By Gee-Gee and Miggy Dimayuga

Father Leo E. Patalinghug, born in Cataingan, Masbate, is an associate pastor of St John’s Parish in Westminster, Maryland (www.sjwest.org).  He is also the chaplain of the Cursillo Movement in the Archdiocese of Baltimore (www.archbalt.org). He’s a renowned speaker among youth groups and on college campuses.  He uses his expertise in martial arts (Tae Kwon Do and Arnis) and even breakdancing to bring the Word of God to the youth.

Photo: Mary Ann Wyand © The Criterion

Gee-Gee Torres Dimayuga, the assistant editor of Misyon, has migrated to the USA with her husband, Miggy, and is working for Misyon from there via the internet. Gee-Gee and Miggy interviewed Fr Leo shortly after moving to the USA.

Every day is an opportunity for mission. No one knows this more, I suppose, than our dear Editor, Father Seán Coyle, himself. My husband and I moved to the USA in October and were in Maryland for two months before eventually settling in Atlanta, GA. While we were in ‘Mary’s land’, the state named after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I of England at the time of its founding in 1632, Father Seán saw and seized an opportunity for mission. He had read of a Filipino-born priest with a passion for working with the youth and a missionary focus on revitalizing the American family. I received my special assignment to interview Fr Leo Patalinghug who is based in Maryland.

I felt excited when I received Father Seán’s email, but at the same time, nervous.  I hadn’t done any interviews since my visits to Filipino missionaries in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Korea between 1998 and 2000.

Westminster was about an hour and a half north of Montgomery Village, where we were staying.  Miggy and I decided to leave the house early, at around 6am, as we’d never been to Westminster and didn’t want to be late for our 9am appointment.  It was raining that morning, but just enough to make it a cool day for a drive. The directions we had took us through the narrow, but well-paved, back-roads of Maryland.  We had a leisurely drive through farmlands and large estates which reminded me of our farm back home in Negros.  Despite the soothing views outside our car windows, anxiety was building inside me about the forthcoming interview.

Arriving in Westminster an hour before our appointment, we went to get a bite to eat.  At 8:45am, we proceeded to St John’s parish office and rang the doorbell.  A friendly staff member let us in and called Father Leo.  In a moment, Father Leo appeared with a big smile and warm welcome.  His affable personality washed away any nervousness or anxiety I had. We went to his quite large but simply-appointed office and he offered us drinks. Father Leo led us in prayer and we began the interview.  This is his story.

‘If you’re going to church and you don’t know why, come to one night of the mission and if you don’t want to go to church after that, you don’t have to go.’

‘A very bold move’, said the erudite college freshman to himself.  Leo was a good student but a bit too cynical for his youth.  Although brought up in a very conservative Filipino family, he was becoming detached from his faith.  For him, the Mass had degenerated into an obligation and held little meaning for him.  When he heard the challenge above from a preacher in his home parish he was intrigued.  Little did he know it then, but his cynicism had led him on the road to his conversion.

He went to the mission talk as an ‘uninterested spectator’.  Somehow, God worked through this preacher and a spark lit in Leo’s heart.  ‘The preacher explained the Mass,   beginning from why we make the sign of the cross; what it really means - its history, its origin; why we have candles; what the penitential rite is.  He showed the symbolisms and pointed to the Passover and how Christ continues to live today’.  The speaker taught him how to be an active participant in the Mass, as what Vatican II calls each Catholic to be.  The priest’s words resonated with something deep inside the college youth.  ‘When he lifted up the Sacred Host, the Body of Christ’, Leo continued, ‘I sobbed! That’s the only way I can describe it. Tears were coming down my face and I just knew that God was serious.   I started to take prayer seriously’.

Leo began to integrate prayer in his daily routine.  He was a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and in Arnis, and would run miles to train for competitions.  ‘I would pray the rosary because it was a good way to keep pace’.  He would wake up early in the morning to attend Mass before going to his college classes.  Leo was involved in a lot of extra-curricular activities, even working as a life-guard a few times a week.  In all this, however, he would always start the day with a little prayer.  ‘I just started realizing that the Church was important to me’, he reflected.  ‘Maybe it was because of my parents’ strict upbringing and making sure we had that solid foundation’.

It was a gradual process – a transformation.  He was 19-years-old when he went on pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  It was there that he started to think to himself, ‘You’re kidding!  I’m supposed to be a priest?!’  He pushed the thought aside for many years. 

Leo lived the college life and kept busy.  He had a girlfriend, remained heavily involved in the family business, a martial arts school, and teaching debate at a nearby La Salle school.  He also started delving into Church-related activities.  Leo was involved with music ministry with the LifeTeen program (www.lifeteen.com), prayer groups, youth events and even teaching catechism in Sunday school.  ‘I was doing a lot’, Leo admitted.  ‘But it kept me away from trouble.’

In one of the youth seminars he was directing, he saw several seminarians.  ‘They were in their Roman collars – young, excited and joyful!’ There was something they had that captivated Leo.  ‘I was a little jealous’, he admitted.  ‘I thought my professional career would take me into either media or law, but I started to think that maybe I could do youth ministry’. 

Although he got more and more involved in Church activities, he still wasn’t satisfied.  He prayed deeply and looked around at different religious groups.  All along, his parents knew he was becoming more religious, but they didn’t really know any details.  One day, his parents asked him, ‘Why aren’t you dating anymore?’  His brothers and sisters knew something was happening but they didn’t really know the extent of it. He kept his search very much to myself.

A year and a half after college, he made one of the most memorable phone calls in his life.   He called the vocation director in their diocese.  ‘I began babbling on the phone’, Father Leo recalled.  The vocation director paused, saying, ‘Why don’t you start by telling me your name?’ Leo again fumbled his words.  The vocation director prompted, ‘Did you call because you think you have a vocation in the priesthood?’ Leo was stunned.  ‘How did you know that?!’ he exclaimed!  The answer came quite matter-of-factly, ‘Because you called the vocation office’.

As soon as Leo met the vocation director, he felt a great sense of peace.  When he came home, he told his parents where he had been.  His mom, a devout Catholic, began to cry with joy.  Leo told her that his visit didn’t mean he was going to be a priest.  He still kept denying it.  ‘But strangely’, he remembered, ‘when the vocation director gave me the application form, I was done very quickly with it.  I got more and more excited with the thought of becoming a priest.  One thing led to another.  After a whole bunch of interviews, the bishop and the review board finally accepted me. I left for the seminary. I was 23’.

Father Leo Patalinghug was ordained a priest on 5 June 1999 and celebrated his first Mass was on the Feast of Corpus Christi that year.

Father Leo has his own website, www.gracebeforemeals.com, that tells us, among many other things, how he hopes to present a TV series based on the family meal on PBS (www.pbs.org), a TV/radio network in the USA supported by public subscriptions. We hope to have more on this from Father Leo himself in a future issue.

You may write Fr Leo Patalinghug at: St John Catholic Church, 43 Monroe Street, Westminster, MD 21157, USA .

You may email him at  fatherleo@gracebeforemeals.com.