CV NEWS FEED // Bishop Jaime Soto of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento revealed in a message to the faithful on May 13 that daily Mass and frequent devotional prayers encouraged by his parents led to his priestly vocation.
Bishop Soto wrote that serving as an altar boy was not what provoked his desire to become a priest. “I wanted to be an altar server because it was the most logical steppingstone to fulfilling my hope to someday be a parish priest.”
The Bishop’s eagerness to serve mass as an altar boy at St Polycarp Church in Orange County “was enabled by the frequency with which my parents brought my siblings and me to church. Home and church were weaved in and out of one another to make a single fabric of faith.”
Soto wrote that his father’s “zealous devotion” to the Sacred Heart of Jesus resulted in weekly attendance of Wednesday night Sacred Heart devotions, a celebration which Soto often served that ended with Eucharistic Adoration and benediction.
“This childlike fascination with rituals and ceremony points to the reason — I believe — my parents let me become an altar server: It gave me something to do,” Soto recalled. “It was not any innocent piety or early devotional inclinations, but rather an attraction to be part of the ritual action unfolding in the sanctuary.”
Ultimately, the Bishop emphasized that faithful daily rituals shape the memory and orientation of the faithful towards Christ.
He wrote that habitual devotion melds the memory of mind, body, and soul, inspiring a natural disposition towards “humble acts of praise and supplication before the powerful mysteries of our salvation.”
“The many exercises of religious memory should not be forgotten for fear of forgetting who we are and where we stand, always under God’s mighty and merciful gaze,” Soto concluded, citing the admonishment of Moses to his people in the Book of Deuteronomy:
Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.” (Dt 6:6-9)
The post Bishop reveals daily Mass, prayer and devotions as a child led to his priestly vocation appeared first on CatholicVote org.