Novitiate House, Makutano-Mwea

The novitiate house opened in 2025 at Makutano-Mwea, near the town of Mwea, in the Diocese of Murang’a. It is the Delegation’s first novitiate on Kenyan soil. Until now, Kenyan novices travelled to the Philippines for their novitiate year — which meant that the most decisive year of an Orionine’s formation happened far from the land he would serve.

The Novice Master is Fr. Jeremiah Njoroge.

The novitiate is one year, and it has one purpose. It is dedicated to the Constitutions of the Congregation, to the life of the Founder, and to what Don Orione would have called simply the school of Jesus.

There is study, and there is silence, and there is work — but the year is not a course. It is a long, unhurried look at a question: whether this life is the one God is offering.

At its end, those who are ready make their first profession of vows: poverty, chastity, obedience, and the fourth vow of the Congregation — faithfulness to the Pope.

That a Kenyan novitiate now exists is the quiet proof of what began in 1996. A mission that receives missionaries has become a Delegation that forms its own. Read the story →