August 16, 2008
New priests to be ordained look forward to serving diocese
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Roland Ramirez, above left, and Ruel Mesa will be ordained to the priesthood on Aug. 22 at 10:30 a.m. during a Mass in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento. They cited ethnic diversity and the complexities of parish life as being among the challenges they will face as new priests. Luis Gris Elizarraras/Herald photos
On Aug. 22 at 10:30 a.m. in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, two seminarians will be ordained to the priesthood for the diocese by Bishop William K. Weigand and Coadjutor Bishop Jaime Soto.
Deacon Roland Bernadino Ramirez, 27, and Deacon Ruel Zaratan Mesa, 28, have been classmates and friends since they met at Mary Help of Christians College Seminary in the Philippines in 1997. Both men spoke with The Herald at the Diocesan Pastoral Center this month before their ordination.
Roland Bernardino Ramirez
Ramirez has a thoughtful, gentle way about him.
As his ordination comes closer, he has been meditating on his commitment to serving the people of God. That’s what he looks forward to most in a priest’s life, he said. It’s a responsibility that he works to meet by continuing to study and learn from the priests around him.
“The seminary teaches you a lot of theoretical material,” he said, “but then you go out into the real world and you get to the reality of parish life.” That can be challenging work, he said.
He served at two parishes during his pastoral year: St. Rose of Lima Parish in Roseville and St. Anthony Parish in Sacramento. What he loved most about his pastoral year was the people, he said.
“The people have been so gracious to me, so welcoming. I loved visiting the kids in school, visiting the aged in convalescent hospitals, visiting the sick.”
Parish life in the United States is demanding in a different way from parish work in the Philippines, he noted, because there are many more ministries in U.S. parishes — such as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, youth ministry, parish councils — so that administrative duties absorb a lot of the priest’s time. This is in addition to celebrating the sacraments and continuing the pastoral work of reaching out to people, he noted.
But the priests around him have been very good about showing him how to do the work gracefully, he said.
Ramirez was born in the Pangasinian province in the Philippines, the fourth and youngest in his family. His mother is a school teacher who started him in first grade a year earlier than the usual age, he recalled, and to this day he loves books and writes poetry.
He also remembers being very fond of flying kites in a field near his house. An older brother, Father Rojohn Bernardino Ramirez, is a diocesan priest in the Philippines.
Ramirez first felt the call to his priestly vocation in the fourth grade. His school was right next to the parish, he recalled, and the pastor left a lasting impression on him because “he always made himself available to people and gave them money and food to eat,” he explained. “I thought I would be able to do something great for the people as a priest.”
He decided to enter the seminary when he was 15. He graduated from Mary Help of Christians College Seminary with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and went on to Immaculate Conception School of Theology in the Philippines for studies to be a diocesan priest in the Philippines.
But he took a year’s leave of absence while he applied for admittance to the Diocese of Sacramento, and during that time he taught philosophy, Philippine history and sociology at the Lyceum Northwestern University in the Philippines.
He enjoyed teaching very much, he said, and it has shaped his ministry in some respects. He loves preaching and talking with people after Mass, and some of that pleasure comes from teaching. His experience teaching philosophy also helps with one of his challenges in American parish life, which is answering people’s questions and concerns about church doctrine.
“People in the U.S. are more educated than people in the Philippines,” he said. “They might have read more than the priest on a certain topic, even if that topic is in the priest’s special field.”
But Ramirez enjoys that aspect of American parish life.
“Their education pushes us to study more — to answer them and to challenge them,” he said.
He added, “I hope to serve the people of God in my own humble way. I have to be very gentle with people, but I also have to challenge them in a positive way. Part of teaching people is challenging them to live up to the Gospel.”
Ramirez will celebrate Masses of thanksgiving at St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Vallejo on Aug. 23 at 5 p.m.; at St. Anthony Church in Sacramento on Aug. 24 at 10:30 a.m.; at St. Rose Church in Roseville on Aug. 24 at 5:30 p.m.; and at St. Joseph Church in Marysville on Aug. 31 at 10 am.
Ruel Zaratan Mesa
Mesa is quick to laugh. He comes from a large family — three brothers and three sisters — and his mother, like Ramirez’s mother, was a teacher, but left the classroom to stay home with her children.
He describes a happy childhood, and notes that his friends and family members were all active in the church serving as altar boys. Mesa, too, has an older brother who is a priest: Father Rafael Zaratan Mesa, a diocesan priest in the Philippines.
“I couldn’t stay in the Philippines as a priest,” he joked. “My older brother was already a priest there. I had to go somewhere else.”
When Mesa was growing up, he had two brothers in the seminary and an aunt who is a Dominican nun. His admiration for his family members in religious life influenced him greatly he admits, but his primary influence was his mother. When he was a child, his mother attended daily Mass. But more than that, she woke Mesa early so that he could serve at Mass before leaving for grade school.
Mesa notes that his original childhood dreams of becoming a priest were based mostly on “the good feeling of being up there on the altar as an altar server.” But as the years passed, he observed, he began to have a clear vocation to serve others as a priest.
He entered the seminary when he was 13 years old, which is not unusual in the Philippines, he explained, where there are high school seminaries as well as college seminaries.
He graduated from Mary Help of Christians High School Seminary, then earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Mary Help of Christians College Seminary. He studied at Immaculate Conception School of Theology for two years before taking a leave of absence to apply to the Diocese of Sacramento.
He taught classes in religion at Malasiqui Catholic High School in his hometown for a short time before moving to California for studies at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park.
He’s recently completed his pastoral year at St. James Parish in Davis, where he taught a confirmation class and was able to preach homilies.
But what he looks forward to the most as he draws closer to his ordination is celebrating the Mass.
One of the surprises Mesa discovered in American parish life is the important presence of Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.
“In the Philippines, everyone is Catholic,” he explained. “There’s no RCIA. I could not figure out what this RCIA was,” he recalled, laughing.
Diversity is a challenge in American parish life and that diversity is also one of the challenges that face priests from the Philippines.
“The different nationalities in a parish bring with them different cultures,” he said, “and the priest must know and understand each culture: white, Asian, black, Hispanic. That’s a lot.”
But he notes that his supervising pastors have been very supportive. “They know what I need to learn,” he said with a smile.
Mesa said in the Philippines there are usually three priests to a parish. There are remote areas that don’t have a priest, or only one, but in most parishes there are several priests in residence and at least six scheduled Masses each Sunday.
“In the Philippines, the first Sunday Mass is usually at 5:30 in the morning,” he explained. “Then there’ll be one each hour until midmorning. Then there will be a break until afternoon, when there will probably be one at 4:30 and one at 5:30.”
In the midday break between regular Sunday liturgies, priests celebrate parish funeral Masses and baptisms, he said. “There are a lot of priests, but they are all working hard.”
When asked where he would like to be assigned after his ordination, he raised his hands and said, “I will be happy wherever I’m sent.”
Mesa will celebrate Masses of thanksgiving at St. James Church in Davis on Aug. 23 at 5:30 p.m. and at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Vallejo on Aug. 24 at 10 a.m.
