Three First Professions
for New Rochelle Province
Bros. Steven DeMaio, SDB, Travis Gunther, SDB, and John Langan, SDB, pronounced religious vows as Salesians of Don Bosco for the first time at a Mass of Religious Profession on Tuesday, Aug. 21, in the chapel of Salesian High School in New Rochelle, N.Y.
for New Rochelle Province
Bros. Steven DeMaio, SDB, Travis Gunther, SDB, and John Langan, SDB, pronounced religious vows as Salesians of Don Bosco for the first time at a Mass of Religious Profession on Tuesday, Aug. 21, in the chapel of Salesian High School in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Fr. Tom Dunne, SDB,
provincial superior of the SDBs in the Eastern U.S. and Canada, received their profession.
For the first three years of their life as SDBs, men make
annual vows. Ordinarily a vow for three years follows, leading up to perpetual
profession at the end of six years.
Bro. Steve and Bro. John professed as members of the
Salesian Society studying for the priesthood, Bro. Travis as a lay member of the
Society, i.e., he will remain a brother (also called a coadjutor brother). In
the Salesian Society there is equality between clerical and lay members except
in what concerns the sacrament of Holy Orders.
The three newly professed men completed a year of
novitiate at St. Joseph’s Novitiate in Rosemead, Calif.
Prior to that, they were in two periods of formation called candidacy and
prenovitiate.
Following their profession, all three will return to the SDB
house of formation in Orange, N.J.,
to continue their religious formation and their academic studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange.
Bro. Steve and Bro. John will take up studies such as philosophy that prepare
for ordination, while Bro. Travis will study fine arts and education. He
aspires “to continue to deepen my relationship with Christ, to get to know my
new community, … to give my best in my new ministries.” He expects that art
will be a vehicle of communication for him in a SDB high school, youth center,
or retreat center, through which he can “communicate something to others we could
not do in words” and “explore things we are struggling to understand.” Art, he
writes, “lets us see the world in new ways.”
Twenty-three priests, including Bro. John’s former
Franciscan pastor, Fr. Bruce Czapla, O.F.M., concelebrated, and two deacons
assisted Fr. Tom. Many SDB brothers, the four current prenovices, Salesian
Cooperators, family members, and friends of the newly professed also took part
in the Mass, which was followed by a buffet lunch on the grounds of the high
school.
The rite of profession involves a presentation of the
candidates for profession and an examination of their intentions, similar to
those of the rites of Baptism and Holy Orders; a homily; the pronouncing of the
vow of obedience, chastity, and poverty; blessing and presentation of their
religious garb to the newly professed (clerical shirts for the seminarian
brothers, a medal for the lay brother); and presentation to them of the
Constitutions of the Salesian Society.
The parents of the candidates accompany them before the
provincial as the candidates come forward to make their vows. The parents rest
their hands on their sons’ shoulders as a sign of support and of the gift they
are making to the Church.
Two perpetually professed SDBs, chosen by the candidates, serve
as official witnesses of the vows, like the witnesses of a marriage.
Bro. Steven Joseph DeMaio, 27, was born and raised in Sherman, Conn.,
and belonged to Holy Trinity Parish there. His parents, Steven and Theresa,
have since moved to Towson,
Md., and worship at the Church of
the Nativity in Timonium. He also has two sisters.
Bro. Steve came to know the SDBs as a lay missionary
volunteer in a program, called VIDES, of the Salesian Sisters. He served for
six months in Lusaka, Zambia. He was so impressed by the
sisters, as well as their male counterparts, there—including, he says, their
“spirit, charism, joy”—that when he came home he decided to join.
He entered the formation program in Orange in 2010 as a prenovice (his missionary
service being accepted as his period of candidacy). He hopes to “learn every
day and experience what life has to offer” and to “continue to grow in my
formation.” He hopes eventually to work in music and media as an apostolate,
finding that these “really bridge the gap between young and old, religious and
young person.”
He enjoyed the novitiate year in California, where he was able to meet “so
many wonderful members of our Salesian Family out west,” and where he found
loving support for his formation experience.
Bro. Travis Adam Gunther, 24, comes from Conway,
Ark., where he and his family have belonged to
St. Joseph’s
Parish. His parents are Raymond and Mary Beth Gunther, and he has a younger
brother, Tyler.
Bro. Travis met the SDBs through a friend who was involved
already in Salesian youth ministry at a summer camp in Belle Glade, Fla.
The friend invited young Travis to take a job as a counselor, and for six weeks
he lived in the SDB community there, “sharing in their work, prayer, and
community life.”
He was assisted in his discernment process by two of the
Benedictines at Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas,
and he “most appreciates” the monks’ “hospitality, prayerful life, and showing
me the joys of religious life.”
In 2008 he applied to become a candidate for SDB life and
went to Holy Rosary Parish in Port
Chester, N.Y., for a
year to assist with youth ministry there. Then he spent two years in the
formation community at Orange, including his
prenovitiate in 2010-2011, as well as two summers of camp apostolate in Tampa.
