Rafael Majano
LCC Program
I am Rafael Majano, Venezuelan, son of Rafael Jose' Majano and Maria Pilar de Majano, I have two brothers, Rafael Gerardo and Pilar Virginia, I am the second of 3 children. In Venezuela, my native country, I studied high school, then went to the university where I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting and later I went on to graduate school to study a Master's in Human Resources.
My adoptive parish in Omaha is Our Lady of Guadalupe-St. Agnes, two churches under one guidance under Fr. Carl Zoucha, they are located in the south part of the city, and said parish have a great population of parishioners. The majority of them are Hispanics, (some 1,500 to 2,000) whose community keeps growing exponentially. Evidence of this is the great number of people that attend the 7 dominical masses where 5 of them are in Spanish. As well as the large number of baptisms performed, making it one of the parishes with the bigger number of baptisms in the Archdiocese. During the year that I have been in the archdiocese, I was able to see the great need of attention in the community, where the priests have a difficulty tending to everybody.
I think that the call to priesthood is always in the heart of the man that God has chosen for this mission. In Venezuela, when I was young I used to actively participate in my parish, also called Our Lady of Guadalupe, where twice a year there's a 3-day retreat call "Teens Encounter Christ" when I had the opportunity to take part in it, was when I had my first encounter with Jesus Christ. From that point on, my participation in those retreats and all sorts of activities in the parish became my first priority, while at the same time I studied and had in mind to finish my university degree.
Although the priests and other leaders talked to me about the priesthood and the qualities that they saw in me, I continued my discernment process along with my everyday life. In the summer of 2005 I went to the World Youth Day in Germany where the encounter with Pope Benedict XVI, was an encounter with Jesus Christ himself where he confirmed my calling and I returned to Venezuela with the conviction to enroll in the seminary and to accept this call to priesthood. I started the process in vocational retreats and spiritual guidance and that's when I finally finished confirming my calling. Now, how did I arrive in Omaha? In Christmas 2005, I came to Florida to spend it with my brother, his wife and son and that's when Fr. Oscar Perez, friend of a few years and person with whom I first talked about my vocation, was living in Omaha as the Associate Pastor of my now adoptive parish. He invited me to spend the first few days in January of 2006 in Omaha before returning to Venezuela. During that visit I identified a lot with this parish community and I thought that the priestly vocation does not have boundaries and I felt the call to serve here and that's how this process started that now thanks to God's will I became a seminarian for this Archdiocese that has welcomed me with open arms.
Today I tell all of those men that have the call to priesthood and are still in the discerning process, think of how extraordinary it is to serve God. Be very attentive to your prayers when asking God if this is truly your calling to priesthood and if that's the case, ask for guidance. Always look for God, make Him the center of your lives, be assiduous to daily Eucharist and to the rosary, there you will find many of the answers that you are searching for. It is in our hands to rescue the values, the good manners, mainly being witnesses, living according to the gospels. The priesthood is a vocation of service, is being imitators of Christ, is giving our whole lives and the gifts that God gave us through the Holy Spirit to the Church. My personal experience allows me to describe the fact of being a seminarian as the best thing that has happened to me, it is what truly makes me happy. In a few words, I see it as consecrating my life and putting in God's service and giving back a little bit of the many things that He has given me, that God that was capable of giving up his life for us.
Yours in Christ,
Rafael
"I have called you by name." (Isaias, 43: 1)
