"All for you", the testimony of a young seminarianAlder, Nicaraguan seminarian: "The Pope asked us to be courageous".Influenced by St. Teresa of Calcutta, the English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge converted, with his wife, to Catholicism in 1982, at the age of 79. In 1969 he had produced the documentary Something Beautiful for God for the BBC, and two years later he had written a book of the same name about the foundress of the Missionaries of Charity, making her known to the world.
On May 24, 2025, a great-grandson of his will be ordained a priest, Canadian Sebastian Muggeridge, 32 years old, one of the 5 sons of John Muggeridge Jr. and his wife Christine.
The only daughter, Cecilia, is an assistant numerary of Opus Dei. She works at the Roman College of Holy Mary in Rome. Mens sana in corpore sano: it is useful for Cecilia to know English, French, Spanish and Italian, as she helps to maternally care for dozens of female students studying Theology, Canon Law, Philosophy, and Institutional Social Communication of the Church at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce. In one minute she gives her testimony.
The Muggeridge family lives in Ottawa, Ontario; but Omnes spoke with Deacon Sebastian, Companion of the Cross (CC) from Montreal by WhatsApp, connecting with him where he studies: at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, USA. Let us first transcribe a quote from the founder of the Companions of the Cross, Father Bob Bedard: “I love the Church... ‘the sleeping giant.’ Once we begin to rediscover what it means to evangelize and to undertake a full-scale revival of this ministry, I see the Church awakening and coming alive in such an explosive way that, with the power of the Holy Spirit, it will shake the earth and the nations with its dynamic presence.”
How did you see your vocation?
– If someone had told me in high school that I would be a priest I would have laughed. Then, studying nursing at the University of Ottawa, I lived as if God didn't exist. Everything changed in 2013 with a confession that brought me deep joy. It was at a university retreat and the priest was a Companion of the Cross. A young university missionary encouraged me to ask Jesus daily that He be at the center of my life. That's what I prayed and that transformed me. I started going to daily Mass.
Some ladies who saw me in church asked me why I didn't become a priest. When I told a priest about it, he reassured me that you don't give yourself a vocation, it is God who puts it in your heart. But one day, sitting in my parish church, I prayed a dangerous prayer: “God, I will do whatever you want, even get ordained. All I ask is that you put that desire in my heart.”
God answered me by my befriending almost without realizing it several priests, some of whom were Companions. I asked to enter their novitiate in 2016. I was ordained a deacon on September 14, 2014, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and will be ordained a priest at Notre Dame Cathedral by the Archbishop of Ottawa, Marcel Damphousse.
Who are the Companions of the Cross?
– Since 2003 we have been a Society of Apostolic Life, founded as a community of clerical brothers 40 years ago in Ottawa by then diocesan priest Bob Bedard. I never met him, as he passed away, in Ottawa, in 2011. We have over 40 priests, and two Canadian bishops are Companions as well.
Near this Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit our community has a formation house of our own where we, a dozen CC seminarians, reside. Our charism is evangelization, we do a lot of parish work, and we are also involved in other work such as university chaplaincies. We are in the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and in the states of Michigan and Texas. Our Superior General is Father Roger Vandenakker.
What can you tell about your ancestors?
– As my sister Cecilia relates in a video, it is part of the oral tradition of our family to tell the story of Malcolm, who after having lived a worldly life as a youth converted to Catholicism, with his wife Kitty Dobbs. She was the niece of the well-known English feminist and socialist Beatrice Webb. Of Malcolm's three sons, one also converted, my grandfather John Sr., whose wife, Anne Roche Muggeridge, was a well-known Canadian Catholic writer of two books on the challenges in the Church following Vatican II. Anne helped my grandfather and my great-grandparents convert. John and Anne had 4 sons, one daughter and 28 grandchildren.
Zygmunt Bauman thinks that today there is a habitual way of living, characterized by not maintaining any determined course: we live in a “liquid society”. You and your sister found a vocation to celibacy. How can we encourage more young people today to commit themselves vocationally, also in Christian marriage?
– If I had the answer, it would be a very valuable answer... We have to give young people a chance to encounter the person of Christ. They have difficulty in making decisions. But they want authenticity. Deep down, they want to give themselves in a real, noble and inspiring way. We must encourage this encounter, so that many may feel the call to religious life, to the priesthood, to marriage.
I encourage young people to try this dangerous prayer that I did at one time, which is terrifying, but worthwhile. Now I appreciate my sister’s vocation better; since she is older than me, when she joined Opus Dei, I understood it less than I do now. Her dedication is inspiring. Now it’s easier to understand her vocation of service. I began to notice it at the Manoir de Beaujeu, a retreat house near Montreal, where she worked for a while. I will see her this spring when she will visit Canada for my ordination and for my younger brother’s wedding. I hope to return the visit in Rome during the Jubilee once I am ordained.
