Get to know the 2020 Ordinands

Antonio Acuña

Parish: St. Margaret

My name is Antonio Acuña, I was born in Sonora, Mexico, in la Mesita del Cuajari, Sahuaripa.

I hail from a humble family; my father dedicated himself to fieldwork and my mother to the home. I am the youngest of eleven brothers. At four years old my parents decided to move to the city of Hermosillo because of my father’s health. It was there that, at a young age, I understood that my father wasn’t able to give me a future. I went out onto the streets to shine shoes for my first job as a young boy. As I grew, I also worked in the fields and in construction, and I finished my schooling in a night school program.

Not for a single moment did I think about the danger and the risks I faced that God protected me from every day. It was not until He gave me a family – my wife Margarita, and my three sons, Antonio R., Jesus G., and Osvaldo – that I understood the love of God. He had always been there guiding me, protecting me through the currents of life. Today, I can say with certainty that God has a plan for each one of us.

My parents nurtured in me the moral and spiritual principles of respect for elders and for other people’s property. My father was faithful to the Mass, he was the pillar upon which my devotion was founded. Yet, it was not until adulthood that I took an interest in serving the church.

During Lent one year, I had a vision, and I requested of God one favor, that this Lent may last one more day. Thus, did he grant my request, and even to this day by the grace of Almighty God, has my Lent been extended. The Lord heard my plea, and my life took another turn, and a desire grew in me to know God. I had not the least idea how to read the scriptures, but I had a nagging desire to serve the Church. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to approach the ministers.

It happened that one day there was a retreat for parents of those in catechism classes. I said to myself, “This is my opportunity to get to know Christ!” Alas, the program only covered biblical themes and had no real Bible study. But I did not leave discouraged. At home I lifted the Bible and said, “Lord, I wish to know you.” And I began reading. I read and I read, and I reflected on every verse. It took me three months to read the whole of Sacred Scripture. I was restless and spent hours and hours reading and praying. Every day I grew more and more enthused.

A couple of years passed, and I was invited to be a reader, and to serve in some other parish ministries. Eventually, I was invited to study at Kino. I had no clue what it was about, I thought I knew everything. Another year later I sensed my first calling to be a deacon. But at this time, I couldn’t do it. It did not take God too long to call me a second time. This time I realized I must listen and respond, “O Lord, here I am. How may I serve you that I may repay your generosity to me?”

Thanks be to God for giving me this gift of the Diaconate.

José G. Alvarado

Parish: Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Anthony

I was born in a small town in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. I was the eighth child of a family of nine siblings; I grew up in a poor family environment but with a great love for the Catholic faith. My parents always instilled in the family respect and love for one another and above all love for God. Their teachings were always present in my life of faith, to follow the commandments of God and the example of his Son, Jesus. And to practice faith by my example, a faith that was given to me from generation to generation by my ancestors.

In Mexico City, I finished my Elementary and Middle School; due to lack of economic resources I could not continue my education.  My family was large with no possibility or resources to aspire to study high school, much less a university career. I grew up lacking perhaps many material things, but I never lacked love and family unity.

At the age of 21, I met a beautiful woman with whom I fell in love; within a year we were engaged. We soon got married and had our first daughter. After three years of marriage and with our first daughter, we immigrated to the city of Phoenix to settle down and have a better economic life for my family. Phoenix became our new home and our son was born here too. My ideas and thoughts from a young age were to have a profession, get married, and have a family.

But how naive was I to the mysteries of God to his calling to serve the church. This happened after more than 15 years of marriage; receiving this beautiful call from God to serve him as a Deacon, further affirming my faith and giving me more responsibility in the existing ministries that my wife and I lovingly help in the community.

God and his mysteries are infinite. I hope that the Holy Spirit will continue to shine His light on this path and this calling God has given me and guide me to be a true disciple and servant of the teachings of Jesus and make me a living Herald of his Gospel. May the ever-Virgin Mary continue to give me the grace to be able to say “Yes” to the will of God.

“To Jesus through Mary!”

José Francisco Avila

Parish: Queen of Peace

I was born in the city of Mérida, Yucatán in México, I am the first-born son of Maria Luisa Perera de Avila and of Nicomedes Avila Vázquez, I have three younger sisters: Diana, Catalina and Angeles. I have been Catholic all my life and my first memories of prayer are at bedtime when my mom taught me the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Guardian Angel prayer.

