The harvest is great, but the labourers are few: Bishop Rene Ramirez RCJ

When Bishop Rene Ramirez reflects on his journey so far, he sees a pattern emerging. ‘I may not always be the first choice, but I always put my hand up,’ he shares. What he calls his ‘adaptability’ has become like a calling card over the years—from his decision to enter the seminary to taking on various roles within the Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus, to volunteering to set up the order’s presence in Australia and then going on to become the country’s first Philippine-born bishop.

As the eldest of five, Bishop Rene fondly remembers attending Sunday Mass with his family and then gathering at the home of his paternal grandmother for breakfast. Delicious food and prayer, he says, were always on his grandmother’s menu. ‘You’d see everyone … cousins and uncles, and it was always a very nice weekly gathering. I grew up in that kind of atmosphere.’

He had always imagined pursuing career in music. ‘I wanted to be a musician. When I was five, I started taking piano lessons, but we didn’t have a piano [at home]’, so the lessons stopped. Eventually the family was able to purchase their own piano, and for the next six years he continued to play the instrument.

‘And I was hoping to continue that into university … until it all changed,’ he says with a smile.

A sign that God may be calling you

It was while attending a high school science fair that the future bishop encountered seminarians from the Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus, a religious order based in Metro Manila. They put out an invitation to students to visit their seminary and see what their life was like.

‘So I wrote to the seminary and requested to be invited,’ says Bishop Rene. ‘We were all curious, and we liked the activities,’ he says. While there, the young men were encouraged to pray for their vocation, and to look for signs that God may be calling them to the priesthood.

‘I was just gathering signs, but I wasn’t convinced,’ recalls the bishop. It took a couple more years before he ‘grew into this consciousness’ that perhaps he was being called to the priesthood. During his interview with the order’s seminary rector, he shared that as a primary student he remembered arguing with one of his teachers who had asked him to recite the gospel from the weekend Mass.

‘And I said, “The harvest is great. The labourers are few.” It was [written] in Filipino. And she said, “No, it’s “The harvest is great. The labourers are many.” But I insisted that I was right, and she was wrong,’ laughs Bishop Rene.

And the words never left him.

‘At the seminary, they started explaining to me that the word Rogationist came from Matthew 9 and Luke 10, from the gospel verse: The harvest is great. The labourers are few. Pray that the Lord may send. And I thought, what a coincidence!’

We’re praying for the response but also trying to become the very response or answer to the prayer itself.

St Hannibal Di Francia founded the Rogationist Fathers in Italy (along with the Daughters of Divine Zeal) at the turn of the 19th century, as a direct response to the Scripture verse. ‘He saw it as Jesus’ command to pray for more labourers in the harvest. The word rogate translates to “ask”,’ explains Bishop Rene.

‘St Hannibal said that it was Jesus himself who acknowledged the problem—the harvest is great, the labourers are few—and it was also Jesus who expressed the solution. He said, “Ask the harvest master that he may send workers into his harvest.” And so, if we need more workers in the harvest, we need to pray for it—we need to ask the Lord to send them.’

Bishop Rene explains that the Rogationist charism to pray for vocations is two-pronged. ‘We’re praying for the response but also trying to become the very response or answer to the prayer itself—by working as good labourers in the vineyard of the Lord.’

St Hannibal established orphanages and educational institutions in Italy for disadvantaged children, an outreach that the order continues today in places around the world. In the Philippines, where it has been active for almost 50 years, the order runs a school (Rogationist Seminary College), an orphanage, and discernment and formation centres, as well as a printing press and publishing house, and various other ministries.

From Manila to Melbourne

Praying for the answer and trying to become the answer have been part and parcel of Bishop Rene’s journey.

After completing his studies in philosophy and theology, and working in the order’s various ministries, he was ordained to the priesthood at 28 years old. His initial assignment was as a vocations promoter, but around the time of his ordination, the order needed someone to run their printing house.

‘So I was called up to run the press. I always end up doing things which I have not prepared myself for,’ reveals Bishop Rene. ‘I didn’t know anything, so I had to take night classes just to keep myself informed on how things work,’ he remembers. A friend taught him the ins and outs of getting a print quote and working with paper stocks. ‘And that’s how I got into printing.’ The printing house was one way that the order offered locals a trade and contributed to their missionary work.

Some years later, while completing his licentiate in spirituality in Rome, Bishop Rene decided to do a diploma course in social communications. It stood him in good stead for his return to the Philippines, when he was asked to run the order’s publishing house, managing 30 employees and helping to produce educational materials and religious imagery. Not long after, he was also tasked with running the Rogationist Seminary College and a newly opened social enterprise in the tourist town of Tagaytay.

‘I was running the seminary, the publishing house and the café—going back and forth between these places,’ explains the bishop. Things came to a halt when, at 45 years old, he suffered a heart attack and had to have a stent put in. While recuperating, he was in contact with the Rogationists’ sister-order, the Sisters of Divine Zeal, who have been based in Richmond for the last 67 years.

The courage to accept this calling comes from our complete reliance on God’s love and our trust in his plan.

