The first stage, which lasts a year – known as ‘Basic Formation’ – introduces the student to the mission and way of life of the Mill Hill Missionaries: to living and serving in a community of prayer and Christian action – reaching out to the local community through visitation of the sick, Small Christian Communities (SCC), and participation in other parish activities. At this stage the student learns to talk about his faith and to ask questions, to explore scripture – to listen to and find Christ in the Word, in his own story, and in the people around him.

The second stage, lasting three years – while focusing on the academic formation with the study of philosophy where the student seeks to explore and understand his faith more fully – also invites the student to follow Christ more closely, to listen to his call more deeply, in a community of prayer, and to learn to live more the response to his call through service in the community. As such, pastoral work one day a week and for six weeks in each long holiday – serving in local parishes, prisons, hospitals or schools – is an integral part of this stage where the foundations of his call to missionary work are laid.

After philosophy, the student then enters the third stage where he is ‘sent’ to a parish or mission – normally outside of his home country – for a period of two years to live as a missionary. Here, as he continues to be drawn into an ever deeper relationship with Christ through a life of personal and community prayer, he learns the importance of understanding the language and culture of the people he is sent to – as he navigates the inevitable questions, resistances and doubts that arise when confronted with difference – the student is invited to recognise and respond to Christ, the Word made Flesh, in the lives – the joys and sorrows – of the people. Here the student discovers – perhaps for the first time – that ‘in mission’, in his encounter with other cultures and peoples, he is both evangilser and evangelised – that as fellow-pilgrims the Good News unfolds in the journey together.

In the final stage – for four years – while studying the language and love of God in theology, the student is invited, in the context of a multicultural community, to integrate all that has gone before him and to unite himself more fully to Christ so that he can commit to the ‘yes’ of giving his life freely and generously – wherever he may be sent – to witnessing to the Gospel in a spirit of love and service.