I met my wife Elmy and married her while I was still taking my bachelor’s degree, my first-born son Pedro was also born in Mérida. The Lord allowed me to move my family to the United States when Pedro was 9 months old. A funny moment was when the immigration officer pointed to my wife and son and asked me if they were my children. Our son Jorge was born in the city of Mesa.

Shortly after my First Communion I grew apart from the Church due to my lack of understanding of the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist. However, the early teachings of my mother accompanied me, because I continued to pray regularly the three prayers my mother taught me.

I began to listen the call of the Lord after I lost my the job that I had for 16 years, it was a hard time for my family, and I remember promising the Lord to never miss Mass again should he help me, and he did. His called to service began when I was invited to a Cursillo. In the Cursillo, I fell in deeper love with the Lord and I was able to see some Deacons in action. During this Cursillo I asked the Lord to show me if he wanted me to serve him as a Deacon and the Lord did so.

The Lord has guided me through formation, and I pray that with the help of the Holy Spirit and through the intersessions of our Blessed Mother Mary I may be able to serve his children.

Gregory Blanchard

Parish: San Francisco de Asis

I was born and raised in the Southwest and lived in Oklahoma, Texas, California and Arizona by the time I was in fourth grade.  I grew up in a Catholic home where my parents lived their faith simply and steadfastly.  I am the third of four children where my sister is the oldest, and I am the middle of three boys.  I definitely experienced my family as the first school of love just as the Church documents teach.

I was blessed to attend St. Jerome’s and Bourgade Catholic Schools where I continued to learn about my faith.  After tenth grade, my family had the great opportunity to move to France where I finished high school.  I remember many sightseeing trips where we would find ourselves visiting amazing Catholic Churches such as Notre Dame or Chartres Cathedrals.  I returned to Arizona for college where I studied chemical engineering at the University of Arizona.

It was at the U of A Newman Center where God graced me with a tremendous conversion experience.  For the first time I realized that Jesus had died for my sins and that by faith I could accept His gift of salvation.  So much of what I had learned growing up Catholic became alive and real.  I could often attend daily Mass and I read through the Bible with great interest.  I wanted to live radically for God and I worked in campus ministry for five years.  First at the U of A, and then at NAU Newman Center where I met my wife Christina.

Returning to engineering to raise a family, God blessed us with six children whom we home schooled through high school.  What a joy and particular grace to see our children grow in wisdom and grace.  It is always our prayer that they truly become who God created each of them to be.

Almost nine years ago at the Catholic Men’s conference in Phoenix, I remember hearing Bishop Olmsted calling men to boldly step out in faith and follow the Lord.  In my heart, I heard for the first time the vocation to be a deacon.  As I talked with my wife and my pastor I found that this call was confirmed.  Through the two years of study at the Kino Catechetical Institute and five years of formation I have been greatly blessed as I follow where the Father is leading me.

God continues to pour out His grace through the prayers of so many – family, friends, and parishioners.  It is with trust in God that I approach ordination.  May I become the deacon God wants me to be as I seek to serve wherever He leads.

Christopher Gass

Parish: Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

I am blessed. I grew up in northern Illinois about 50 miles straight west of Chicago. I’m a life long Cubs fan. I have two sisters, both younger than me. I went to St. Patrick’s Grade School and later to St. Edward High School in Elgin, IL. My parents, by example ,showed me that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God and deserves respect. I remember at a very young age my parents taking in kids from Chicago’s inner city for a couple weeks in the summer. There was also a young man, Juan Gonzales who my father employed to do odd jobs. My father looked after him and encouraged him to go to college. In my teens, we worked with Vietnamese immigrants, finding them housing and getting them established in America. Later, in college, my parents spent 2 years in Uganda giving of themselves.

For my part, I drifted away from my faith after college. I moved to Arizona, working for Motorola. I came back to my faith in 1996 when I met my wife, Carey. The night we met was profound. I can remember thanking God for putting Carey into my life. It was the first time I really prayed in years.

We married in 1997 and had our first child, Felicia in 1998. Her baptism had a profound effect on my faith. In the baptism rite, the parents are specifically asked if this is what they want for their child. Saying yes was a profound moment for me. It affected me deeply. I said yes, yet I really no longer understood very well what being Catholic means. I had to go back and rediscover my faith.

This has been a 21+ year journey and I am still learning. My wife and I have three beautiful girls. Along the way, I took classes at Kino. I took them to better understand my faith, not to become a Deacon. The Kino program is 2 years in length and really deepened both my faith and my understanding of what the Church teaches.

