Prayer Breakfast: ‘Something new out of brokenness’

We’re all broken, only in different ways, observed Sister Regina Marie Gorman at the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s prayer breakfast on Sept. 16. What’s important is opening that brokenness to God so God can heal it in maybe an unexpected but always beautiful way.

Good Shepherd Sisters celebrate 110 years in L.A.

As part of the celebration of 110 years of service to Los Angeles by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a Mass was celebrated recently by Archbishop José Gomez in the convent chapel formerly used by the contemplative branch of the order.

St. John’s ‘Distinguished Alumni’

Since 2008, men who have served the Catholic Church with dedicated heart and joyful spirit have been honored as Distinguished Alumni from St. John’s Seminary.

The dinner, to support ongoing formation at St. John’s Seminary, has honored 30 Distinguished Alumni at a dinner held at the Camarillo seminary each September. Among the honorees are several bishops (three of them cardinals), as well as laypeople who received formation at the Camarillo seminary and then chose a different path to serve church and community.

St. John’s women: ‘They are very much part of our seminary’

More than a few good women have influenced life at St. John’s Seminary over its 75 years. From women’s initial roles as housekeepers and office staff, to their inclusion as faculty in the late ’60s, to admittance of laywomen (and laymen) in the 2000s as graduate students alongside seminarians, women have made a difference both on and off the campus.

St. John’s Seminary: A diamond in Camarillo

Camarillo was an active farming community long before 1939. But with the establishment of St. John’s Seminary on 100 acres of what had been farmland, it could be said that these historic grounds have, indeed, continued to produce a very unique and, yes, essential element to nurture the faith of an increasingly large and diverse flock.

From the beginning: Southland seminaries

California is one of those singular areas of the Church universal where the notion of a seminary system predated by ten years the actual establishment of a diocesan government.

As early as the 1830s, the Presidente of the California missions, Fray Narciso Duran, suggested a seminary for the education of young men who felt inclined toward the ecclesiastical state. Six years later, the Franciscan Comisario Prefecto proposed establishing a college “to which all the youth of the Californias may flock, as well as many of the Indians of the various idioms, in order to receive the education and knowledge peculiar to their state,”

Grand Marian Procession: ‘Solemn and joyful’

“We are taking to the streets the treasures of our Catholic faith for all the world to see,” says Mark Anchor Albert, founding chairman of the Queen of Angels Foundation that is organizing the Sept. 13 Grand Marian Procession that will wind its way through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, ending at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

SCRC ’14: Support from the pope, stories of saints

In the early 1980s, the charismatic renewal started a lot of things in Steve Montross’ life, including a deeper relationship with the Lord and a budding desire, eventually fulfilled, to become a deacon at St. Raphael Church in Santa Barbara.

Brother Guerrero makes first profession as Salesian

Brother Benito Guerrero, Jr., made his first religious profession of the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity as a Salesian of Don Bosco Aug. 16 at St. Dominic Savio Church in Bellflower.

The Salesians’ new provincial superior, Father Theodore Montemayor, received his vows in the name of the Rector Major of the Salesian Society. Brother Guerrero completed his year of novitiate at St. Joseph’s Novitiate in Rosemead under the direction of Salesian Father William Keane and other formation personnel.

‘We are called to invite others,’ archbishop tells seminarians

Seminarians, both new and returning, were welcomed to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Aug. 21 for a special Mass and luncheon with Archbishop José Gomez, who invited them to be mindful of the Gospel call of invitation to a closer relationship with God.