Called by Name: Two Diocese of San Bernardino Seminarians Take a Public Step Toward the Priesthood
By Joe Bedard
A public yes
CAMARILLO — Some moments in a priestly vocation happen quietly: in prayer, in a chapel late at night, in a conversation no one else hears. The Rite of Candidacy is not one of them.
On the evening of October 16, at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Camarillo, two seminarians of the Diocese of San Bernardino, Luis Morales and Declan Osueke, stood before the Church and said in public what they had long been saying in private: they intend to become priests. Bishop Matthew Elshoff, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, celebrated the Mass.
The Church heard them. And the Church said yes.
What candidacy means
Formally, the rite is called Admission to Candidacy for Holy Orders. It is brief. It is not ordination; no one leaves the sanctuary a deacon or a priest. But it marks a real threshold.
Until this point, a seminarian is a man discerning. After candidacy, he is a man the Church has formally accepted as preparing for Holy Orders. When his name is called, he answers aloud, before God and the community. He declares his intention to complete his formation and to give his life in service to Christ and his Church. The Church, through the bishop or his delegate, receives that declaration and accepts it.
The promise is made in front of witnesses for a reason. A vocation is never a private project. It comes through the Church, is tested by the Church and is ultimately for the Church: for the parishioners in the pews, the families at the baptismal font, the sick and dying who will one day ask for a priest.
Morales and Osueke are both studying theology at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, which forms men for the priesthood for dioceses across Southern California. For the Diocese of San Bernardino, the evening was a reminder that the future of the local Church is being shaped, day by day, in classrooms and chapels far from home.
Called by name, given the light
The defining image of the night came when each man heard his name.
Morales and Osueke, as well as other seminarians attending St. John's, were called forward, one at a time, to Bishop Elshoff. From the Paschal candle, first lit at the Easter Vigil as the sign of the risen Christ, each seminarian received the light of Christ.
Then they turned to the people.
Carrying that flame, the two men moved through the church, lighting the candles held by the lay faithful, their brother seminarians and the priests who had come to pray with them. One flame became many.
Then the lights went out.
In the dark, all that remained was candlelight: small flames held in the hands of the faithful, filling St. Mary Magdalen like the fire of the Holy Spirit lighting up the Church. No homily could have said it more clearly. A priest does not make the light he gives. He receives it from Christ, and he hands it on.
“The graceful kind” of nerves
I asked Luis Morales what the night meant, and he does not begin with himself. He begins with God.
Receiving candidacy, he said, “has shown me how God loves me and continues to pour his blessings upon me.”
It is an answer worth sitting with. In a culture that measures worth by accomplishment, Morales describes the most significant step of his formation so far not as something he earned, but as a gift he received.
That does not mean he walked into the church calm. He admits he did not.
“What was on my mind was a little nervousness,” he said, “but I would say that it was the graceful kind.”
The graceful kind. It is a striking phrase: the nervousness of a man who knows the moment matters, and who knows he is not carrying it alone.
That nervousness gave way the moment the flame from the Paschal candle was placed in his hands.
“As I received the candle to be the light of Christ for others,” Morales said, “it brought me to a mode of sincere peace and gratitude with our Lord as he continues to prepare me to be Christ for others.”
A small flame. A long road ahead. And in between, peace.
Formed far from home
Seminary formation asks a great deal of a young man. It asks for years of study in philosophy and theology. It asks for prayer, for honesty in spiritual direction, for growth in human maturity and pastoral skill. For seminarians of the Diocese of San Bernardino, it also asks them to do much of that work hours away from the families and parishes that first nurtured their faith.
Distance has a way of clarifying what matters. For Morales, it has clarified who matters.
“What I've learned being away from home,” he said, “is how important the people back home really are in your vocation and who will help you grow to understand what our calling to the priesthood truly means.”
It is a lesson every priest eventually learns. A vocation does not belong to the man alone. It is carried by the parents who brought him to Mass, the catechists who answered his questions and the pastor who first asked whether he had ever thought about the priesthood. It is carried by parishioners who prayed for vocations without knowing whose names they were praying for.
Those people are part of the story of October 16, whether or not they were in Camarillo that night.
Two men, one call
Declan Osueke stood beside Morales, making the same declaration and accepting the same responsibility. Each man's road to that moment is his own, as every vocation is. But the step they took together carries the same weight: two men of the Diocese of San Bernardino telling the Church, out loud, that they are ready to keep going.
The diocese stretches across San Bernardino and Riverside counties, from the cities of the Inland Empire to the High Desert and the Coachella Valley. In a diocese that size, every man in formation stands for parishes that will one day need a shepherd. Those shepherds do not appear out of nowhere. They are called, accompanied, tested and formed, one year and one step at a time.
Candidacy is one of those steps: a public answer to a quiet call. The ordinations still to come, God willing, will be the next.
A request for the people back home
I asked Luis what he would say to the people of the Diocese of San Bernardino. He did not ask for congratulations. He asked for prayer.
“I deeply ask for the people back home to pray for me,” he said, “in allowing myself to be loved by Christ and allow him to guide me through every moment, even when it is most difficult.”
It is a humble request, and a demanding one. Not pray that I succeed. Not pray that it gets easier. Pray that I let myself be loved. Pray that I let him lead, especially when it is hard.
That is the work ahead for Luis Morales and Declan Osueke. It is also an invitation to the rest of the diocese. Pray for them by name. Pray for every man in formation at St. John's Seminary and beyond. And pray for the young men in our parishes who have not yet said yes, but who may already be listening.
On October 16, in Camarillo, two men from our Diocese answered out loud and carried the light of Christ into a darkened church. Keeping that light burning is the work of the whole Church.
