August 2023

“The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest." (Luke 10:2)

Since the St. Catherine of Siena Parish vocation committee was started in 2016, we have been praying for vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and religious life from our parish community.   Each month we give out a vocation cross at each Mass and invite families to pray that young men and women would be open to a call and respond generously to a life of service.  Our prayers have been answered abundantly! 

It is with great joy that we announce that three more St. Catherine of Siena parishioners are entering seminary formation in order to formally discern a potential call to the priesthood.  Ethan Camet, William Cedro, and Christian Flick are entering Notre Dame Seminary in August.  Below, Ethan, William, and Christian share a brief vocation story/testimony.   Please pray for Ethan, William, and Christian in a special way as they begin this important time of seminary formation. Their vocation stories are below.

St. Catherine of Siena Parish has two other young men in seminary formation: John Nuttli (Society of Jesus) and John Ungarino (Diocese of Austin).  St. Catherine of Siena Parish also has Stephen Maheu preparing for the permanent diaconate for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.  

We are blessed to have six men in formation!  Please pray for these six men in formation that God may protect them and sustain them as they discern the priesthood and diaconate.  

We also pray that young women would be open to a vocation! Hopefully when the Nashville Dominicans start teaching at SCS, young women will learn more about religious life.
 

 

Ethan Camet Vocation Story

My name is Ethan Camet and I am a parishioner here at St Catherine. I will be entering Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans this fall semester for further discernment and priestly formation. I was born in Metairie and was raised by two amazing people, Brett and Tisa, and am thankful that God chose them to be my parents. I graduated from Jesuit High School in 2016 and LSU in 2020. I majored in finance and enjoyed 5 years in the insurance industry in southern Louisiana.

As I enter seminary formation in a couple of weeks, I reflect on the mystery of this potential call to the priesthood which I will continue to discern. The seminary was never anything I had expected in my life, far from it! This potential call began on a 3-day silent retreat to Manresa that I attended in November 2021 and it was there where I had encountered the Lord in a real and intimate way through deep prayer and silence. I didn’t do anything to receive this gift from God other than open my heart and ask for a deeper desire to know Him. At the end of the retreat, the Jesuit priest on the grounds asked me “Have you ever given the priesthood a thought?”; I then hastily told him that there was no chance in that. As I left this retreat with a desire to grow in faith and holiness, I found myself drawn to adoration in the Blessed Sacrament and daily Mass. A couple months later while in adoration, I perceived the Lord put the curiosity of the priesthood on my heart and that question the priest asked me had come back!

Going on almost two years since that retreat, it isn’t easy to put in words this potential calling to the priesthood as God has not laid out the whole plan to me. Good thing is there is no fun in knowing the whole story beforehand, which is why He asks us to have faith and trust in Him. We can rest daily knowing that God is always willing our good and understands our struggles in the spiritual life. It is through our weakness that we are made strong, we just need to open our heart and work in communion with Jesus.

Please pray for me as I enter a new chapter in this spiritual journey that God has graciously given me. I am blessed and thankful to be entering for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and my prayer is that I may do what God wants me to do and serve Him as He deserves.

God Bless,
Ethan

William Cedro Vocation Story

My name is William Cedro and I am preparing to enter Notre Dame Seminary this month. Saint Catherine of Siena has been the home for my spiritual nourishment these past 10 years. Saint Catherine of Siena plays a vital role in this story; our parish is blessed to have a Saint taking such special care of her parishioners.

I was raised in a Catholic family, played baseball and basketball until sophomore year of high school when I made a final switch to golf for my junior and senior years. When the decision for college rolled around, for some reason, there was no hesitancy and no questions asked, I chose to enroll at the University of Alabama. Roll Tide!

My earliest memory of the Lord’s love for me is represented through my father who always maintained a beautiful reverence for the mass. I could always notice there was something different about being in mass due to the respect that he showed for the Lord each Sunday. This was a well-planted seed that encouraged me to consider the weight of the Catholic life early on.

