Vocations
Vocations in the Clifton Diocese
Clifton Diocese is always seeking to encourage each one of us to consider more deeply how God is calling us to serve. The Vocations Ministry of the diocese seeks to promote vocations and is always happy to come and talk to parishes and schools or other groups about this.
On this page you will find information relating to:
Fr Colin Mason is Vocations Director for Clifton Diocese. He is Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart, Bristol and has a strong focus on promoting vocations within the diocese.
He leads a Vocations team that encourages and supports vocations to the priesthood, the religious life, the consecrated lay life and single life, and to the Permanent Diaconate. The vocation to the married life is encouraged and fostered separately within the Diocese.
Fr Colin Mason
Vocations Director
Fr Colin has a focus on vocations promotion and discernment for the diocesan priesthood. He will be happy to answer any questions or to help those who wish to explore and discern a possible calling to service as a priest in the Clifton Diocese.
Fr Dominic Findlay-Wilson
Assistant Vocations Director
Fr Dominic has a particular focus on supporting our current students for the priesthood who are in formation in our seminaries.
Sister Maria
Sister Maria is able to help those men and women who are thinking of exploring a vocation to the religious life – i.e. to be a monk, nun, brother, or sister.
Sarah Adams
Director of Adult Education and Evangelisation
Sarah promotes vocations to the consecrated lay life and to the single life, and she is very happy to answer questions in these areas.
Deacon Steve Boughton
Deacon Steve promotes vocations to the Permanent Diaconate within the Clifton Diocese and is willing to accompany men in their initial discernment of this path and calling.
Priesthood
Seminarian Martyn Jones at the Beda College in Rome
As the great English saint John Henry Newman wrote: we each have a mission to do some definite service; God has committed a work to each of us which he has not committed to another; God has called us to do his work. For some men, that calling, that mission, might be to the priesthood. As Vocations Director, it is my role to encourage especially this particular vocation within the Church. After all, the call to the priesthood is a vital one within our Church because a priest is ordained to be a pastor, a sign and instrument of Christ the Good Shepherd for his people, to bring God’s healing touch and reconciliation, and to offer Christ’s sacrifice – the sacrifice of the Mass.
Pope Benedict XVI commended priests to serve God and God’s people: “To respond to the expectations of modern society and cooperate in the vast evangelising action that involves all Christians, we need well-trained and courageous priests who are free from ambition and fear but convinced of the Gospel Truth, whose chief concern is to proclaim Christ and who are prepared to stoop down to suffering humanity in his Name, enabling everyone, particularly the poor and all who are in difficulty, to experience the comfort of God’s love and the warmth of the ecclesial family.”
Clifton Diocese requires heralds of the Gospel – ordinary men called to do extraordinary things. Our diocese needs men to follow that calling of priesthood and to serve our people with holiness and courage.
Could it be you he’s calling? Are you willing to listen to God’s call within the Church? Are you ready to respond to this challenge?
Currently we have three seminarians in formation for the priesthood, Neil Peixoto, Nohil D’Souza, and Martyn Jones.
.
Permanent Diaconate
Might God be calling you to serve as a permanent deacon within the Clifton Diocese?
- Do you have a deep commitment to your Catholic Faith and your prayer life?
- Are you committed to your family and work – faithful to your responsibilities and generous with your time?
- Do you have a strong desire to serve others, in the Church and in the wider community?
- Have others suggested that you might consider the permanent diaconate to be a vocation for you?
Perhaps God is calling you.
We would always recommend that you have a chat first of all with your own parish priest. He will be able to help you to understand what the permanent diaconate is about. Next do have a talk with Deacon Steve Boughton who can help you with the initial discernment and whether or not you might consider applying to be accepted onto the formation programme for the permanent diaconate.
Current students:
Deacon Steve Boughton
Director of Formation for the Permanent Diaconate
Email: steve.boughton@cliftondiocese.com
Alexander House
160 Pennywell Road
Bristol
BS5 0TX
Kwame Adoku
Kwame is member of St John the Evangelist Catholic Church community in Trowbridge – where he has been actively involved in different ministries since Summer 2017. Due to his interest in the education of young people of minority ethnic groups, he became a volunteer science and mathematics teacher and later a school governor of St Augustine’s Catholic College.
The desire to consider diaconal formation arose after Bishop Declan’s pastoral letter – which highlighted the issue of aging clergy in the coming years – was read during Mass one Sunday in Summer 2019. Kwame enjoys communing with nature, working with vulnerable people of the community and interacting with people of other faiths. He began diaconal formation in September 2022.
Chris Boateng
Chris spent a number of years as a Civil Servant but more recently changed course to become a project developer. He is an active member of St. Patrick’s Catholic Parish, Bristol. He is the Parish Administrator and the Chairman of the St. Patrick’s Pan African Catholic Community (PAC ) and organises a number of activities and events for the various parish groups such as monthly Rosary prayers for the PAC, Spiritual Talks, the St. Patrick’s Year of Sacramental Reflection and Preparation initiatives. Chris comes from a very humble devoted Catholic family and is married to Lawrencia Asare; together, they have one daughter, Akomah Boateng.
Dale Curson
Dale lives in Swindon with his wife Rosalind and their two daughters. He has been a member of St Peter’s parish since his reception into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2009. He is involved in a number of parish activities including serving and reading at Mass as well as distributing communion and is a member of the Parish Council. For leisure, Dale enjoys motorcycling and any form of motorsport.
Dariusz Derewonko
Darius came to the United Kingdom in 2006 with his wife and two children and is from the St Joseph parish in Weston-super-Mare. He is engaged in many parish activities like serving and reading at Mass, psalm singing as well as playing church organs and is an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. He helps out at the Polish parish in Weston-super-Mare where he is also a member of a rosary prayer group. In his free time Dariusz likes to cook and go on long walks or hikes where he taking photographs.
