Although this project was initially meant to highlight creatives, I thought it
would be fitting to break the pattern for something special. This past weekend I had the honor of watching my older brother fulfill his lifelong dream in being ordained as a Catholic priest. It was a weekend full of a whole spectrum of emotions, but all in all, it was truly something I will never forget. This past weekend was the proof that God put a camera for a reason, and that reason was to take this picture.
For those of you that don’t know, my older brother Carlos has been in this process for the last 8 years even though it honestly felt much longer than that. My brother was always the “religious type” in that it seemed like this is what he was meant to do. He was the kid that was always badgering his friends to be more involved in their own local parishes and he always had his bible with him. His heroes were rarely anyone that the population would idolize but rather those who he connected with on a deeper level. While many judged which was evident even to me as a young child, my brother always stayed true to himself and his faith.
The beginning of his vocation honestly seems like a lifetime ago; I still remember the day he told me that he was finally going to start his journey to priesthood. I will admit at first I was somewhat skeptical. I had never been the most religious in my family, and honestly thought that being a priest wasn’t worth it. The younger me was a lot more ignorant in the fact that I saw all the “negatives” before I realized how important this was to him, and that this was really bigger than all of us. Even telling my own friends I was somewhat reluctant as being a priest isn’t a particularly popular profession nowadays. What I failed to realize then was that this was going to be the hardest journey he was going to face, and how much of an accomplishment this would be once the journey came to its new chapter.
As the day finally came, it all hit me. My own spiritual journey is something that I wouldn’t consider exemplary but in watching my brother stand as the new hero for our own community, I realized how important faith is. Not necessarily just faith in God, but faith as a whole. The only way for any of us to accomplish anything is having the faith in something or someone, whether it be ourselves or in others, and seeing how hundreds of people flocked to my brother just for a blessing showed my younger self how ignorant I’ve been and just how important all of this was.
Through all the trials and tribulations, my brother believed in not only himself but also in the plan that God laid out for him and it’s from that that I’m able to see how important faith is for all of us.
One of the things that stuck out to me from when I was younger was one Sunday while our pastor was preaching, he said “You have to be crazy to be a priest”. I remember vividly looking at my brother who basically acknowledged he was crazy because he knew what he was meant to do. With faith alone he accomplished what many believed to be the impossible, and it’s because of that that I consider him to be one of my own personal heroes.
At a time where it’s crucial in life to stay true to yourself, especially as a creative, God gave me my brother as the prime example to keep going and I couldn’t be any prouder.
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