At the end of the program, after talking with my wife and praying, I decided to enter into the Diaconate formation. I still had a lot of questions and was not sure if this is what I wanted. But, the key thing is that I opened myself to the Holy Spirit moving within me. I entered basically because I could not see a downside. If I didn’t become a deacon, the worst thing that would happen is that my faith would be deeper. How is that bad? I felt a change in myself at the end of the second year. I knew now that this was the right thing.

I want to thank my parents for my childhood formation. My father died a few years ago. As I became a father, I kept looking back at his example of a father for how I should behave. My mother also showed me how to make a complete gift of myself to others as she still opens her doors to many in need.

I want to thank Carey, my wife for her love and support. She is a true gift from God who I treasure. I want to thank my children as well. My 3 princesses make our marriage a joy. It is not without some worry, but it is joyful.

I look forward now to serving the parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Parish: Holy Cross

I was born in the city of Mexico, DF, and I was blessed to grow up in a Catholic family where my father and mother taught me their doctrine. My mother and father are people of great faith in God.

My parents made the difficult decision to immigrate to the United States and the city of Phoenix, Arizona, when my father was fired from his job and looking for a better future for us. Maybe they did not think at that time how much this decision would change the history of our whole family, and especially for me. I was 12 years old at that time and felt that it was a huge change in our lives.

I met my wife Bernardett in High School, which was also a great blessing for me. We began dating and in the first years we had our children Juan Carlos and Alejandro.

After the birth of my children, I struggled to work and get ahead in order to provide for my family, but I drifted away from the faith that my parents had taught me. For many years, work was my only focus as I wanted to provide my family with a good economic position.

As time went by, my marriage began to have problems. After I began thinking that everything was lost, my wife and I went to Mass. At the end of Mass, we received an invitation to participate in a family retreat. We said yes and attended this retreat 2 weeks later. We had no idea that this retreat would again change the history of my family.

During the retreat, when the Deacon exposed the Blessed Sacrament, I asked Jesus in the Sacrament not to allow me to lose my family. At that moment, I promised that I would serve him all my life. He listened to my prayer and after that retreat our marriage became stronger. I was able to return to the path that my parents taught me: the path of God. God continued to bless us through the arrival of our daughter, Daniela.

A few months later in prayer and fasting, I began to discern the call to the diaconate. I am so fortunate that my family, my wife, and my children supported me in that decision.

I thank God for his mercy as He set his sights on me to be his faithful servant.

Alberto Juan

Parish: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen Creek

I am very fortunate to have grown up in a family full of faith. I grew up with five siblings, and I was the youngest of them all. My parents were Catholic and they instilled the faith in me at a very young age. We attended Mass every Sunday, and in order for us to get to the village with the church, we had to walk on foot for an hour. That long walk didn’t matter to us as long as we got to go. It was at that same church where I received all my initial sacraments in the parish of San Rafael Archangel, Guatemala.

In 1983, my family came to the United States. It was myself, my wife Candelaria, and my daughter Magdalena. We arrived in Mesa, Arizona and it was there that we decided to stay and build our lives. We would eventually end up having three more children there. In that same year of 1983 a Hispanic family invited us to the Queen of Peace church. We loved it so much that that would become our church, and we registered there. It was there that we also got married in 1990 because we could never get married in Guatemala due to their current situation of the civil war.

Thanks to God, in 1988 we began our own plant nursery business which is still up and running to this day. My wife and my children manage the business now, and that is how we live and sustain ourselves. In 1991, the Guatemalan Mayan community was founded and they registered at Queen of Peace. We integrated with the community a year later and we stayed there. Years later they gave us the opportunity to serve as readers, and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion among other volunteer work. I started as a reader, and I helped as much as I could. The parish priest invited us to some retreats and parish classes, and it was there that I began learning about the Kino Institute.

In the year 2000, we moved to Queen Creek, and the first thing I did was register at Our Lady of Guadalupe where I began to serve as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and reader. In 2008, I registered in Kino and I graduated in 2010. I thought it was all over, but God had something else in store for me.

It was in 2013 that I received an invitation from the center for the formation of the diaconate. Some deacons have invited prior to that but I simply declined and said no. I thought it was not for me, but with the invitation I could not resist, as it was the call from God. I did everything possible to gather the requirements. Currently I am two months away from ordination. If God allows me to, I will continue helping my family, my community and all the people of God. I am just grateful that God has given me this opportunity in this country that is not mine. I just want to be willing to give back a little of how much he has given me. This is almost a lifetime of work and dedication; it was not easy but it is not impossible.