Robert von Hawrylak
Robert lives in Bristol where he is a parishioner at Clifton Cathedral. He is also Mission Outreach Co-ordinator and Treasurer at St John the Evangelist church in Bath. Robert runs the Mercy Group at the cathedral which is working to combat isolation and supporting those with mental health issues. He also runs the Young Adults Group. He is an Honorary Chaplain at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and Southmead hospitals. In his leisure time he enjoys reading theology and history and travelling to Italy.
Gabriel Lopes
Gabriel moved to the UK in 2003 with his wife Angel and four daughters; Ninoshka, Alishka, Angel & Kimberly. He lives in Calne where he has been a member of St Edmunds Parish since 2015 . Gabriel is actively involved in the parish including serving, reading and teaching First Holy Communion with his wife. In his leisure time he enjoys gardening in the allotment where he also has a few chickens and in the evenings enjoys cooking with his wife. He is enjoying this journey with the Lord where he is being nourished daily by the scriptures, making him a better human being and preparing him to contribute to the coming of God’s kingdom. He began his diaconal formation in September 2023.
Krzysztof Lus
Krzysztof moved to the UK in 2004 and have been living in Bristol since then. He is happy husband to Joanna and father to Jakub and Maria. They are members of the Polish Parish of Our Lady of Ostrobrama in Bristol. He works for Openreach Ltd as a power engineer. So, as an electrician he maintains services in the Polish church on voluntary basis. In 2013 he was appointed as the Parish Safety Representative as well. He and his wife became animators of Encounters of Married Couples Association (Association within the Catholic Church) working with couples and their families. His hobbies are volleyball, skiing and taekwondo. Kris began his diaconal formation in September 2022.
James O’Shaughnessy
James lives in Bristol and is married to Louise. He is a life long member of the parish of St Bernadette Church in Whitchurch, Bristol. He is greatly involved with parish life including serving, Extraordinary minister of communion, reader and a member of the pastoral team. In his leisure time he enjoys gardening and socialising with friends and his godchildren. He is enjoying the journey the Lord is taking him on, taking him outside his comfort zone. James began his diaconate formation in September 2021.
Remi Thivet
Rémi lives in Malmesbury with his wife Frances and their daughter, where he has been a member of St. Aldhelm’s parish since 2014. He enjoys contributing to parish life and is a member of the Parish Council. Rémi works as an electronics engineer. When time allows for leisure, he likes DIY, gardening and woodwork. He also enjoys reading about scriptures and spirituality.
Rémi began his diaconal formation in 2021
Michael Wilson-Smith
Mike lives in Ilminster with his wife Sue and is a member of the English Martyrs Parish covering the churches in Chard, Ilminster and Crewkerne. Mike jointly leads the Music Ministry team for the Parish and is a member of both the Parish Liturgy Committee and Pastoral Council. Mike is also the President of the local SVP Conference. He works part-time as a Systems Engineer and on his ‘day off’ he volunteers at the local Food Bank. In his leisure time, he enjoys participating in music groups both singing and playing mandolin, walking in the countryside with Sue and their two dogs and gardening when time allows. Mike began his diaconal formation in September 2022.
.
Consecrated Lay and Single Life
God calls some of us to live in the world with a mission very much in the world – as a leaven in the secular world through our Christian way of life. This might be expressed through the consecrated lay life (living a lay life but with a formal and explicit consecration to Christ) or through the single life within the Church and the secular world of work.
Within Clifton Diocese, we are privileged to have men and women living out a call to consecrated life whilst still being actively involved in work and society. Secular institutes are a relatively new form of consecration in the Church. They developed in the 20th century, enabling lay people to live entirely in the secular world of work and society while also promising to live in poverty, chastity and obedience according to the institute. Through this distinctive form of consecration in the world, members of secular institutes contribute in a particular way to the Church’s evangelising mission by helping to ensure that the Church has an effective presence in society. Members of secular institutes express their special consecration in apostolic activity, living either alone, in their families, or in fraternal groups. Unlike many religious, they do not have a distinctive habit. The different secular institutes have distinctive spiritualities, such as the Dominican Secular Institute and Notre Dame de Vie (Carmelite). Nourished by the spiritual riches of their institute, members find strength to live and work in the ordinary conditions of the world and so contribute to the coming of God’s kingdom. For more information about secular institutes, visit www.secularinstitutes.co.uk.
Sarah Adams in the Vocations team is able to supply more information on these ways of Christian life, to give some guidance and help, and to point you in the right direction for further discernment.
.
Religious Life
Clifton Diocese is very blessed to have many male and female religious serving our communities. Religious life is a particular way of living out the grace of one’s baptismal call to holiness. It is a life of consecration to God through publicly-made vows, usually of chastity, poverty and obedience in a specific Religious Congregation or Order. Each Order or Congregation has its own way of following Christ, the chaste, poor and obedient Son of God, who was sent by the Father to be the living example of holiness. There are both men and women ‘religious’, as they are called because they follow a particular rule of life. Men are usually monks or brothers, while women become nuns or sisters. Members of religious orders are either contemplative, dedicated to a life of silence and prayer, or active, whereby they live and work ‘in the world’.
The Church requires that the person making the vows be an adult making a free commitment, that they are not already bound by other commitments (e.g. marriage), that they have the ability to undertake the way of life lived by the Order they seek to join, and are accepted by the Order to make vows, thus becoming one of its members.
If you would like more specific information about religious life, please contact Sr Maria, who is the superior at the Bernardine Cistercian Monastery of Our Lady & St Bernard, Brownshill, near Stroud. She will be only too happy to point you in the right direction. Email srmariabernardine@yahoo.co.uk or see the website http://www.bernardine.org/brownshill.html.