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September 3 , 2007 • VOL. 45, NO. 15 • Oakland, CA
Seminarians’
summer includes
volunteering at Catholic Charities
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Seminarian Leonard Marrujo talks with several men at Catholic Charities’ multicultural senior center in Oakland. Marrujo spent three weeks at the center at a volunteer. Greg Tarczynski photo |
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Seminarian Alberto Perez helps pack food baskets for clients at the Monument Crisis Center in Concord. Greg Tarczynski photo |
Alberto Perez is one of several Oakland seminarians who spent three weeks
this summer as volunteers with Catholic Charities of the East Bay. He
worked with low-income families and immigrants living in Concord’s
Monument Corridor. Other seminarians had assignments at Charities’
multicultural senior center and at a Catholic school.
“It was a very important experience for my priestly formation,”
said Perez, a 25-year-old native of Mexico.
He worked alongside Vicky Lizarraga, coordinator of CCEB’s Mary
Mahoney program that provides help to families needing emergency housing,
utility assistance, transportation and food vouchers.
“Alberto was with me, learning the reality of poverty,” said
Lizarraga. “We did home visits, we went to the county’s family
services, to worker centers, and to several parishes to help seniors.”
Besides listening to people describe their problems and referring them
to service centers, Perez helped pack bags of food for the poor, a work
that, according to him, seems simple but is very meaningful because it
aids families who do not have enough to eat.
Perez said the experience helped him become more sensitive to the needs
of the poor. “It was a very great opportunity to see the needs that
the people have. Many are alone and need somebody to help them. I learned
humility and lessons in simplicity from these people.”
According to Lizarraga, this immersion in social service programs is very
important for seminarians. “Someday they will be pastors and they
already know where to refer people. They know there is an agency like
Catholic Charities that supports them. In their communities they will
meet people with suffering and need, and they must be prepared for this
challenge.”
Perez graduated from El Señor San Jose Seminary high school in
the Archdiocese of Guadalajara. After arriving in the U.S. in January
2004 and studying English, he enrolled as a seminarian for the Oakland
Diocese. He is currently a philosophy student at Mt. Angel Seminary in
Oregon. In two years he will begin his studies in theology at St. Patrick
Seminary in Menlo Park.
Lizarraga describes Perez as a dedicated, responsible person with much
vision for the community and communitarian work. While volunteering with
Catholic Charities, he lived at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Brentwood,
where he helped as an acolyte and sacristan.
This is the second summer for the seminarian program, which is jointly
sponsored by Catholic Charities and the diocesan vocations department.