David Knebelsberger

Parish: Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

I was raised in a strong Catholic family in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Bellwood, IL, a western suburb of Chicago.  I’m the fifth of seven children, having 3 brothers and 3 sisters.  We all went to a Catholic grade school, but I was the only one to attend a Catholic High School.  I earned my BSEE degree from the University of Illinois and then started my first job after college as a semiconductor memory design engineer in Salt Lake City, Utah. I knew that I did not want to marry a Mormon woman, so I joined the Catholic Singles Club. It was there that I met Jean-Anne, my wonderful wife for the past 34 years!

After being married for a short time, we joined the Engaged Encounter community.  Being a part of this community was a wonderful part of our life and really helped us grow closer to God and to each other.  It was also a great way to meet other like-minded people.  After having our first 2 kids, we moved to the Phoenix area in the fall of 1989 to be closer to family.  We were also welcomed by the Phoenix EE community and then introduced to Cursillo.  My Cursillo weekend in the spring of 1991 was a life changing weekend for me. God went from my head to my heart, and Jesus became Lord of my life. I started listening to Christian music, praying the Rosary, reading Christian books and the Bible, and having a better prayer time. With this new love for God and for life, it led us to have three more children. The Lord also led us to our home right next to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish and among many families that belong to City of the Lord, a Catholic Charismatic Covenant Community.  COTL has many like-minded, large families and has really helped us grow spiritually over the last nineteen years.

I first felt the call to becoming a deacon at a Holy Thursday Mass at OLMC.  Fr. John Bonavitacola was washing the feet of the twelve chosen people, and I was very moved by his service and his love of God.  It was then that God first put it on my heart that I should be a deacon.  Since some of my five kids were still pretty young, I didn’t think there was any way that I could answer the call at this time, so I put it on my back burner.

About ten years later in the summer of 2012, I felt that I was at the point in my life that I should better discern that initial call to the diaconate.  I began praying about it off and on in my prayer time, and then went to the deacon ordination on November 10 to seek the Lord’s will on this.  A few minutes before Mass was to begin, I knelt down to ask the Lord if He still wanted me to be a deacon.  It was then that I was flooded with the power of the Holy Spirit.  I got the Holy Spirit tingle and my eyes were filled with tears as I felt so much of God’s love and peace.  It was an amazing moment and one that I hope I never forget.  Nevertheless, since I’m a little slow at God’s promptings sometimes, I prayed again at Mass the next day at OLMC about becoming a deacon and I was again filled with the love and joy of the Holy Spirit.  Praise God!  It’s been an incredible journey since then and I look forward to seeing what else the Lord has in store for me in my new role as a deacon!

Andy Lambros

Parish: St. Joan of Arc

I was blessed to be born in Phoenix, where I have lived almost all my life.  I was raised in a Catholic family and was the seventh of eight boys in the family.  I went to St. Vincent de Paul grade school and then to Bourgade Catholic High School.  I met my wife Pam in eighth grade.  We were good friends all through our high school years.  We started dating after graduation and were married a short time after that.  Pam and I have been married for 37 years. We have 5 grown children… four married and one engaged.  We are blessed to have nine grandchildren… so far!

I am proud to have served as a corpsman in the U.S. Navy for 6 years.  I also served as a firefighter on the Tempe Fire Department, where I worked for 28 years and retired in 2015.  I am currently serving as the Coordinator of Stewardship at St. Joan of Arc Parish.  This position has helped me to gain insight into how a parish works, and allowed me to meet many of the folks who make up this special parish community. It has been so edifying to get to know and work with the people of God at St. Joan of Arc.

My journey to the diaconate started a few years before retirement from the fire department. I started wondering what God might want me to do next. A few people had commented in passing about me becoming a deacon, but I just shrugged them off. Then, one night my wife asked me if I had actually considered it. That was when I started to really think about how the Lord was giving me hints about how my life experiences and God-given gifts might be used to serve others. So, it was then when I started to pray specifically for God to reveal His will for me and became open to consider if God was calling me to serve Him as a deacon.

When I entered into formation, Pam and I agreed to take it one year at a time and to re-evaluate after each year.  That helped me to see formation as a process to make me a better Catholic man, not just a path to ordination.  I knew the Lord would use the formation to prepare me for whatever He had planned for me, whether that was ordination or not.

