April 25, 2009
Two new priests for diocese bring varied backgrounds to ministry
Hector
Montoya emerges from a chapel at Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict,
Ore., where he has studied since 2000.
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Bishop Jaime Soto will ordain two men to the priesthood for service in the
Diocese of Sacramento on Monday, May 25 at 10:30 a.m. in the Cathedral of
the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento.
The candidates for ordination are Arthur Najera, Jr. and Hector Montoya.
Arthur Najera, Jr.
Arthur Najera, Jr. says that he found the beginning of his vocation among the books left behind by a teacher who had died.
The teacher, Paul Van Dusky, was a family friend who taught at Najera’s Catholic elementary school in the years after Najera had graduated. While helping his mother sort out Van Dusky’s belongings, Najera discovered a cache of books on Catholic theology and saints’ lives. He was fascinated.
Najera was a community college student at the time, working as a phlebotomist at a local hospital while studying wildlife biology. Van Dusky’s books “touched a chord in my heart,” he said. “I began to think about the direction my life should take.”
The year was 1991 and Najera was 22 years old.
He is one of five children in a Catholic family and attended San Roque Parish School and Bishop Garcia Diego High School in Santa Barbara, but he’d never actually considered a religious vocation until that time, Najera noted. But he believes that the Holy Spirit set him on the journey to the diocesan priesthood through those books.
He began by investigating religious orders, sending away for catalogs. During the summer of 1991, he visited the Legionaries of Christ at their seminary in Cheshire, Conn. But the religious order wasn’t the right fit for Najera and he returned home.
In the next few years he made retreats at two Carmelite communities in Texas and in Minnesota and at a Benedictine abbey in Oceanside, Calif. He discovered that he loved the contemplative life, he said, but came to recognize that if he joined a contemplative order he would miss the exposure to the larger community of laypeople.
So in 1999, Najera seriously considered joining another religious order, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, spending “a year of spirituality” with them in their apostolate in Scranton, Ohio. “I was looking for a solid, orthodox community,” he said, “but it felt too much like a segment of the church, rather than the church at large. Their outreach was too limited.”
“I wanted to touch the people at large,” he added. “The Gospel tells us to reach the larger element of society, not just preach to the choir.”
Najera, who is 40, said that after he left the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in the spring of 2000, he’d learned two things: that he was meant to be a diocesan priest and that he wanted to serve in a diocese in California. His brother, who had been a member of the Newman Catholic Community in Davis when he’d attended UC Davis, praised the Sacramento Diocese; Najera investigated and liked what he saw. He interviewed with the diocesan vocations office in January 2001.
He was told to come back when he’d finished college, so Najera returned to his parents’ home in Santa Barbara and finished his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts at California State University, Northridge. In the spring of 2003, he entered formation and studies for the priesthood at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. After completing two years of theology, he transferred to St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. He served his pastoral year at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Vallejo.
Najera loved his pastoral year working with parishioners in Vallejo.
“I feel like I’m home,” he said. “I’m a Californian. I love the diverse population. I love working with different kinds of people and being a part of people’s lives.”
He will celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving in St. Catherine of Siena Church in Vallejo at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 30. He will celebrate another Mass of thanksgiving at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 7, at his family’s parish of Our Lady of Sorrows in Santa Barbara.
Hector Montoya
Hector Montoya began his professional life in the United States as a farm laborer, harvesting broccoli in the Salinas Valley. While working in the fields, he became active with a charismatic prayer group, he said, which led to his becoming involved at Holy Trinity Parish in Greenfield in the Diocese of Monterey.
For most of his years as a farm laborer, Montoya was an active member in his parish, singing in the choir, volunteering as lector, participating in youth groups, Scripture studies and retreats. It was through the love, friendship and understanding of this community, he said, that he began to experience God’s love for him and to feel God’s call to the priesthood.
Montoya, who is 33, was born in Acambero, in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, to Apolonio Montoya and Maria Refugio Juarez. He is one of seven children reared in a Catholic family. He completed his elementary education and attended junior high school, he said, but had to suspend his education to help his father support the family. He moved to Mexico City to live with two uncles while working in a car wash. In 1993 at the age 18, he traveled with his father to Greenfield to work in the fields.
He was 22 and had been a farmworker for almost five years when his pastor at Holy Trinity Parish suggested that he consider the priesthood in the Diocese of Sacramento. The diocese accepted him as a candidate and he enrolled in continuing education classes, earning his high school equivalency certificate in 1998. He studied English at UC Davis for two years before enrolling for studies at Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict, Ore., in the fall of 2000.
He graduated from college four years later and completed his second year of post-graduate theological studies in May 2006. He studied clinical pastoral education at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento that summer, and began his pastoral year at St. Patrick Parish in Grass Valley that fall.
His pastoral year was a great experience, he said, because it gave him practice teaching and preaching in English, but also because it deepened his understanding of pastoral relationships.
“All ministry is about relationships,” he said. “Everything we do in the church is about relationships. I love God and I love people, and I love God by serving his people.”
Montoya looks forward to celebrating Mass once he is ordained and also to celebrating the sacrament of penance.
“Those two sacraments — they are the heart of our daily faith,” he said. “I look forward to celebrating Sunday Masses, and I hope to convey a message to people that can help them transform their lives.
“And confession — I think, ‘Who am I to do that?’” he asked. “That is God’s grace, first of all — I’m not worthy of it. But God is going to give me that gift, and I have to use it in the best possible way.
“People will tell me their sins, their life experiences, the baggage that burdens and oppresses them, and after I listen I’ll be able to tell them, ‘Your sins are forgiven. I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
“These are powerful words that Jesus pronounces to the person through the priest. God heals them and frees them. I have experienced the healing power of God through the sacrament. Soon God will be doing that through me.”
He paused for a few moments, then added, “Just to hear people’s stories — that’s sacred.”
Montoya will celebrate a bilingual Mass of thanksgiving on Monday, May 25 at 6 p.m. in St. Patrick Church in Grass Valley. He will celebrate two additional Masses of thanksgiving at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 27 in Holy Cross Mission Church in Arbuckle, and at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 31 in Holy Trinity Church in Greenfield.