As a middle schooler attending Christian Brothers, I recall being blown away by deep philosophy, which was pretty scary for my young brain. I tried my best to encourage friends to be reverent during school masses and I fell in love with the words of the mass, reciting them as the priest spoke. This reverence and care for my faith dove behind a few different masks when I arrived to high school. Although dormant, I always had a sense that it was the most important thing in my life, but I just continued to push it away. That is until the Lord began shouting for my love.

My junior year at Jesuit High School, I went on a Kairos retreat and truly fell in love with
how the Lord gently melted the hard shell of my rebellious heart. Some pretty intense tears streamed for the next hour while reading letters that my family had written to me. In this moment, the Lord convicted me with a deep desire for his mercy and forgiveness and the grace to feel healing for many past wounds. This moment invigorated a desire to give my heart to the Lord. However, within the framework of my immature heart, all that bubbled to the surface was a tiny openness to the voice of God. I had no idea the emotional journey that would soon begin. During junior year confirmation class, Father Andrew delivered some news. He got up on the stage in the Barrett Complex and said:, “Some of you in this room may be called to the priesthood.” Naturally, my response, “no chance”, but upon some reflection, “o no.” In that moment, this tiny little annoying flame was born inside of me.

For the next year, I tried with all measures to stomp the flame out. I made pros and cons lists, offered every excuse in the book, and battled as hard as I could, trying my absolute best to explain to God why marriage is a greater thing for me than the priesthood. This thorn lasted for about a year until one lonely night. I was watching a TV show late at night and finally the flame ceased. A celebration began in my heart. Cheers all around for I had outlasted the torment. Well, not exactly. After a solid five minutes, what I had always known to be the Lord’s call swooshed back in with tremendous power. This is a direct quote from 18-year-old William while lying restlessly in bed, “I cannot live the rest of my life in this way, I give up, I will be your priest.” BOOM! The flame ignites, enraging the most beautiful fire in my heart. For two hours this furnace lit my entire body on fire as I dreamt of what my life would look like holding the eucharist to the sky during mass, hearing confession, and offering my life in service to a community seeking the love of a good, heavenly father. It was the most joyful, peaceful, and emotional moment of my life, and still is. A grace straight from the Holy Spirit.

The next morning, 18-year-old William said, “That was cool, let’s go spend a couple years in college first!” My two years at Alabama were filled with growth as a leader within my fraternity where I was on 3 committees and served as Vice President of my Pledge Class for Phi Kappa Psi. Additionally, the Bama Catholic community and FOCUS guided an environment for my heart to become good soil, open to receiving love from the Lord as he transforms my soul. All the while, the flame was patient. The idea of being a priest calmly remained in my mind as I went in and out of a few relationships and continued to passively discern God’s voice.

Finally, one very normal Sunday afternoon I was watching a video on the discernment of spirits. I do not remember a speck from the video. However, the Lord and Saint Catherine had a very clear message for me on the top comment of the video which had 264 likes. Here is the comment. “St. Catherine of Siena in the "Dialogue" asks God the question, "How do we know when an inspiration is from God or if it's from the devil.” God gave her the answer, "When inspiration is given to you and your first reaction is joy followed by confusion then it is from the devil as the devil cannot grant peace. When inspiration comes and you react with fear followed by a greater desire to love and serve me then it comes from heaven.” Upon brief reflection on my lifelong discernment, it became abundantly clear that I must meet with Father Andrew, pray until I got an answer, and go to the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Well, as I arrived to Saint Catherine of Siena, Father Andrew walked out of the building and we agreed to meet about my discernment, I prayed for the next seven hours and had all of my pains relieved. Jesus, in his presence, granted me peace about ending my relationship, the well-being of the girl who I was leaving, and blessed my heart with beaming joy about what could be my vocation.

The next week, I met with four different priests, including the vocations director about my discernment and decided to apply to seminary. I spent the summer in mountainous Wrightwood, California serving the campers of Saint Edward Retreat Center at Camp Lolek with an incredible team of FOCUS students. And, in the middle of June I received a phone call that I had been accepted to seminary. Truly, I am so excited to begin active discernment of the priesthood this fall at Notre Dame seminary. God willing, I may just be called Father by many someday. A.M.D.G.