The seven years of formation were such a growth experience for me and my family. I took the formation seriously and I put my whole self into it.  I always felt that if the time came for me to lay prostrate at my ordination, I wanted to be 100% sure that God wanted me there. I can say to you now that I feel very humbled, yet honored to accept the Lord’s invitation to be ordained a deacon. My wife and family strongly support me.

I am blessed to serve under Bishop Olmsted in the Diocese of Phoenix. I will continue to strive for virtue and holiness as I work in service of the Lord and the people He puts in my path.

Throughout this time of discernment, my wife Pam and I have prayed a very simple prayer to keep our hearts open to the Fathers will and focused His mission:

“Lord, help me to become the person you created me to be, so I can do the things you created me to do. Send me where I can use my gifts and work with others to build your kingdom and glorify your name!”

Handel A. Metcalf

Parish: Our Lady of Joy

I knew from a fairly early age that I felt the call to serve the Lord in ministry.  However, having been born and raised a Protestant, I tested several denominations, but never discerned the call to pursue a path to ministry in those communities.  After converting to the Catholic faith, I began to serve the church in a manner that I had never done before. I began serving the church in several ministries at my parish, Our Lady of Joy in Carefree, Arizona.

Over time, I served my parish as a lector, eucharistic minister, RCIA as a catechist, served on the parish council, and began to lead a prayer group.

I was very comfortable serving in a variety of ways and soon felt called to more intimate service around the altar.  Through this, the Holy Spirit led me to discern a call to Holy Orders as a Permanent Deacon.

With the constant support of my wife, family, the deacons and priest of my parish, and support of the laity, the formation journey began.

The journey has been rigorous, and the growth in all areas of life has been immense, especially my prayer life while learning what it means to be a servant of Christ.

My mother, who was protestant, and my mother in law, who is Catholic, were two strong spiritual role models. The strength of my wife’s faith, and the support of my extended family could never be measured, and for that I am grateful.

My children said, ”We are so proud of our dad for his journey towards ordination to the deaconate.  In these years, we have seen him grow in faith, bond with his cohort, and be a blessing at our parish, and community.  He brought our family along for the ride with lively discussions about the Catholic faith.  We cannot wait to see what else the Lord does through him”.

As a physician and a family man for many years, I served my profession and my vocation, always giving my best.  With the help of God, I intend to serve the parish to which I am assigned, and to serve God through the Catholic Church with my whole heart.

I want to walk in the footsteps of Christ, and by His Grace, fulfill my call to ordination as Christ’s servant, a deacon.

I ask for continued prayers from my Our lady of Joy family of parishioners, the clergy, and all the angels and saints. Please pray for me and my family.

“I am bringing you into seclusion, so that I myself may form your heart according to my future plans.” – Diary of St. Faustina

Ivan G. Rojas

Parish: St. Anne, Gilbert

I was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia; raised in a family where the love for God was shown in serving others. One of the earliest memories I have is as a 4-year-old child taking a bowl of soup to a homeless man that was sleeping on an empty lot near our house. Another fond memory I have as a child is the love that my parents have for the Sacred Heart and for the Blessed Virgin Mary. For my parents, the meaning of serving God did not stop at serving those in need, it also meant to serve His Church. My mom always volunteered at our parish with the Church decoration. One day she heard they were looking for teenagers to help during Holy Week and she volunteered me. Very soon I became a core member of the youth ministry and from that point I got to work along many priests. That was the first time I saw the needs of those men who gave up their own families to become our spiritual fathers. I graduated from high school at the Saint Thomas Aquinas School and went to the Saint Thomas Aquinas University to pursue a degree in Electronic Engineering. At that point I had stopped working with the youth ministries; my faith was idle, and I didn’t have a relationship with God.

It wasn’t until the last year of classes at the university that a friend invited me to pray the rosary at his house. And from that day on, Mary brought me back to Her son and to His Church. The love for the Eucharist that my Dominican school chaplain had inspired in me when I was 8-year-old returned. The appreciation for the sacramental life of the Church grew a 100-fold and confession was no longer something I avoided, instead became something I would seek out regularly. With my friend and the help of others that had join us in praying the rosary every week we started feeding the homeless every Friday night. We stopped going out and instead would save that money to buy bread, cocoa, ham, etc. to feed those in need, but knowing fully that it was Jesus feeding us.

