As he looks forward to his ordination as one of five new priests for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington on June 20 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Deacon Pedro López said, “I’m really excited God is allowing me to take this step. I see God in my life, lifting me up and giving me this vocation.”
“I am nervous. I am excited. I am feeling a lot of emotion, but I sure am happy,” the future priest said. “It will be challenging, but at the same time that makes me want to do it even more. I am sharing God. I am His witness, and He accompanies me.”
Deacon López, 33 and a native of Nicaragua, said he first started discerning a vocation when he was 13 or 14 years old. Around this time, the future priest became associated with the Neocatechumenal Way, through which, he said he discovered his vocation to the priesthood.
The Neocatechumenal Way, founded in 1964, is a Catholic movement dedicated to adult and family faith formation. An estimated 1.5 million Catholics belong to the Way in about 40,000 parish-based groups in more than 130 nations around the world.
The Neocatechumenal Way, frequently referred to as the Way, has also established more than 120 Redemptoris Mater diocesan mission seminaries around the world, including one in Hyattsville, Maryland, for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
“As a young man I remembered the night I was listening to the Word of God … the word that touched my heart that night was the call of Abram (later called Abraham),” he said referring to Genesis 12:1-3. “God says to Abraham to leave his country, his people, his father’s household and go to the land that He will show him.”
Through that passage, Deacon López said, “I was struck because I experienced that God Himself was speaking to me calling me to abandon everything and follow Him.”
He said that evening “created a question mark in me inviting me to give an answer. I did not know what it meant to follow God, but I kept thinking about this word for some time.”
While on pilgrimage in his native Nicaragua in 2008, Deacon López said, that he realized truly “that God loves me as I am.”
“At the time, I was searching for meaning,” he said of his discernment, “I remember listening that Christ is the only faithful spouse, the spouse who will never betray me.’”
That sentiment, he said, “struck me to the heart. I experienced in these words the truth, and I am very glad because I see that God has truly been faithful.”
“The missionary zeal I saw in some of the priests who were in my home parish as well as lay missionaries (who are part of the Neocatechumenal Way) from all over the world, I saw in these missionaries a joy that I began to long for; I saw in them joy and freedom that are not from this world,” he said.
Heeding the example of Abraham and the example of the Way missionaries, Deacon López said, “I am willing to go anywhere there is a need – anywhere God deems it is where I am needed,” he said, “because wherever He sends me, I know He will be there as well.”
That led him to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the Way’s Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Hyattsville.
“All these years in formation, what surprised me the most was the joy I had in missionary work” Deacon López said, adding that he spent three years ministering in the Holy Land. “I felt truly happy. I was lacking nothing. Working in evangelization for the Church is my cup of tea.”
After he is ordained, Deacon López envisions his priesthood as “being able to be a witness of Christ to others, especially those who are suffering or going through difficult times. Being a witness is maybe the most important part of my job.”
The future priest knows that whatever he is called to do in his priestly ministry, “it will be a happy life because the one who called me is God, and I have experienced in the past how He has made me happy.”
“God has been faithful to me, and He has given me a great joy in my life that nobody nor anything can take away from me,” he said. “It is a joy I cannot get anywhere else.”
Father Pedro López will celebrate his first Mass as a priest on Sunday, June 21 at noon at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Takoma Park, Maryland. On July 8, he will begin serving as a parochial vicar at the Shrine of Saint Jude Parish in Rockville, Maryland.
Link to related article:
Five new priests to be ordained for Archdiocese of Washington on June 20
