MARY, OUR MOTHER

Bishop Wenski of Orlando with new Deacons

Deacon ordination is father-son calling

Here's a great story from Texas via Express-News . . . I pray for my children and grandchildren, that God would call one of them to the Priesthood, deaconate or religious life . . . How about you? How else will the Church survive without new vocations. We need more priests and deacons! And Sisters and Brothers! Join me in praying for vocations every day!

Usually, fathers inspire their sons, but when Paul Lara left home to study for the Catholic priesthood in 1997, his father became more active in church.

Eventually, Rafael Lara decided to seek ordination as a deacon.

Paul Lara, 38, and Rafael Lara, 64, were among 28 men ordained as deacons Saturday by Archbishop José Gomez. Catholic deacons are ordained ministers who perform such ministries as baptisms, marriages, funerals, burial rites, preaching and visiting the sick.

But Paul Lara is one of three in the group who will go on to become an ordained priest. The rest will remain deacons for life.

All Catholic priests are required to be ordained deacons first.

The younger Lara has been studying in Rome with the Legionaries of Christ, a Rome-based, worldwide congregation of priests, for 10 years. He's to be ordained a priest in December, but his superior in Rome allowed him to attend his father's ordination in San Antonio.

His superior asked Archbishop José Gomez if he would be willing to ordain the young man along with his father's class. Gomez said the e-mail request reached him May 7 and he was happy to agree.

"I think it's great," Gomez said. "This is a very special grace of God for a father and his son to be ordained deacons together."

Rafael Lara called it "a miracle," saying neither he nor his son had asked for such an honor.

A member of St. Matthew's Parish, he began his studies to become a deacon in 2002.

"My wife and I suspected our son's vocation to the priesthood about two years before he told us," the elder Lara said. "We started noticing his car parked in front of the chapel at St. Matthew's late at night. That was very uncommon for a young man."

Paul Lara said a lay retreat in the early 1990s launched him on a journey of spiritual growth and involvement through Regnum Christi, an evangelism movement sponsored by the Legionaries. "Regnum Christi" is Latin for "The Reign of Christ."

After graduating from St. Mary's University, he worked with his father, an architect and developer, designing and building the Legionaries' Rolling Oaks Academy. He said he expected to continue with his father's firm for many years.

But during a 1997 lecture by the Legionaries' founder, Father Marcial Marciel, the younger Lara said he felt God calling him to be a priest.

"He (Marciel) was talking about what true love is — total love, holding nothing back for myself. I suddenly realized that I had a choice: to live in truth and do what God was calling me to do or to deny that and do what I wanted to do," Paul Lara said.

Meanwhile, without telling him or his father, Rosita Lara, had been praying steadily for six years that her son would become a priest.

Shortly after Paul Lara entered the seminary, his father became more committed in his faith, attending daily Mass and reciting the rosary. He became a Eucharistic minister and began helping prepare the altar for Mass.

In 2002, he received approval to begin studies to become a deacon.

"I was praying that I'd live long enough to see Paul celebrate Mass at least once," the beaming father said.