Newly ordained deacons lean on ‘God’s grace’ for service to church

Deacons Benjamin Rosado and Ian Quito were ordained to the transitional diaconate April 27 at St. Pius Parish in Redwood City. The seminarians spoke to Catholic San Francisco about their new roles in the church and God’s call to the priesthood. (Photos by Nicholas Wolfram Smith/Catholic San Francisco)

April 29, 2019
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
 
Four seminarians, including two men preparing for the priesthood in the archdiocese, were ordained to the transitional diaconate April 27 at St. Pius in Redwood City.
 
Ordained at a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes of Agana, the new deacons are Deacon Ian Quito and Deacon Benjamin Rosado from the Archdiocese of San Francisco and Deacon Ron Pangan and Deacon Junee Valencia from the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam. All are completing their third year of theology at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park.
 
In his homily, Archbishop Byrnes exhorted the seminarians on the importance of preaching the Gospel and the strength needed to preach it. Being a Christian, he said, is not just about “being good” but means being another Christ.
 
“What the Gospel is calling us to, is a complete transformation of our life,” Archbishop Byrnes said.
 
Archbishop Byrnes encouraged the deacons to have boldness and confidence in announcing the Gospel and the grace available to every person “who calls on the name of the Lord.”
 
“Announce the glory, announce the goodness and power of the Gospel,” he said. “This is the grace the Holy Spirit has given to you brothers today. Let the light of the Gospel shine through your hearts, for you and for those to whom you preach.”
 
For the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s newest deacons, pursuing their vocation to the priesthood has been a years-long endeavor. Deacon Quito grew up in the Philippines and entered seminary there in 2009, after high school. His family’s immigration to the U.S. in 2015 put his studies on hold for a year, until he was accepted at St. Patrick’s as a first-year theology student.

For Deacon Rosado, who grew up in Daly City and calls St. Thomas More in San Francisco his home parish, “the call to priesthood was a surprise. It’s not something I had ever thought about growing up.”
 
Much of his life had been spent away from the church. He attributed his return to Catholicism to a combination of “dissatisfaction with the things of this world” and “a pure grace that God reached out to me and revealed that he wanted to come into my life and change it for the better.”
 
Coming back to the church “affected me so strongly and changed my life for the better that I wanted to give that to other people in some way,” he said.
 
Towards the end of the academic year, the new deacons will be assigned to parishes to assist with liturgies and sacraments. Deacon Rosado said he was eager to begin his assignment.
 
“It’s giving me an opportunity to serve in a new capacity. I’m in awe of the idea that now I’ll be proclaiming the Gospel in the liturgy,” he said.
 
The diaconate marks an important point in a seminarian’s life. While it can seem like it’s just the last milestone before priesthood, Deacon Quito said ordination instead “should really help us enter into a deeper commitment to Christ and his church. And hopefully the ordination will give us the grace to be truly instruments of Christ to the world.”
 
Deacon Quito said the defining mark of the diaconate, service to the people, remains with them even after ordination to the priesthood.
 
Committing to that vocation, as with any other calling in life, always comes with questions, doubts, fears and anxieties, Deacon Quito said. Seminarians have to wrestle with doubts about whether they can live celibately, or meet the demands of priesthood, or study or relate well to others, he said.
 
“It’s very human to experience that,” he added. “Asking is a very important part of the formation. When we stop asking, we are not really sure of what we are entering into, because the more we ask, the more our vocation is being deepened.”
 
Ultimately, his questions helped Deacon Quito realize that it was “God’s grace rather than my abilities” that have brought him through seminary formation.
 
Deacon Rosado said he was grateful to the laity, priests and seminary faculty who had helped him in pursuing his vocation. “These people love the church, and they work hard to form the men who come through here,” he said. “I owe them so much.”