After years of patience, prayer, All Saints’ Fr. Guy Snyder ‘sent forth’ to Brazil

Detroit — Sometimes God’s plans are not the same as your plans, says Fr. Guy Christopher Snyder, PIME. But God’s plan is always better.

Thirteen years after he had all but given up on his hopes of becoming a missionary in Brazil, Fr. Snyder finally got his chance Nov. 3, when he flew to Belém, Brazil, to begin training for his permanent mission assignment.

Growing up in St. Anthony Parish, Temperance, Fr. Snyder was drawn to the missions as a young boy. He had been inspired by missionary priests visiting his grade school, and had attended PIME’s Newark, Ohio, seminary high school as a teenager.

“My vocation was nurtured and I always felt very free,” said Fr. Snyder in an Oct. 29 interview with The Michigan Catholic. He said his own father, Robert John Snyder, had felt the calling to become a permanent deacon while the young Guy was in high school.



“It was kind of neat because as I was becoming an adult, with my own dad we could talk theology and pastoral issues,” said Fr. Snyder. “Dads teach their sons things … and so it helped strengthen my Catholic faith as well.”

Fr. Snyder himself was ordained a transitional deacon in 1997, and became a PIME priest Oct. 27, 1998.

As a missionary priest, his desire was always to work in the missions. He spent the first few years of his priesthood serving as a youth group leader and chaplain at an Italian boarding school, but in 2001 it was determined that he begin mission work in Brazil.

Fr. Snyder completed the required governmental paperwork to travel to Brazil, but “things kept falling through,” he said. Each time he re-submitted his documents, “something wasn’t right or they wanted something else.”

He never received his visa to go to Brazil, and for the time being, his hopes of ministering in that country were put aside. He spent the next few years in other ministries, including PIME’s Mexico mission and campus ministry at Eastern Michigan University.

In 2007, Fr. Snyder was assigned to serve at All Saints Parish in Detroit, where he remained as pastor for what were “honestly the best six-and-a-half years of my life.”

And in 2013, at the end of his Rome sabbatical to study pastoral psychology and immigrants’ rights, Fr. Snyder’s superior asked him if he would be interested in working in the missions.

“Oh yes, absolutely — that’s why I became a missionary priest,” he replied. His mission? Brazil — and in the same location where he had been assigned 13 years prior.

 



A treasure in parish life

Fr. Snyder had found great joy in serving the Hispanic community of All Saints (or “Todos los Santos”), whom he described as “such a loving people, an expressive people — and I am, too.”

He credits his time with the community in preparing him to work in a city parish, which is likely what he will do in Brazil.

On Nov. 1 — incidentally, the Feast of All Saints — Fr. Snyder received his “mission cross” at a special Mass celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Donald F. Hanchon. The mission cross is a large crucifix hanging on a leather strap which is placed around the missionary priest’s neck on the advent of his first mission assignment.

The Mass was concelebrated by other PIME priests serving locally, including the new administrator of All Saints, Fr. Giancarlo Ghezzi, PIME , who takes over for Fr. Snyder.

While he could have received his mission cross at his home parish of St. Anthony, or even the PIME headquarters on Quincy Street, Fr. Snyder said he had asked specifically to receive it at All Saints.

“Because I want to be going forth from that community to Brazil,” he said, adding the symbolism of his “being sent from a community to a community.”

Fr. Snyder said he hopes to build a partnership between All Saints and his new parish in Brazil, for the two communities to prayerfully support each other.

At the Nov. 1 Mass, he told those gathered at All Saints he would deeply miss them, emphasizing the “sadness in departing, but joy in arriving.”

 

The gift of mission

Fr. Snyder said that though his mother was always happy and supportive of his vocation to the missionary priesthood, he had learned it was hard for her to know the difficulties he would encounter.

“And I’ll tell you, the priesthood has its challenges, but so does any other lifestyle,” he told The Michigan Catholic. “So does being married, so does being single. I think we dwell on perhaps the negative aspects of the priesthood: no wife, no children, and we forget about the many positive aspects.”

Looking forward to serving the people in Brazil, including the poor, Fr. Snyder likely will begin his mission in Manaus, Brazil, by the end of 2015, following months of cultural and language courses.

“Why was it so difficult 13 years ago and so easy now?” he asked. “You can look at it however you want, but God has a plan. And God gets us where we need to be when we need to be there.”

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 PIME

To learn more about the PIME Missionaries, visit pimeusa.org or follow them at Facebook.com/PIMEMisisonaries and Twitter.com/PIMEusa. To donate, call (313) 342-4066.

 

Fr. Snyder’s mission cross

See photos of Fr. Snyder receiving his mission cross at All Saints Parish, Detroit, at gallery.themichigancatholic.com.