing,” because at that moment his bishop began addressing the need for separate parish councils and finance councils for the whole diocese. “I took advantage of this time when the bishops were saying we need to restructure” and created a Senior Leadership Team. He reflects, “If I would do it during another time, I would probably face a lot of challenges, a lot of voices would be raising complaints.” But because of the bishop’s lead, the transition was able to happen quite quickly. “I basically tried to lead them in: ‘parish council does this, leadership team does this, finance council does this and they will work in harmony because we are united in vision.’”
Father Patrik also went through Divine Renovation’s group coaching (Kickstart) which helped him know how to lead his team in discerning a vision. “It was a lot of work just to just to try to explain and put people on the same page, you know, but I actually didn’t even imagine that in my first year here” that so much would be possible. He exclaims, “You know, it’s really so much better. Oh my goodness.” He feels equipped to lead and says, “thanks to Divine Renovation and all these books I have read…that made it really clear.”
"We don't make them missionary disciples and eventually, after half a year, you don't see these people anymore. We are doing a great disservice to them.”
He was also able to return to his first love – evangelization – starting up Alpha in the parish within two months of becoming the parish priest. He says there is an openness to religion in Taiwan that is not as common in the West. He says in every parish there are baptisms, they teach catechism, “but what is the saddest thing? We don’t make them missionary disciples and eventually, after half a year, you don’t see these people anymore. We are doing a great disservice to them.”
He assembled an Alpha team and “this connection started happening there.” He felt a real breakthrough in the leaders: “they finally got, like: ‘what is evangelization?’” The parish just finished their third Alpha in a little more than a year.
The fruit is already evident. This Christmas, one woman shared her testimony of coming back to faith. Another couple, in their seventies, just returned to Church; the husband, a lapsed Catholic for the past 50 years, his wife a new convert, getting baptized this year. In fact, her experience with the Holy Spirit was so powerful that Father Patrick says it is “another one of the 1,000 confirmations that that the Holy Spirit is really working.”
He says watching her life be impacted by the Holy Spirit is “a confirmation of how God loves every single person. And God specifically gave her… this experience so that He can confirm that He really loves us. He treats every one of us so uniquely.”
“We’re still slowly just scratching the surface, you know…we still want to go deeper.”
Your story matters.
Everyone has a story to share. What’s yours? Email us at [email protected] and inspire other parish leaders and fuel the movement with hope.
