This year, the diocese joyfully welcomed ten new seminarians into the Propaedeutic Program, the first stage of priestly formation. They entered Emmaus House of Formation in San Antonio Texas on August 10.
The seminarians are: Anthony Kuriakos of St. Martha, Murrieta; Jacob Ponce and Jose Hernandez Olea of St. Frances of Rome, Wildomar; Jesus Navarro of San Salvador, Colton; Joseph An Nguyen of St. Anthony Mary Claret, Anaheim; Mike Guerrero of Holy Family, Hesperia; Nick Prud’homme of Sacred Heart, Palm Desert; Oscar Yanez of St. Paul the Apostle, Chino Hills; Rafael Martinez of St. George, Fontana; and Roberto Jonathan Lopez of Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Bernardino.
On their journey to enter the diocesan seminarian program, these ten men considered some key questions:
Do you long for more? Do you feel called to give more, to be more? Does your relationship with God sustain you, enliven you, invigorate you in such a way that you want to share the Good News with others? Does the idea of becoming a priest keep coming back time and again even though you thought you had moved on in your life and forgotten about it?
“Still, no matter how much I tried to ignore it, I kept feeling God tugging at my heart,” said Navarro, a faithful and involved Colton parishioner. “Every time I prayed, the priesthood came up again and again. I even asked God to take the desire away—but He didn’t.”
Nguyen says he involved himself in many types of ministry and pursued different career paths before recognizing his desire to become a priest.
“I spent many years working in various fields, including business and entertainment, but despite worldly success, I often felt a spiritual emptiness,” said Nguyen, a seminarian born and raised in a devout Catholic family in Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam. “It was through my experiences in catechetical ministry, leading choirs, and serving the poor that I came to recognize my true calling.”
The Propaedeutic Stage of priestly formation takes place prior to the Discipleship Stage, the study of philosophy. It provides a year of human and spiritual formation offering opportunities to cultivate a deeper prayer life, a more pronounced affective maturity, and greater sense of call to ministry through an intense and profound vocational discernment. It is designed to help the seminarian decide whether he will continue with priestly formation.
One of the main objectives in the Propaedeutic Stage is “to nurture self-awareness and personal growth” and it is designed to offer a seminarian the time and space to discover himself.
Reflecting on his journey Prud’homme says, “I was raised a ‘Cradle Catholic’ but fell away from the faith when I was young and spent about 15 years apart from the Church. I reverted when I was 26 and joined OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.
“As I enter the propaedeutic year, I look forward to a year of deeper spiritual formation where my sole focus can be growing in relationship with our Lord.”
Seminarians come from many different backgrounds and faith journeys, this is why the Diocesan Vocations Office says that “Priesthood is where Christ calls ordinary men to extraordinary missions.”
“My journey started when I was 16,” Yanez said. “I was dealing with lots of personal issues and was agnostic. During this, at my lowest moment, I had sought God, Himself. It was really bad, I was lost, but ever since I did, I wanted to learn more about Him. I was curious about Jesus because I still had hope that I could be healed.”
With this hope, Yanez asked his mother to take him to a nearby church, St. Paul the Apostle, where he joined parishioners praising and worshiping.
“I believe the Holy Spirit entered the room, because tongues were spoken,” Oscar said. “When this happened, I let it all go, I felt God’s presence, and all the weight I had was fading away. It truly felt like my life was changing… The call came as I still felt as if I had something more waiting for me, to do more for the people, so I took it into prayer, and after a few months, I was able to apply to the seminary.”
Like Yanez, the Lord called to seminarian Martinez in a life-changing experience.
“I clearly remember serving at a Christmas Eve mass, watching the priest incense the nativity set, I felt a warm feeling in my heart saying, ‘I could do that, too,’” Martinez said. “As much as I loved the altar, I didn’t want to lose a vocation to married life. I rejected God’s call. However, that warm feeling never left; instead, it became stronger.”
Martinez was invited to a discernment retreat and after much consideration, decided to attend, where then he experienced what he called a personal, miraculous revelation.
“On the last morning of the retreat, I went to Adoration, and to my surprise, the face of Jesus appeared to me on the monstrance,” he recalls. “After sharing my experience, I was told, ‘That is Jesus telling you to follow Him.’ I simply could not keep denying Him.”
“I think that my calling has been there since I was a baby, however, I was never really open to the idea of priesthood,” Guerrero said. “As I grew older, I became more open and aware of the calling.”
While at Emmaus House of Formation, the seminarians hope to achieve the goal of being in a formational community to deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ and come to a greater knowledge of the Catholic faith and grow in character and virtue.
“My hopes are really just to find grounding and find support from fellow seminarians and discern my vocation further,” Guerrero added.