“Just as Claret longed to be sent on a mission, I, too, felt that same longing.”
Médard Kwango Mbay was a five-year-old boy who loved to run and play soccer. He was filled with pride that his father, Mr. Kwango, was one of the teachers at the Jesuit mission where they lived. He came from a deeply Catholic family.
“My mother was the parish leader of the Legion of Mary, and she was the one who taught us to pray and to ask for the intercession of the Virgin Mary,” recalls Fr. Médard Kwango Mbay, CMF.
Fr. Médard clearly remembers that his desire to become a priest began when he was a child, as he watched the Jesuit missionaries. “I would see the missionaries go out and visit the villages, and that really caught my attention. Even before I started school, I already had this aspiration to one day become a priest. I grew up with that idea.”
What began as a childhood dream in a small village in the Democratic Republic of Congo would become a missionary journey spanning three continents. Twenty-eight years after his ordination, Fr. Médard’s story is a testament to how the witness of one missionary can inspire a lifetime of service—and how that same calling can touch countless lives across the world.
A childhood encounter that shaped his life
But there was an incident in his early childhood that would forever shape his life and define his priestly vocation.
One day, as he tells the story, he asked a young priest named Hugo a question. Fr. Hugo was from Spain. He asked him how he could leave his family—his parents—in Spain to come to our country as a missionary. Didn’t he miss his family?
He replied that the Lord had said that if you leave your parents, you will find them again wherever you go. Then he said to me, ‘My family is here. My father is Mr. Kwango.’
“Those words left a deep impression on me. The thought that he considered my father to be his own—that he had found a family here as well—moved me deeply.
“So I said to myself: I, too, will become a priest like you.”
The years passed, and at the young age of nine, he had to leave home to move to another town in Africa and continue his studies. From then on, Fr. Médard never lived with his family for extended periods, except for the two months of school vacation he spent at home with his brothers and sisters.
Finding his calling among the Claretian Missionaries
Fr. Médard met the Claretian Missionaries in Cameroon, where he was participating in a vocational retreat. Later, he completed his postulancy at the house in Kimbondo, in Kinshasa, before entering the novitiate in Cameroon. At that time, the novitiate was international and welcomed young men from eight different countries. On julio 16, 1998, he was ordained a priest in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Claretian spirituality has had a profound impact on me. Above all, it is a Marian spirituality.”
In the Congo, the Claretians distinguished themselves by their preferential option for the poor. They built development centers, hospitals, health clinics, schools, and numerous social service projects to serve the population.
A mission across continents
In 2008, Fr. Médard was appointed provincial of Central Africa, a position he held until 2013. At the end of his term, the Father General assigned him to Canada.
However, due to the slow pace of immigration procedures, the Father General asked him to travel to France while he awaited approval of his documents, so he could begin a doctorate in canon law. He had to temporarily interrupt his studies when he received his visa for Canada. Years later, he was able to resume them to continue his academic training.
Fr. Médard arrived in Canada in 2016, and in 2017 he was appointed superior of the Claretian community in Montreal and pastor of Notre-Dame d’Anjou, a parish comprising four churches: St. Conrad, St. Justin, St. John XXIII, and Our Lady of Anjou. He also serves as an attorney for the Ecclesiastical Court of Montreal.
In Abril 2023, Fr. Médard was appointed by Archbishop Christian Lépine of Montreal as episcopal vicar (an episcopal vicar acts as an extension of the bishop’s executive authority) for the French-speaking communities of the four deaneries of Montreal East-Lanaudière: Centre-Sud/Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Mercier-Anjou, Pointe-de-l’Île, and Lanaudière (Rivière-des-Prairies, Pointe-aux-Trembles, Repentigny, and L’Assomption).
28 years of priesthood
“My vocation was born thanks to the witness of itinerant priests who traveled through the village centers and returned to the mission on Domingo nights, sometimes after two weeks in the jungle. It was that same missionary spirit that I found among the Claretians.”
Across three continents, Fr. Médard continues to live out St. Anthony Mary Claret’s dream of bringing the Word of God to every corner of the world.
This year he celebrates 28 years of priesthood, and although he acknowledges that the journey has not always been easy, that dream that was born when he was just a child has become a life dedicated to the service of others.
“I thank God because I find great joy in being with the faithful, with the priests I accompany, and with the pastoral workers in this part of the archdiocese.”
