Vocations
Come and see
“Come and see.” — John 1:39
Two disciples asked Jesus where he was staying. He did not give them an address. He said: come and see. Every Orionine vocation in Kenya has begun with that same unhelpful, generous answer.
“I have no other ambition but this: I want to be the priest of vocations!”
St. Luigi OrioneWhat is a vocation?
A vocation is not a career decision, and it is not a mood. It is a call — something that comes from outside you and settles inside you, and does not leave. Often it is quiet. Often it arrives long before you are ready to say it out loud, and it usually sounds less like certainty than like a question you cannot stop asking.
Nobody can tell you whether you have one. But you can find out, and you do not have to find out alone. That is exactly what our formation houses exist for: not to recruit, but to give a young man the time, the silence and the company he needs to see clearly.
The Sons of Divine Providence came to Kenya in 1996. In November 2005 Fr. Peter Wambulwa became the first Kenyan Orionine priest. When the Delegation “Our Lady of the Rosary” was erected in Tortona on 12 March 2024, it counted 21 Kenyan religious in perpetual vows, 15 in temporary vows and 3 novices. Every one of those men once stood exactly where you are standing.
The Orionine path in Kenya
Since 2025, the whole journey can be walked on Kenyan soil, among Kenyans.
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First
Aspirancy — Sobea, Diocese of Nakuru. The first steps in Orionine life: prayer, community, study, work, and a great deal of honest conversation. Here a young man begins to learn what he is actually asking for. Director: Fr. Wycliffe Mumia.
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Then
Three years of philosophical studies — Formation House, Karen, Nairobi. This is where discernment continues while the studies go on. Students follow philosophy in Nairobi, in an international community of Kenyans, Ugandans, Tanzanians, Burundians, Indians, Togolese, Ivorians and others.
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Then
Postulancy. At the end of the third year of philosophy comes the postulancy stage: a time of preparation, and at the same time of cultivating deeper human and Christian values, in view of entry into the Novitiate.
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Then
Novitiate — Makutano-Mwea, Diocese of Murang’a. A year given entirely to the Constitutions, the life of the Founder and the school of Jesus, closed by first religious profession. Until this house opened in 2025, Kenyan novices travelled to the Philippines for this year. Novice Master: Fr. Jeremiah Njoroge.
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Then
Pastoral internship, and theology — Formation House, Karen, Nairobi. After first vows comes the internship, served in communities of the Congregation in Kenya and abroad, and then the years of theology at Tangaza University College and Utume College, leading to perpetual profession, the diaconate and priesthood. On the facade of the chapel, blessed in 2014 by the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Charles Balvo, stands the motto that explains everything: Instaurare omnia in Christo.
The fourth vow
Like all religious, the Sons of Divine Providence profess poverty, chastity and obedience. We profess a fourth: faithfulness to the Pope. St. Luigi Orione wanted his sons to be, in his own image, unconditionally at the service of the Church — not as a political allegiance, but as a place to stand.
And the work that vow sends you to is never abstract. In Kenya it looks like a child with cerebral palsy learning to hold a spoon; a young man who was once chained to a tree, now employed with his own bank account; a Maasai woman growing vegetables where there used to be only dust; a dispensary opening at the end of a long road. Charity without borders — knowing how to see and feel Christ in man.
Prayer for Vocations
[TO BE CONFIRMED — the official text of the Vocations Prayer of the Little Work of Divine Providence will be added here.]
Whatever else you do, pray this: the Delegation asks its friends, its parishes, its schools and the families of its communities to pray for vocations. St. Luigi Orione did not build his Little Work by planning. He built it by asking.
Come and see
Vocations
Don Orione Seminary
May East Rd, Langata
Nairobi, Kenya
Ask for the vocations director of the Delegation.
“Youth are the sun or the storm of tomorrow.”
St. Luigi Orione