July 13

2023

Bloomingdale, IL

St. Isidore, Bloomingdale

DePaul University (Health Sciences (Minor: Biological Sciences and Psychology))

Martial Arts Instructor, Pharmacy Technician

English, Tagalog, Spanish

Taekwondo, watching movies, and learning about new technology

I have a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo

St. Joseph

I was born and raised Catholic, attending Catholic grade school and college. I am truly blessed to have support for my vocation from my family, especially my grandmother. I felt the call to priesthood when my father was hospitalized and when my grandfather was in hospice, where I witnessed a priest ministering to the sick in a more personal way than the doctors. That is when I knew that I wanted to minister to God’s people as a spiritual physician rather than a bodily physician.

Celebrating mass and listening to confessions

During my summer at the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, NE in 2019, I was distributing communion to patients in the cancer center at Nebraska Medical Center. I entered the room of a 70-year-old man with aged tattoos and a smell that made me think he has not showered in days. I asked him if he wanted to receive communion and he slowly got on his knees to receive the Eucharist. I was speechless, first at the fact that a man his age could go on his knees on the cold hospital floor, but second that he recognized the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Let us remember who is truly present when we receive the Eucharist at mass!

Please pray for us and all young people that we may follow God’s will for our lives and that we may be faithful to that vocation in which we are called.