By Michael Rizzo
YONKERS — Taking the last liturgical step on the path to the priesthood means vowing obedience, lying prostrate before the altar, and symbolically receiving the Book of the Gospels as a sign of one’s new role in the Church.
These significant acts were all part of the Mass on Nov. 9 at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers for five seminarians of the Diocese of Brooklyn who were installed as transitional deacons. All five men are in their fourth and final year of studies at the seminary and are preparing to be ordained as priests in 2025.
New deacon Alvaro Morales, an immigrant to the United States with his family from Mexico, grew up in the Neocatechumenal Way that works to develop families in the faith. He began his seminary studies at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary of Newark and continued at the Redemptoris Mater Brooklyn Diocesan Missionary House of Formation in Jamaica Estates.
“I am very happy to see the faithfulness of the Lord,” he said while receiving congratulations and posing for photos after the ordination. “It’s been all his work, but I wouldn’t be here without the support of my family and mentors. This belongs to them first.”
The 30-year-old Deacon Morales recalled before the ordination how he heard “the announcement” of his calling to be a priest when he was 19.
He described completing his studies in diesel mechanics at a New Jersey technical school and was not planning a religious vocation.
“I felt like I had everything. But yet there was something, a void within me that I felt, that somehow life had to be more, that there had to be something else,” Deacon Morales said.
He described spending time with scripture, receiving the Eucharist, and sharing his experiences with other young men with the same calling.
“It created a life of prayer which I had never had before. This was the first time I began a personal relationship with the Lord,” he recalled. “I found the freedom and ability to go wherever the Lord invited me to go.”
Joining Deacon Morales are his classmates Benoit Chavanne, Juan Herrera, Callistus Ibeh, and Robert Ruggiero.
Deacon Ruggiero, the oldest of the group, is a 53-year-old Brooklyn native who grew up in Red Hook attending Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen. He explained his first calling was to work as a layperson for several parishes and at the Prayer Channel, which later became DeSales Media Group’s NET-TV.
That changed five years ago in his consecration to St. Joseph.
“I was that quiet call,” he said after the ordination. “You can plan your life, and God has something else in store for you. I’m just allowing the Lord to take me where he wants me to go. He has a better plan than I do.”
Nearly 200 friends and family of the deacons gathered in the seminary’s main chapel for the ordination, which was conferred by Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Espaillat of the Archdiocese of New York. The ordination included three seminarians of the archdiocese who were also made transitional deacons.
Co-celebrating Mass were Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Raymond Chappetto, Auxiliary Bishop James Massa, who is also the rector at the seminary, and more than three dozen priests.
Bishop Espaillat’s homily focused on the words of St. Padre Pio: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.”
“If you serve [God],” Bishop Espaillat said to the new deacons, “you will serve His people and will hear those wonderful words, ‘well done my good and faithful servant.’ ”
Deacon Ibeh, a 29-year-old native of Nigeria, said that before Mass, he questioned whether he was “really worthy.”
“But then I realized God’s grace was leading me here every step of the way,” he said.
“I’ve known them the past four years, and they’ve blossomed into men dedicated and enthusiastic about bringing the faith to people,” Father Joseph Holcomb, director of seminarians for the diocese, said of the newly ordained.
All the new deacons have been assigned parishes for their diaconates: Deacon Chavanne at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in Bayside, Deacon Herrera at St. Thomas Aquinas in Brooklyn, Deacon Ibeh at Queen of Angels in Sunnyside, Deacon Ruggiero at St. Anastasia in Douglaston and Deacon Morales at St. Finbar in Brooklyn.
And what about their future as priests?
“The new arrivals to the diocese need to find God,” Deacon Morales said in thinking about his work after his ordination next year. “I want to reach out to the people who have strayed from the church or never received the announcement of the love of God.”
Michael Rizzo is an associate professor and director of the journalism program at St. John’s University.
