“If the Lord is calling me to the seminary, and he’s made it pretty clear, I don’t think even a pandemic can slow anything down,” says Gabe Canizares, one of 10 young men and women from the archdiocese taking serious steps in pursuing religious vocations during a global pandemic.
Canizares has been attracted to the priesthood since his high school days, but did not actively pursue it until his final year of university. While attending Rise-Up, an annual conference by Catholic Christian Outreach, he asked God, “What is it that you want me to do for you?”
Thoughts of priesthood entered his heart again, and he decided he wanted to do more than just think of his vocation and take concrete steps toward it.
Halfway through the seminary application process, a vocations director advised him to put his application on hold and spend one more year discerning.
“I was so annoyed because it was so clear that it wasn’t a firm yes, but it wasn’t a firm no either ... Me, being impatient, I wanted things right away. Like anyone else, I wanted my vocation now ... but I took his advice and I put my application on hold.”
Canizares graduated from Simon Fraser University with a bachelor of science degree and got involved with ministry again. He began serving the church with CCO faith studies and in music ministry. He met a girl, and they dated for a while, after which he went on a mission trip to Mexico City, where he lived with nuns, journeyed with the poor, and evangelized about God to university students at their campuses.
Around the same time, he was reading Rome Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberly Hahn and noticed the book quoted a popular CCO prayer: “I will go anywhere you want me to go, I will do anything you want me to do, I will say whatever you want me to say.”
Canizares noticed that the Hahns’ prayer included an extra line the CCO version didn’t: “Lord, I will give away whatever you want me to give away.”
“That fourth line hit me. I didn’t know why, it was just hitting me really hard,” he said.
Later, Canizares met up with his new spiritual director, who asked him what he was thinking of in terms of his vocation. Canizares admitted he was still attracted to the priesthood and his spiritual director recommended he apply to the seminary again. “I felt an instant peace, excitement, and joy. But at the same time, I was guarded because I had just applied to be a CCO missionary.”
Canizares met with Father Paul Goo, the archdiocese’s vocations director, who agreed it was a good time to apply to the seminary again. When he mentioned he had also applied to become a CCO missionary, to which Father Goo replied: “Gabe, you are not called to grow in CCO.”
“A part of me, in my heart, knew he was right,” Canizares said.
The next day, he met his spiritual director and told him about his application to become a full-time missionary. The priest “looked at me in the eyes and said the exact same thing, like verbatim. He said, ‘Gabe, you are not called to grow in CCO.’ That’s what confirmed it basically … I asked for a second opinion and I got the same answer.”
At this point, the fourth line of the prayer entered his mind and it all “clicked.”
“I wasn’t actually surrendering much, that’s why [applying to become a CCO Missionary] felt so easy. So, when it came to this call of, not to be a missionary, but to be a missionary in my vocation like big V, that’s when I felt the real challenge,” he said.
“There were areas in my life that I didn’t even realize I hadn’t really surrendered to God. In my case, it was community. I put so much attachment on [Catholic communities] for my happiness, and even in my relationship with Christ. Basically, I felt God was asking me, ‘Gabe, if I take away your community, would you still love and serve me?’”
Canizares was accepted to seminary in March, on the feast of the Annunciation, and at the start of a global pandemic.
“[COVID] didn’t change my decision in any way,” he said, adding he was worried he would be unable to enter the seminary due to the virus. “Things shutting down left and right ... It brought up worries like, ‘if I don’t enter this year, then what am I going to do?’”
“I had trust, basically, that’s the bottom line. The Lord reminded me that His peace is present with me during this entire discernment journey.”
Meanwhile, ambitious student Luigi Alde was facing his own challenges. A self-professed “keener,” he overburdened himself during his second year of university, taking on seven courses per semester, serving as the president of the Newman Club at the University of British Columbia and on the executive for another club, and working 20 hours per week. The following summer, he received a research position to do chemical research with one of his professors at UBC. He had everything he wanted, but he was in “deep desolation.”
“I wanted to be a researcher, a professor, a chemical researcher. I was a student and I was getting paid doing what I wanted. I had everything at that point. I was happy, I had friends. But there was something lacking. It sounds so cliché, but there was a hole in my heart that only God could fill.”
At the height of his education and career, he first heard of the Jesuits. He soon grew interested enough in the religious order to fill out a vocation inquiry on their website. He received a reply from the Jesuit vocations director but didn’t respond for months due to his heavy schedule.
He was up late one night in prayer when the thoughts of priesthood entered his mind again. He decided to contact the Jesuits and talk about his interest in the order. He felt the call but wanted to pursue it after he earned a PhD in Chemistry, which would be another seven years down the line.
“I told him that I feel this calling, and I want to discern it. But I want to do these things first. Talking to [the vocations director], he told me not to worry about it. He asked me a really good question. I remember that moment so vividly. He asked me: ‘If God called you to the Jesuits next year, told you to drop out of school, would you?’ I gave a very hesitant ‘perhaps.’”
After the phone call, his heart grew more open to the idea of discerning a religious vocation and to leave school for it. He eventually decided to attend a retreat at the Jesuits’ novitiate house in Montreal to see what it’s like to live as a Jesuit, despite argument with his parents over his decision to potentially abandon his degree to pursue a religious vocation.
At the retreat, prostrate in prayer, he felt that he heard the Lord. “It wasn’t a voice, but I knew the Lord was calling me to the novitiate. It was very clear. He called sinners like St. Peter in the same way that He’s calling me.”
Alde is now a Jesuit novice living with the Jesuits of Canada in Montreal. He said being accepted in a religious order during a global pandemic wasn’t easy. A COVID-19 outbreak at a Jesuit long-term care home in Ontario killed at least five people. Luigi’s parents were concerned, and his dad even asked him if he could do his novitiate online from home.
“That’s not how religious life works. The vocations director told me that the ‘Jesuit novitiate doesn’t stop for the war, why should we stop for a pandemic?’”
Alde had his own concerns as well. COVID-19 was a “hindrance” and made saying goodbye to his friends a challenge.
“Although I had to sacrifice a lot, I wasn’t running away from anything. I’m not running away from a fear that I won’t have a girlfriend, a job, or a fear that I won’t have a future. The Lord blessed me so much and has given me a lot. Instead of running away from something, I’m running towards Someone. It’s really important to me that I’m running towards Jesus Christ. I’m running towards someone who runs after me as well.”
Four men have entered the Seminary of Christ the King and six local men and women have entered religious orders during the pandemic, said Father Goo. The women have begun their discernment with the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist and Salesian sisters; the men, the Jesuits, Benedictines, and Franciscans.
“The witness of these 10 young men and women is a sign of hope,” he said.
“COVID is making people more religious. COVID tends to make our fragility all the more evident. Not only our fragility, but also our mortality. It’s making people be more perceptive to the need to ask the bigger questions of life, and these are fundamentally spiritual and religious questions. I think that the Church has a great opportunity to engage in dialogue with people who have never considered these questions before.”
Deacon Raffaele Salvino of Our Lady of Sorrows Parish was also ordained during the pandemic, taking one step closer to becoming a priest for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and Father Marcus Schonnop, originally from Surrey, was ordained with the Companions of the Cross in Ottawa.
Deacon Richard Conlin was ordained to the priesthood Dec. 11.
“I do believe that our diocese is a vocation-producing diocese,” said Father Goo. “Let’s hope and continue to pray that the Lord will send us more workers in the vineyard.”