Welcome Bro. Roger! – Roger Gustafson is in his last year of Seminary formation. He’ll be spending time with us to get some experience prior to his Diaconate Ordination in November and hopefully, his Priesthood Ordination in June. Below are excerpts from his autobiography:
I was born and raised in a suburban neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. My father devoted his life to the pursuit of science and was a professed atheist. Having grown up in Sweden, my mother was Lutheran and took my brother and me to church every Sunday. She set a positive example for us by singing in the church choir and teaching Sunday school. As a result, one of my earliest childhood memories is pretending to be a präst—the Swedish word for priest—at the age of five. I would set up my room like a church, converting a small play table into a make-shift altar, conscripting one of the matching chairs to serve as the pulpit, and gently forcing my congregation of stuffed animals to sit quietly and listen to my rambling sermons. For your sakes, I hope I have gotten better!
When I turned thirteen, however, I became indifferent to the existence of God and stopped attending church. But after college, I began to feel that something was missing in my life.I found my thoughts turning more and more to a spiritual level. I urgently felt the need to become more connected to God and to return to church. I attended a number of Lutheran and other denominational churches, but never felt at home. I knew nothing of the Catholic faith at the time and, other than my former girlfriend, had never met anyone who was an active, practicing Catholic. Nevertheless, I somehow found myself attending Mass one Sunday morning. The priest was very old and, because I sat in the back of the church, I could hear very little of what he actually said. Everything logistically was wrong about the experience and, yet, I fell in love with the Catholic Church that day and have never looked back. I attended an RCIA class the next Fall, was confirmed and brought into the Catholic Church on March 25, 1989.
I almost immediately felt a strong pull to the priesthood. But I postponed seminary and continued to work at my job. Eventually I received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Religion and Social Ethics and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago. I became an attorney in San Francisco and, later, in Atlanta, practicing employment discrimination law. Throughout this time, I still felt a persistent, though episodic, call to the priesthood. In October 2006, I had a meeting with Archbishop Niederauer to discuss my vocation, and I was accepted to the seminary in August 2009. I now am in my fifth and final year of theological studies. I look forward to working with the people of God at Saint Brendan’s parish and learning as much as I can about diaconal ministry. Thank you so much for welcoming me, and may God Bless you always.
Welcome Fr. Theo! – Good things do come to those who wait. Fr. Theophilus Hwande will fly on September 22 from Nigeria and should arrive in San Francisco on September 23. We thank him for being a missionary who is willing to come to a foreign land to share the good news of the Gospel with the people of this parish and city. I’ll let him tell you about himself in the next bulletin. I’ll be leaving for our Year of Faith pilgrimage to Medjugorje on September 26 and will return on October 5. There are 13 of us who will be flying off from San Francisco, and we’ll meet up with another 25 pilgrims from throughout the U.S. We’ll pray for you there.
Peace,
Fr. Dan
