Grateful to Serve as Salesians of Don Bosco

As we approach Thanksgiving Day in the USA, we reached out to our confreres who made their first, renewed, and perpetual professions and were newly ordained this year. We share with you the appreciation and gratitude some of them have conveyed to us. Let us give thanks for all our SDBs who made professions and were ordained and pray for them and for more vocations to our Salesian Family. Mary Help of Christians, pray for us! St. John Bosco, pray for us!

“I am grateful to serve the Lord by showing forth His compassionate love for all in empathy and presence, specifically in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the daily Eucharist.”
           - Fr. Lenny Carlino, SDB, Ordained a Salesian priest on June 26, 2021

“I am grateful for God's patience and His constant accompaniment along this journey of life. I never thought I would one day be a priest, but God works in mysterious ways! He is good!”
           - Fr. Steve DeMaio, SDB, Ordained a Salesian priest on June 26, 2021

“As a recently professed Salesian, I am grateful for my vocation. This thanksgiving must spill out to those whom God has placed in my life to guide me: my parents, my confreres, my friends, and the young, to whom I am called to serve. I hope this grace of gratitude will lead me to more generously give of myself to serve God and the young.”
          - Br. Paul Hotovy, SDB, First profession on August 15, 2021

"Thanksgiving always reminds me of the many blessings God has given me. This year, I can say that I am so thankful for being able to say ‘yes’ to God through my profession, so as to live my life for God, present in my brothers and the young. I am also thankful for the gift God has given me to share my life with the SUE Province for these next few years, which allows me to see the endless size and depth of our Salesian Family!"
          - Br. Reegan Ledet, SDB, First profession on August 15, 2021

“I am grateful for the opportunity to both express and be a recipient of the universal language of love. I also appreciate the countless opportunities where I experienced Don Bosco's own words becoming my own; ‘here with you I feel at home: to stay with you is my life.’”
          - Br. Rafael Vargas, SDB, Perpetual profession on August 21, 2021

“I am grateful to serve the Lord in my Salesian vocation because I am able to encounter Christ in the most valuable and vulnerable portion of our society: the young. I am also grateful that I can be an instrument for God to use so that the young are able to have an encounter with Christ.”
           - Br. Kevin White, SDB, Renewed profession on August 15, 2021

*Top photo: (from left to right) Fr. Lenny Carlino, SDB; Fr. Steve DeMaio, SDB; Br. Paul Hotovy, SDB; Br. Reegan Ledet, SDB (kneeling); Br. Rafael Vargas, SDB (standing); and Br. Kevin White, SDB
Photos by Fr. Lenny Carlino, SDB; Vicky Weekley, Br. Reegan Ledet, SDB; Br. Rafael Vargas, SDB; and Br. Kevin White, SDB