Influenced by missionaries in his local parish, Edgardo decided to become a missionary at the age of 17. He tells of his vocation journey and his missionary experience.
I am Fr. Edgardo Alfonso Vizcarra, a Comboni Missionary born and bred in the very heart of Manila, Tondo. I am the youngest of seven siblings, and all my brothers and sisters have their own families now. My father passed away seven years ago, and my mother is still with us.
As I look back on how my vocation grew and developed, I always go back to my growing days, when, as a young kid, together with my neighbours, we would join the Block Rosary on Saturday evening from one house to another. We love doing it not exactly because of praying the rosary but because of the merienda that comes with it when it is time for refreshment.
It was a fun experience while growing up, and I would say that the same experience led me to see that the hands of Our Lady have always been there through and through. I say this because even when I was in secondary school, I was a member of the then Youth Marian Crusader (YMC), whose main activity was to promote devotion to Our Lady and, as a group, being prepared as a fertile ground for vocation.
But the very experience that somehow marked the growth of my vocation was my involvement in our parish church, especially with the missionary club. In the said club, we were introduced to many Salesian missionaries working all over the world. Even our brother-assistants then were all student missionaries and later were all sent to the mission in Papua New Guinea.
In the said group, we prayed the rosary every Saturday and offered them for the work of the missionaries and mission itself. It was there that, at 17 years old, I said that I wanted to be a missionary in the bush, in the mountains, or wherever it may be.
The ideals of mission became a reality to me when, for the first time, I lived amongst the Aetas of Porac, Pampanga, displaced by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. That encounter left a mark on my vocational journey.
I saw how our brothers and sisters, despite the tragedy and difficulties that they had to bear due to the loss of their homes and habitat, lived with serenity, and their welcoming spirit and hospitality captivated me.
I decided to join the Comboni Missionaries and began my long journey of formation. Finally, I was ordained on September 18, 2004, almost twenty years ago, and was sent to South Africa, where, for the first time, I encountered, lived, and faced so many new things, which both shocked me and enriched me as an individual and as a missionary.
I worked among the Tsonga people, a very hardworking, agriculturist, and humble people, in the province of Mpumalanga in the Holy Family Parish in Wateval and Maria Assunta Parish in Acornhoek.
On my return for the second time from 2013-2018, I was assigned in the Pretoria area, at St. Daniel Comboni Parish in Mahube Valley that catered the Parish of St. Eugene de Masenod. Later, I was transferred to St. Augustine Parish in Silverton as priest-in-charge and administrator of Worldwide Magazine published by the Comboni Missionaries in South Africa.
In 2018, I went back to the Philippines and worked both in the Mission Animation and Vocation Promotion. And in 2022, I was assigned in the Diocese of Balanga, Bataan as part of the first Comboni Missionaries to work and build a new parish community in the Philippines.
The mission was tedious and laborious but fulfilling. It was indeed an opportunity not only to make the Comboni missionaries and St. Daniel Comboni known in the country but it was more of giving back to the Church in the Philippines what we have received as baptized and missionaries sent out to share our own faith experience and charism.
My short but happy years in the now growing parish community of St. Daniel Comboni is always something that I will look back and I’m grateful to God and to Comboni for making me part of such pastoral work.
I am back in South Africa for the 3rd time and presently working here in St. Daniel Comboni Parish in Mahube Valley, Pretoria East. This parish was erected on 10 October 2007, and it’s the first parish of the Comboni Missionaries in Pretoria dedicated to St. Daniel Comboni. I am happy to be back here and meet and work with people that I have met and known when I was still here some nine years ago.