Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home People

Lay preacher choosing simplicity over treasures

byEmilie Ng
28 July 2015 - Updated on 16 March 2021
Reading Time: 4 mins read
AA

Bo Sanchez: “My whole goal in life was to be like St Francis, to beg in the streets.” Photo: Emilie Ng

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Bo Sanchez: “My whole goal in life was to be like St Francis, to beg in the streets.” Photo: Emilie Ng
Bo Sanchez: “My whole goal in life was to be like St Francis, to beg in the streets.” Photo: Emilie Ng

By Emilie Ng

CATHOLIC preacher Bo Sanchez is one of the Philippines’ richest people, but not because he’s a millionaire with 16 income streams.

The popular Filipino lay evangelist would much rather sit in the slums with Manila’s poorest children and elderly than invest his riches in mansions and expensive cars.

“My whole goal in life was to be like St Francis, to beg in the streets,” Bo said.

The humble preacher’s long-term work in Manila’s slums since he was 14, his mission of evangelising the unchurched through his founding community, Light of Jesus Family, and a blossoming romance and marriage at 32 changed his mind about being a full-time beggar.

 “I was a full-time missionary from the time I started all the way until the age of 30,” Bo said.

“Because I was single all that time, and I didn’t really need money, at least in the Philippines.

“When I decided to get married at around 30, I knew this had to change; I needed some money, as I would not be able to live on whatever the community was giving me.

“So I started my businesses, failed in many of them, but kept going.

“Now I’m both a missionary and an entrepreneur, and that has worked out so well because now instead of receiving, I’m giving.

Related Stories

No Content Available

“God has blessed the businesses so I can fund certain ministries.”

Today Bo is a “micro-entrepreneur” owning several real estate investments; a number of small, private businesses; an Internet marketing business; and a host of financial literacy writings and talks.

He’s even written a book on how to become a “happy millionaire” and has websites devoted to teaching people about being “truly rich”.

The earthly riches he makes are his way of ensuring that the poor and the unchurched have their eternal, heavenly reward.

Bo’s dedication to the Church saw him receive the Serviam Award at The Catholic Mass Media Awards in 2007.

The awards were founded by the Philippines Cardinal Jaime L. Sin and given pontifical honour when Pope John Paul II handed out CMMA trophies during his 1980 visit.

Bo’s wealth also funds various lay ministries, including sanctuary for poor and abandoned elderly known as Anawin Lay Missions; international magazine Kerygma; and media group Shepherd’s Voice which publishes the world’s widest distribution of inspirational books.

He is the host of a Catholic radio program, Radio Veritas, and teaches home-schooling to parents through the Catholic Filipino Academy, which he founded.

The country’s top Catholic preacher found his faith in his parents’ garage 35 years ago when the family started a weekly prayer meeting.

“We started it in our garage, and there were about 20, 30 people who came,” Bo said.

“I was 12 years old when my parents brought me to my first prayer meeting when I gave my life to God.

“The first time I attended our Catholic prayer meeting, I liked it already.

“I liked the fact that you could talk to God personally, that was pretty cool for me.”

A year later, when Bo was 13, the prayer group leader said God had told her that one of their members would start preaching the Gospel, and he would proclaim it all over the world.

“And everyone was happy among that 30 people, but my mother was the happiest of them all, because the pronoun used was ‘he’, and there were only about two men in that prayer group, her husband and her son,” Bo said.

The prayer group leader believed Bo was the subject of her prophesies, and asked him to preach the week after.

“So I did, and I made everybody fall asleep,” Bo laughed.

“But she just believed in me so much, saying, ‘Next Friday you preach again’.

“I really felt as a 13-year-old kid, if God wanted me to preach, He’s going to give me the wisdom.

“It was nothing I could keep (to myself); I had to share my faith.

“I started evangelising my classmates, bringing them to the Lord.

“At 14 years old I was already in the slum area, already serving the poorest of the poor, living with them.

“My mother just allowed it – she had faith in me.”

The community that fostered Bo now boasts more than 189 spiritual gatherings, known as “feasts”, including two in Brisbane and one on the Gold Coast, whom Bo recently visited last month.

Hundreds flocked to hear and take photographs of “Brother Bo”, the affectionate term used among Filipinos for their favourite, humble lay Catholic.

Bo’s approach to life, to his entrepreneurs, and his powerful preaching, is grounded in simplicity, and is perhaps the reason for his success.

“I try my best not to impress people with my intelligence because there’s not much,” Bo said.

“But I just want to be simple and I want to use simple words.

“I think God created us to be simple.

“If I can make a Grade Four student understand me, that means the PhD, the doctorates, will understand me anyway.

 “There’s this passage, I think in Ecclesiastes, ‘God made us simple. It is our own devising that makes us more complicated’.”

Bo’s most important “audience” is his wife Marowe and two sons, Francis and Benedict.

“I always prioritise family,” Bo said.

“I’ve been married for 17 years, I’ve got two boys, 15 and 10, and they’re always number one for me.

“I made that decision, even before I got married; I said, ‘This is my first mission, my first role – I’m a husband and father, before a writer, preacher and leader’.

“I always have time with my wife every day, and we always have a weekly date on Tuesday.

“And I always have dates with my sons, each of them.

“My sons know, my wife knows, that they’re number one in my heart, not my service, not my ministry.”

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Mater to farewell CEO Dr John O’Donnell

Next Post

On the edge

Emilie Ng

Emilie Ng is a Brisbane-based journalist for The Catholic Leader.

Related Posts

No Content Available
Next Post

On the edge

Cathedral grounds alive with youth for Catholic Education Week

Expert helping make chaplains job a little easier

Popular News

  • Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

    Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Mass with signs of indigenous respect launch historic Plenary Council assembly

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘For the moment, no,’ – Pope Francis dismisses resignation rumours in wide-ranging interview

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Future First Nations teachers honoured with Rome scholarship

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Called to share the message of Jesus at mission school

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Plenary Council assembly reaches decision day about the Church role of women
News

Plenary Council assembly reaches decision day about the Church role of women

by Mark Bowling
6 July 2022
0

AMIDST global debate about the role of women in the Catholic Church, Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge says...

‘For the moment, no,’ – Pope Francis dismisses resignation rumours in wide-ranging interview

‘For the moment, no,’ – Pope Francis dismisses resignation rumours in wide-ranging interview

5 July 2022
Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

5 July 2022
Spirit of Mission: A group of young people including university students, seminarians and ministry workers present at the Xavier School of Mission held June 20 to 24. The mission school hosted guest speakers and workshops to encourage people to go out and proclaim the Word. Photo: Joe Higgins

Called to share the message of Jesus at mission school

4 July 2022
Cathedral green packed with families for festival day

Cathedral green packed with families for festival day

4 July 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping