Ordination Time Again

This coming November 21st, the Diocese of Sacramento will ordain its third priest this year, Rev. Mr. Jacobo Caceres.

The Diocese's newspaper, the Herald, has a good article covering his vocation story. Check it out. Please pray for Deacon Jacobo as he prepares for ordination to the priesthood and for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Former Soccer Pro turned Seminarian

I think this was already highlighted a few months back but NOW we have a bit of an update and summary of a man who just entered the seminary this past fall after playing soccer professionally in Chile and in the U.S. It's continues to amaze me how God calls people and this one is just as unique.

That's one of the things faculty members here at the NAC always say. They are constantly amazed at the vocation stories they hear. Men are being called to the priesthood. Men keep stepping up. The Holy Spirit keeps calling. And that's what I think is so crazy. Where do these men come from?

2008 National Conference for Seminarians in Hispanic Ministry

Los días 10 y 11 de Octubre se llevó a cabo la Convención para Seminaristas en Ministerio Hispano 2008, teniendo como sedes el Seminario Conciliar de México, la Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe y la Parroquia de La Esperanza de María en la Resurrección de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo, sede de la VI Vicaría Episcopal de la Arquidiócesis de México y siendo anfitrión el Seminario Hispano de Santa María de Guadalupe.

El tema a reflexionar fue el fenómeno migratorio, desde cuatro perspectivas:
- La migración como posible problema político. Ponencia a cargo del Dr. Alberto Patiño, quien trabaja para la Secretaría de Gobernación de México, en la Subsecretaría de Población, Migración y Asuntos Religiosos, Dirección General de Asociaciones Religiosas.
- La migración y su impacto psicológico. Ponencia experiencial trabajada en la perspectiva del RP. Lic. Antonio Armendáriz, MSpS.
- La migración dentro de un marco antropológico, cabe destacar una presentación magistral acerca del Acontecimiento guadalupano, y elementos que han marcado la historia del pueblo mexicano presentes entre los migrantes hecha por el Ilmo. Cango. Dr. Eduardo Chávez.
- La migración vista desde la perspectiva religiosa, contemplando a la Sagrada Familia como migrante, y contemplando a un Cristo que se hace manifiesto en el migrante hoy. Esta presentación estuvo a cargo del RP. Eduardo Quintero, CS.

More facts will be published in future posts.

Best wishes.

Ordination of Deacons

We recently ordained about 25 men from the North American College to the order of deacon this past week. Well about a week and a half ago but I could not get my hands on any pictures so I waited to post until now. So this will be mostly a picture post. Ordinations are always amazing liturgies to be part of because there is something amazing going on. It's kinda like a wedding. Men are giving up their lives in a real way to serve Christ and God provides His grace to prepare them for this service. There is so much going on you can almost sense the Holy Spirit as everyone falls quiet while the bishop lays hands on the candidates for diaconate. Never gets old for me.



St. Peter's, more specifically the chair of Peter behind the main altar where the remains of a chair, not one necessarily 2,000 years old, resides.



Soon-to-be deacons getting ready. He's listening to Gregorian Chant if you didn't know. The other guy is also known as Joe Prevatali, a seminarian and now deacon from the Archdiocese of San Francisco. It's the closest we have to Sactown this year so we'll follow him through the rites.



Procession...



More processing...



I'm in there somewhere in the choir on the right...



Prostration during Litany of the Saints...



Laying on of hands followed later by the prayer of ordination.



Being vested...



And that's all folks...

Silent Retreat

So one of the big events of the year at seminaries is the annual retreat. Depending on the seminary, it can end up being a week of conferences, spiritual direction, or whatever else. At the seminaries I have attended, they have always been silent retreats. If you want to find an intense retreat, this is it. And it can really be intimidating. But there is so much that can happen in a week of silence that you'd be amazed how beneficial it is for your relationship with God and your direction in life. Silence slowly filters out all the cares of the world and leaves just you and God. So the time can end up being you and God conversing or you running away from Him. All depends. But if you do use that time to be with Him, you'll discover so much - so much about yourself - and maybe the stuff you never wanted to know.

Here is a quote I received during the retreat from Mother Teresa: "I worry that some of you still have not really met Jesus - one to one - you and Jesus alone. Have you seen with the eyes of your soul how he looks at you?" I think this is a scary thought. One seminarian revealed just this during our retreat - somewhere along the way he'd lost his relationship with Christ and he rediscovered it. This is a haunting question but one that is well addressed in a silent retreat.

So anyways, 58 of us went to Greccio which is in the middle part of Italia for a weeklong silent retreat with conferences and some direction. (Sanctuary of Greccio where St. Francis built the first creche)



One of my favorite things about every silent retreat is I end up reflecting on God's action in my life that has led me up to that point in my life. It leaves me with a great sense of gratitude and the readiness for a weak of consolation, desolation, or whatever else the Lord has in store. I won't go into big details about my retreat besides the fact I survived. But, at the end of it, we shared graces and I thought I would share the grace I received from God as well. I think I received a certain confidence that I am still listening to the voice of God in following this vocation to the priesthood. I had certain doubts that were simply washed away and found myself more convicted on my state in life. There is something amazing about simply listening to yourself and listening to God over days and days that leads you to see the truth of your life and where God wants you to be and where you, in the end, really want to be as well.



At the same time, these retreats always have their humor. We try to keep silent and we do for the most part. But sometimes you have to laugh. We were having this one conference in the morning but there was this huge flying bug in the room. It kept banging up against the lights and caught the attention of most of us. So before we could start the conference, we worked together to shoo the thing out. It was hilarious. I also remember another day we were all sitting in the dining hall where they serve us each meal. And they came around with this monstrous breaded mushroom thing that simply got rejected by almost every table. Poor ladies...I kinda consider in the Mushroom Revolution. :) Anyways, little things just cracked me up. (see the crickets? quiet leaves a lot of time to observe all the crickets)



Oh and if you wanted to know what a schedule of a silent retreat would look like, here it is:

8:00am - Breakfast
8:40am - Morning Prayer
9:00am - Conference
9:45am - Prayer hour + free time
11:45am - Mass
12:30pm - Pranzo/lunch in US :)
4:00pm - Conference
4:45pm - Prayer hour + free time
6:40pm - Evening Prayer
7:00pm - Cena
8:00pm - Adoration and Exposition of Blessed Sacrament

You really have a lot of time by yourself...

Synod on the Word of God in Rome

So just got back from silent retreat in time for...the opening Mass for the 12th Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. It was amazing to see so many bishops from all different countries. I believe there were over two hundred from all over Africa, Latin America, Asia, and of course the good ol' North America. Such universality was amazing to see. Plus it is always interesting to see who you meet at these things. I met two couples from Bavaria in front of us and a woman on our side from San Francisco. Woohoo. And a fellow seminarian actually got to shake the Holy Father's hand. It was a nice experience. Some photos to remember it.



Getting into St. Paul's outside the walls...They actually had a real American line!



Some of the most interestingly vested bishops...





Of course the Bishop of Rome himself...



And the exit. I was amazed. Very prayerful experience with good German efficiency. Mass was only two hours. And that included the huge procession in and out...

The memorial of St. Francis

Greetings to you all, my brothers and sisters in Christ. My name is Kevin, an unworthy sinner who was accepted as a seminarian by the Diocese of Sacramento by the grace of God. This is my first post and by way of introduction, I will relate some of my own conversion story.

I was born on December 22, 1980, the only child of Larry and Karen. This means I never learned how to share my toys or get along well with others (just kidding.) I don't come from any particular faith background. At the time my parents were both believing Christians in the sense that they believed in God and that Jesus Christ was His only Son who died for our sins. Other than that, it never really affected any of our lives very much then. For kindergarten and first grade I attended a private, non-denominational Christian school. It closed due to lack of funds at the end of my first grade year, so from that point on I attended public schools in a little town outside of Sacramento called Cameron Park. For those of you who know the area, you'll pass through it if you're driving east on US 50 towards Lake Tahoe.

After I graduated from high school in 1999 I enlisted in the US Army. During basic training at Fort Benning, GA, I suffered a heat stroke. While I was in the hospital and connected to the EKG, the doctor discovered I have a heart disorder that I had not known about before. So the Army decided to medically discharge me and send me home. At the time I was sorely disappointed, but looking back on it now I believe God was acting in my life. Clearly He did not mean for me to be that kind of soldier. If I had not been discharged when I was, I would be in Iraq or Afghanistan right now, and knowing me, I would have surely been injured or killed through some foolish mistake.

All through those years I never lost my faith in God completely, though at times it was especially dim. While I was in the hospital, thinking about what I could possibly do with my life, the only book I had to read was the Gideons Bible inside my bedside stand. At the time I didn't think much of it, but I took it up and began to read whatever random chapters and verses were there when I opened it. I think God was reaching out to me then because when I came back home, dejected at my apparent failure, a thought occurred to me: I really ought to resume the practice of the faith. At the time I was thinkig more about myself, and finding a direction for my life, but God can work with us even if our motives are not solely based on the love of Him.

I enrolled at my local community college with a mind towards transferring to a four year university later on. History has always been my favorite subject so my goal, at first, was to acquire graduate degrees in history so I could teach at the university level myself. I took whatever jobs I could find to help pay my way: as a clerk in the college bookstore, and as a reporter for my local newspaper. All the while I was studying whatever I could find about Christianity. Open the phone book and look under "church" and you'll appreciate my problem. There are so many different denominations - which one was the "right" one? Were they all essentially the same? Did God care which one you joined? This was in early 2002, right around the time the horrible scandals in Boston were first coming to light.

Everyone around me started saying things like, "Well what do you expect when the Church expects celibacy from grown men? Only perverts or weirdos could do that, etc. etc." It occurred to me then that all of my life I had heard this sort of casual anti-Catholicism. I knew from my history studies that for a long time, Americans thought of the Church as being weird or too foreign. I started wondering what it was the Church said and did that inspired such things. So I picked up an encyclopedia of Catholic doctrine.

I was enthralled. At first I just looked up the usual subjects: Papal supremacy, devotion to the saints, moral theology. Then I found myself compelled to read on other subjects too. Before long I had read the entire book and I wanted more. Grace builds on nature, so I think God worked through my love of history. I was especially fascinated by the lives of the saints and how everything we believe was worked out at various councils. Through the grace of God, I came to accept the truth of Catholicism. I realized that it was the Church founded by Christ Himself, whose leadership He entrusted to St. Peter and his successors. So I drove to the closest parish, Holy Trinity Parish in El Dorado Hills, and said, "Let me in!" This was in the summer of 2004. I was enrolled in the RCIA program and on Easter Vigil, March 26, 2005, I was baptized, confirmed, and received my first Holy Communion.

That is my conversion story. Some day I will share my vocation story as well. I've been at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, CA for a little over a month now and I love it here. Midterms are rapidly approaching (where does the time go?!) Until next time my dear brothers and sisters, may almighty God bless you all. St. Francis, pray for us.