As a Salesian, Bro. Travis wants “to change the world,
work for young people and the poor.” He loves “St. John Bosco’s spirituality,”
he writes, and adds that “Salesians have fun.” “Ultimately,” he says, “I want
to be a Salesian because it is where God is calling me. I also can see myself
becoming a saint as a Salesian and helping others become joyful saints as
well.”
During his novitiate year in California,
Bro. Travis particularly enjoyed his summer apostolate at Camp St. Francis in Watsonville, where
“everything we had learned about being Salesian, we had the opportunity to put
into practice. I saw the best and worst in myself and with the help of God and
the community was greatly affirmed in my vocation.”
Bro. John Gerard Langan, 28, is from Winsted,
Conn., where he and his family have been
members of St. Joseph’s
Parish. His parents are Gerard and Fidelis Langan, and he has two sisters,
Kathriona and Patricia.
A friend introduced Bro. John to the SDBs when he was
discerning his vocation, and he followed up by reading a biography of St. John
Bosco. After reading that life, he writes, he “recognized similarities in [Don
Bosco’s] work with young people and my own faith journey.”
As his discernment continued, John was guided by his
pastor, Fr. Bruce Czapla, O.F.M.; the SDB vocation director, Fr. Franco Pinto;
and his director during his candidacy, Fr. Pat Angelucci.
John entered SDB candidacy by teaching sophomore religion
at Salesian High
School in New
Rochelle and living with the SDBs who staff the school
in 2009-2010. The following year he was a prenovice in the Orange
formation community.
Returning to the Orange
community, Bro. John hopes “to listen and learn more about Don Bosco and the
Salesian charism and continue to deepen my relationship with Jesus Christ.”
In the future he would like to use outdoor activities,
such as mountain biking, to “provide young people an opportunity to quiet
themselves and recognize God’s relationship with them and who he made them to
be.” He says that his own “passion” for this sport “helped me gain strength in
overcoming struggles in my own life.”
Like Bro. Travis, Bro. John loved the summer experience at
Camp St. Francis in Watsonville,
Calif. “I had an amazing time,”
he writes, “getting to know the young people and praying and playing with them.
I was able to push myself beyond my comfort zone and deepen my trust in God
even more.”
In his homily for the profession Mass, Fr. Tom said that
the day affirmed the continuing presence of God in his Church.
Fr. Tom stressed that in religious profession the three
young men were responding to the love that God first bestowed upon them, citing
the words of the rite: “May God, who has shown His love … by inspiring you to
make this holy decision, help you to bring it to fulfillment….” He also referred
to the Scripture reading from the prophet Jeremiah (1:4-9), “Before I formed
you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
Fr. Tom preaching. The 3 novices, or candidates for 1st profession, are seated in front of him. |
He told the candidates for vows that they were responding
to God’s personal and intimate love by committing themselves to a special
relationship of love and intimacy with God. He told them that they would be
assisted in developing this relationship by the Virgin Mary, Help of
Christians, first disciple of Jesus, who lived in the community of the Holy Family
and the community of the early Church and who served her cousin Elizabeth.
This day on which Bros. DeMaio, Gunther, and Langan have
committed themselves completely to the One who loves them may well be the
happiest one of their lives, Fr. Tom stated. They give their freedom over to
God’s will, their love to him above all other persons, their worldly concerns
for the mission to the young and the poor.
Beginnings are sweet, Fr. Tom observed. “The follow-up is
more difficult.” And, like a marriage, the long-term following of Christ is a
lot of work. That this relationship will grow cannot be taken for granted. The
reading from St. Paul
to the Ephesians (4:1-6) spoke of our relationship with God; that passage is a
primary source for our lives.
He also stressed that, just as the vows are a response to
God’s loving them first, the professed will have to remember that the
apostolate they will do, the community they will live in, even their vows, are
not theirs but his. “God loans them to us,” he said, “and we have to return
them to him in better condition than we received them.”
The gospel reading (John 6:1-15) reminds us that God is
the only absolute in our lives, Fr. Tom said. The simplicity with which one
lives his vows should enhance one’s self-giving; it only gets complicated when
the vows become laws about how one has to obey, observe boundaries, and render
an account.
Fr. Tom hands the Salesian Constitutions, or Rule of Life, to Bro. Steve |
Finally, Fr. Tom asked the new confreres to treasure two
documents: the Mass booklet for this rite of profession, and the Salesian Constitutions.
The liturgy booklet contains the readings that the newly professed chose, which
express so well the self-giving they undertook in their profession. In this
booklet and the Constitutions they will have sure guides to living out their
commitment faithfully, practicing what St. Peter urges: “Be all the more eager
to make your call and election firm, for, in doing so, you will never stumble.
For, in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and savior Jesus
Christ will be richly provided for you” (2 Pet 1:10-11).
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