Matthew Heidenreich, a 2022 Columbus Bishop Watterson High School graduate, was commissioned as a Salesian lay missioner in August at a ceremony that took place in Haverstraw, New York. Afterward, the 23-year-old departed for Ecuador to serve communities there for 11 months.
The Salesian missionaries were founded in the 1800s by St. John Bosco, who started a movement of providing shelter, education and love for youth from among the poor. Over the years, the group has evolved and now commissions men and women, priests and laypeople, from all over the world, with more than 13,500 members spanning 133 countries.
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A challenge for Heidenreich, whose parents attend Columbus St. Timothy Church, has been the language barrier. When asked if he speaks fluent Spanish, he laughed and said, “Wow. That’s a fun one. I came in thinking I had a very good level of Spanish, and I was very quickly humbled by the reality of living in another country with a foreign language.”
Heidenreich’s Spanish is improving by the day, he said. He will be immersed in the Salesian religious community for the next nine months, discerning his vocation. “I’ve been welcomed by priests (and) I get to … live a religious lifestyle,” he said. “This could be a lifelong thing … but as of now, it’s just a year commitment of mission work.”
Heidenreich currently lives with two Salesian priests and two lay Salesian missionaries in Simiátug, Ecuador, a large region in the Andean countryside surrounded by 39 smaller communities. The five serve all 40 communities, running a soup kitchen two days a week and focusing the majority of their time and attention on providing fellowship and education for the youth.
“With the Salesians, it’s a very youth-centered apostolate,” Heidenreich, who graduated from the University of Alabama last December, said. “A lot of what we’re doing is catechesis, education, … accompaniment of different liturgical things that happen in the communities.”
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Among their liturgical duties, missionaries bring the sacraments to the various communities, which Heidenreich described as the most rewarding aspect of the work.
“It (can be) miles and miles (for some people) to get here to the center where we have our parish,” he said. “A lot of what we get to do is take these trips, visit the communities and bring them the sacraments.
“It’s such a privilege because we get to accompany Jesus to these communities in such a radical way. I mean, he’s (already) there. He’s blessing them, but to bring them the sacraments, to bring them Christ sacramentally is so special. I’ve just been made so aware of what a gift that is.”
Two days a week, Heidenreich teaches in a local school with 25 children, roughly three miles from his residence. “I walk to school most days,” he said, “sometimes I can catch a ride.”
One of the classes he teaches is ‘valores’ (values), during which he instructs students in virtue. “Sometimes (it’s) religious; sometimes it also doesn’t have to be,” he said, such as, “How do we practice virtues in our families, … school and society, and also in our faith?”
Heidenreich also relished an opportunity to teach youth how to altar serve for Mass, an experience he described as providential.
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“I spent a lot of time in (middle school), high school and college as an altar server,” he said. “I served what I thought was going to be my last Mass right before I graduated (college).
“And then, here (in Ecuador), I signed up to help accompany a group I had no clue what (the Spanish name) meant. They’re called ‘monaguillos’ (altar servers). I didn’t know what that was, and then I found out I had signed up … to lead the altar servers here, which is so awesome.
“Just accidentally, providentially, I get to … lead these kids and form them in ways that I’ve been formed and it’s very personal for me. (Altar serving) is such a gift that I’ve received and now I get to share.”
Heidenreich writes about his experiences on his personal blog, “a Roamin’ Catholic,” online at www.substack.com/@mheidenreich.
The Diocese of Columbus celebrated Vocations Awareness Week Nov. 1-7. To learn more, visit Live the Incredible | Columbus Catholic Vocations.