It was in that group of young adults that I met Ines, my wife. I met her in a time when I was asking God for my wife: I didn’t know who my wife was, but I was praying for her. Little by little, with Every eucharist I offered for that wife, with every day of fasting I offered for her and with every Rosary I prayed for her God brought me close to Ines. It wasn’t until Good Friday in 1994 that we found our love for each other through the Cross of Christ. Our Blessed Mother was also constantly present in our relationship, and for that reason we chose to marry on May 13, 1995. Back then we thought that we were doing that just for Her; like two giddy kids giving a nice gift to their Mother. Little did we know that She would take that very small act and become our marriage advocate and protector.

After getting married in Colombia we moved to California, relocated back to Colombia, to finally move back to the Phoenix area in 1999. Within a year God led us to S.t Anne and almost immediately became our spiritual home. By getting involved in the life of the parish, I found out that the priests here in the U.S. needed help as the priests in Colombia, only that the need is many times bigger. After a couple of years of being at St. Anne, I heard the first invitation to the Permanent Diaconate. I had no idea what a Deacon was, and honestly, I never paid too much attention to St. Stephen or St. Phillip or the other 5 chosen in Acts 6. From that invitation forth, I began learning more about the Diaconate, the person of Christ the Servant, and all the amazing Deacons that had lived throughout Church history.

In 2020, Ines, our three daughters, and I will celebrate 20 years of being at St. Anne. During all these years we have been blessed to find in St. Anne a family that has helped us grow closer to God, to His Church, and to the Sacraments. We have also found a family that truly cares for us but more importantly that prays for us. I personally thank every person that has carried me through formation with their prayers. I know that it is because of their constant and powerful intersession that God has granted me the graces to make this far.

I hope that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the intersession of the Most Venerable Virgin Mary, and the continuous prayer of my wife, my daughters, my family, and my St. Anne family, God will give me every grace I need to respond to the call to the Permanent Diaconate so as to lay down my life for His Church.

William Vincent John Schneider

Parish: Blessed Sacrament

I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in the Catholic faith under the tutelage of my devout Irish Roman Catholic mother, and my hearty “salt of the earth” Lutheran father.  In a special way, as a very young child, I remember feeling a mysterious presence in my life, especially on my birthdays when I would receive a very subtle “special” gift.  It was not until I received the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist that I realized it was the presence of Jesus at my side!  And from this great epiphany I realized that I did not have to wait for a birthday to receive his gifts; I could receive his graces in the sacraments every day!  It is from Jesus and his sacraments that I am forever nourished, comforted, and transfigured.

I first felt called to the diaconate while on pilgrimage to Medjugorje over 25 years ago, where my faith was renewed and my love for Our Lady, the Eucharist, and the Church were inflamed.  It was there that I first heard a whisper in my heart regarding the diaconate and its profound call to be an icon of the servant mysteries of Christ.  At the time, I knew very little about who a deacon was.  Besides, I did not feel worthy (and still do not for that matter) of such a calling and gift.  Over time, that whisper became louder and more nagging, encouraging me to look into entering the deacon formation program.  In 2013, after much prayer and discussion with my wife and family, I finally applied to the diaconate, and strangely enough, I was accepted.  Nothing is impossible with God!

Formation is for both the husband and the wife, and so, over these past years, we have had the honor to grow and learn with truly lovely and faithful Catholic couples in our Cohort.  More importantly, our faith, marriage, and diaconate vocation have grown and been strengthened by the many prayers, holiness, and support of the Catholic community to which we are forever grateful.  My knowledge and love of our Catholic faith, liturgy, Scripture and traditions have grown immensely!  I am excited (and a little nervous) to start this new vocation to proclaim the Gospel and serve the Body of Christ as I witness to and share my love for Jesus Christ while walking humbly with Our Lord and Savior.

I was recently asked, “What is the most important thing you learned about yourself during formation?”  After a long pause I confessed, “I am a sinner who has been gazed upon by the eyes of Mercy and touched by the hands of sacrificial Love.”  It is this Love and Mercy that I wish to humbly share with the children of God as I journey together with them in Christ.  In a special way, just as when I was a child, Jesus’ death on the cross brought the possibility of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation to me and all who believe.  And at the “end of the race,” I hope and pray for two things as I whisper “Jesus, I trust in you:”  First, to hear the words of Our Savior say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Come, share your master’s joy.” And second, that I hug and gaze into the joyful eyes of my brother Matt.  Holy Mother Mary and St. Joseph, the patron saints of my diaconate, pray for us!