‘For years they had been asking the Rogationist fathers to join them in Melbourne, but we had no personnel to send,’ he says. Never one to sit idly, Bishop Rene once again put up his hand. ‘It was just as a joke that I said to my superior, why don’t you send me to Australia? I could be like an overseas priest and send you remittances.’ His superior encouraged him to write to then-Archbishop Denis Hart to ask if the Archdiocese ‘would appreciate some extra hands’. Some months later, he and a fellow Rogationist found themselves in a meeting with Archbishop Hart.

‘And Archbishop Hart immediately said to us, “I’m planning to send you to Maidstone and Braybrook. Could you go there tomorrow and see for yourself?”’ recalls Bishop Rene.

He ended up becoming parish priest, overseeing the parish’s amalgamation in 2018. ‘I was there for eight and a half years. My fellow Rogationist [Fr Gerald Binegas] is now my successor.’

In 2023, Bishop Rene was asked by his order to set up a Rogationist presence in the Diocese of Sandhurst. He remembers that he was just starting to ‘settle down’ in his new place of ministry when he received a phone call from the Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, Archbishop Charles Balvo. ‘The phone call,’ Bishop Rene says with a smile. He remembers being surprised that the papal nuncio had any reason to call him, except perhaps ‘to background check someone’.

His eventual appointment as an auxiliary bishop for Melbourne marks the first time a Philippine-born clergyman has been appointed a bishop in Australia. It also reflects the changing demographics of Australia’s Catholic population.

Indeed, thousands of migrants and their families attended the bishop’s episcopal ordination Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral, where together with Bishop Thinh Nguyen, he became one of Melbourne’s newest auxiliary bishops. During the Mass, Bishop Rene expressed his ‘heartful gratitude to God, as grace has brought us together in this beautiful Cathedral. We come from various places and diverse backgrounds, yet it is God’s wonder and love that unite us in this moment.’

He also acknowledged that both he and Bishop Thinh had received the call to their new ministry with some apprehension, ‘fully aware of our limitations and shortcomings’, and that ‘the courage to accept this calling comes from our complete reliance on God’s love and our trust in his plan, which may still be unfolding for us.’

Sowing the seeds of evangelisation

A complete reliance on God’s plan has helped Bishop Rene throughout his life, but he insists that it’s also about ‘equipping ourselves’ for the mission.

‘The attitude of wanting to learn is important. I didn’t know anything about the printing press, so I went to night school,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know anything about image-making [for the Rogationist publishing house] so I dove in and studied so that I would be able to manage that. When I was administrator of Rogationist College, I took accounting courses ... It’s not the things that we have that equips and empowers us, but our ability to adapt and be interested in learning new things.’

And then we need to let go and trust in God’s plan, not our own, reflects the bishop. A recent encounter with his former parish reminded him of this. About 30 parishioners made the journey to St Patrick’s Cathedral for a jubilee pilgrimage and attended Six30 Holy Hour. Bishop Rene met the group and learnt that among those present were their new parish pastoral council and finance council members.

‘It’s been almost two and a half years since I left the parish,’ he says. ‘And among the 30 parishioners, I knew only three of them. So these are all new people, people whom I didn’t know when I was parish priest, who have stepped up and taken leadership roles in the parish.

‘And this is all a fruit of what we started preparing for,’ he says, reflecting on the Take the Way of the Gospel process, his participation in parish coaching with Divine Renovation, and the decision to start Alpha in the parish. ‘In fact, I was told by the parish priest that all 30 were Alpha graduates,’ he says.

People who were not there three years ago is, for me, a very visible sign of growth for the parish.

Bishop Rene believes programs like Alpha are attractive not because they offer any ‘magic formula’ but because they create ‘an opportunity for people to start sharing and creating meaningful relationships among themselves’. Outreach and community-building are essential for parishes, says Bishop Rene, lest people become merely ‘consumers of the sacraments’.

‘With Alpha, we didn’t insist on them coming to church because we wanted it to be organic … so it’s their decision. But now it’s actually happened, and they’ve even stepped up to become leaders of the parish, which is great!’

‘This is the fruit of years of trying to sow the seeds of evangelisation and asking people to be more involved. It’s not happening in a drastic way, but for me, that’s big to see these people taking up leadership roles.

‘People who were not there three years ago is, for me, a very visible sign of growth for the parish.’

Bishop Rene said that Alpha and Divine Renovation are also being introduced in the Philippines, where traditionally ‘the churches are packed.’ He says it’s because ‘it’s not just about the numbers but about going deeper—having a deeper reason for why we do what we do. That’s also the process of Christian maturity. We need to mature into the faith … everybody needs that, no matter where you are.’

Something that has sustained Bishop Rene in more recent times is a prayer that he learnt at a conference held in the US called the Amazing Parish. ‘I wrote to them and asked if I could be counted among the attendees,’ he smiles. ‘And I heard the testament of Archbishop [Alexander] Sample of Oregon, who spoke of his own journey and shared vulnerably his life story.

‘He shared the Surrender Novena, which is like the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. You say, “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.’”

‘And in these five or so months of being a bishop, I find myself saying that prayer more. It’s very useful in my ministry.

‘It sustains me ... not just the words but the mentality and attitude that you really have to surrender. Because you might do everything, but in the end it’s Christ who converts people, not you.’