Christian Flick Vocation Story

My name is Christian Flick and I am entering my first year at Notre Dame Seminary. I grew up in Covington, where I proudly attended St. Paul's School (go Wolves)! The summer before my sophomore year of high school, my dad took me on a retreat that changed my life; God showed me His life-changing, perfect love for the first time, and I left striving to live my life for Him. 

I returned to St. Paul’s and continued to grow in my faith thanks to my amazing religion teachers. As I learned more about the Eucharist, I closely watched priests at mass during the consecration. The Lord would fill me with deep peace, prompting me to ask Him, “God, is this what you want of me?” However, I feared giving up the love of a wife and began a nine-year saga of stiff-arming the Lord’s call. Throughout the rest of high school and my first years of college at Texas Christian University friends, girls who I pursued, and trusted priests would all tell me that they thought I had a call, prompting me to give each of them a resounding, “No.”

The summer before my junior year of college, I worked for a non-profit in the Dominican Republic. During this time, I befriended a group of Colombian nuns. A week before returning to the US, One of the sisters asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I quickly told her that I wanted a family. She responded with great love, told me her vocation story, explained how shehad felt the same conflict, and gave me a San Damiano cross. She instructed me to hang it wherever I went and to remain open to the Lord’s call. 

After this experience, I no longer wanted to continue my marathon away from the Lord. I met with the NOLA Vocations Office for the first time upon my return. After the meeting, something changed, and I genuinely desired to discern the Lord’s call. However, I quickly became overwhelmed by a tough semester and told the Lord, “No,” once more.

My last two years of college were marked by a great deal of control. Rather than following the Lord's gentle hand and experiencing His provision, I opted to blaze my own path, leading to struggle and anxiety. Things just didn’t seem to work out anymore: friendships became strained, jobs that once came easily seemed to dry up, etc. As a result, I moved back to New Orleans to work in my family’s business. Almost right away, I found my church home at St. Catherine of Sienna, participating in Alpha and the parish’s young adult ministry. I worked extremely long hours in job functions that I found very straining and humbling and relied heavily on SCS and the great community that I found there. A particularly tough rotation made me realize something was wrong. Though I loved working with my dad and our employees, I felt miserable and lost.

Right at my lowest, I found myself alone on a road trip. I turned off the radio and prayed with brutal honesty. The prayer went something like, “God, on paper I have everything that I want. I have great friends and family. I love New Orleans. I’m in line to take over my family’s business. I AM MISERABLE. What is going on?” At that second, I heard the Lord speak with a piercing clarity that I will never forget. He said, “You would be a good priest.” At first, I felt terrified. I wanted to run the other way. However, I decided to give the Lord space. Suddenly, I became flooded by an overwhelming peace. I finally admitted that I had always desired a life of intimacy with the Lord and service to others like priests live. During my years of scheming, worry, and overwork, I developed a great deal of shoulder tension. At that moment, it melted away. I felt completely overwhelmed and broke down in joyful, healing tears. I remained in prayer for the rest of the drive and will never forget those beautiful hours.

I returned home and didn’t know what to do but, after a few weeks, decided to meet with Fr. Jeremy Lambert. He guided me with great love, teaching me about discernment of spirits, instructing me to make a weekly holy hour, and listening to my many fears, desires, and thoughts. In adoration, God began to peel back the layers of my heart and revealed to me a desire to minister to others as a spiritual father, to celebrate the mass, and to bring the Lord's absolution to my brother and sisters in the confessional. Eventually, I decided to meet with Fr. ColmCahill, New Orleans's Vocations Director. He quelled my fears, invited me to apply, and I left his office with overwhelming joy.

Two weeks later, I moved to Arizona for work. The distance from family and friends gave me the needed space to discern with intentionality and grow in my love of the Lord in prayer. Eventually, I applied, and Archbishop Aymond accepted me as a seminarian on Holy Saturday. I will never forget that moment.

I am overwhelmed by the support that I have received from trusted priests, friends, family, and the faithful of New Orleans. I cannot wait to begin this journey of discernment with my newseminarian brothers. Please keep us in prayer as we learn to listen more deeply to the Lord’s call and be assured of our prayers for you. God bless!