Testimony: Linda Abels My husband Larry and I will be married 36 years in May. We both came from strong, Catholic families. My husband is music director at our parish of Our Lady of Hope; and we are both involved in numerous parish ministries. We have two...
Testimony: Cathy Purpura This is my story as a mother who has watched her son grow to be a priest of our Church. It has been an experience in some ways like no other and in other ways very much like our other children choosing a...
Even as a teenager and then a college student at City University - and as much as I like the noise of a big family, lots of good friends, playing piano in a rock band...
The New York Mets have been building a new home, a new field of dreams in Flushing, Queens, which will open in April of 2009. There are many ways to get to the new stadium, Citifield, all depending upon one’s starting point. There is no...
It is 1957 and my first week of school at St. Teresa School in Woodside. I had turned six in June and so was probably the oldest in the first grade. Sometime during the week Sister Margaret Agnes had asked us what we wanted to...
When I was in the seventh grade I told my parish priest (Msgr. Gerry Langelier), “I want to be like you.” Like many of the boys at IHM I admired him - he was a positive, prayerful and joyful priest who generously served the families...
A vocation is, like all graces, divinely initiated and totally unmerited. But as incarnate beings, vocations come to women and men in particular circumstances. The call to priesthood for me was mediated through family and parish. At the same time, the wider Catholic culture also...
When people ask me why I became a Priest, the first thing that comes to mind is when I was an altar server back in St. Patrick's parish in LIC and how I enjoyed serving Mass. As time went on I became very active in...
When one lives in the seminary, one often hears “Vocation Stories” from the seminarians. They describe the way in which they “heard” and answered God’s call to the priesthood. Some stories include literally “leaving everything behind”, dramatic conversions, struggles and difficulties in saying “Yes” to...
My father didn't want me to be a Priest. Even though I went to public school and was an altar boy and a kind of "church mouse" when I was a kid, he said “absolutely not” every time I asked him about it. When I...