Vocations office announces essay contest winners

The Office of Vocations and the Office of Youth Ministry announced the winners of the essay contest in celebration of Vocation Awareness Week at the Centennial Jubilee Ministry Conference on Jan. 14. The winners include Ani Gonzalez, a junior at W.B Ray High School in Corpus Christi; Sarah Evon, a home-schooled 7th grader; and Joseph Michael Mejias, a 5th Grade student at Sinton Elementary.

Topics for the essay included, “What is your understanding of the priest today?,” “What does it take to give your whole life to Christ?,” “Which priest(s) do you most admire and why?” and “Which priest(s) have most influenced you and how?”

Ani, a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help won $500 for her essay where she said that, “A priest today is a figure of extreme courage. He must be the rock that anchors his community in faith. He must keep tradition alive while embracing the modern world. He must work doubly hard to prove himself a sincere servant of the Lord, to his parish community and the rest of the world. He must be the strongest defender of the faith in a God whose existence our secular world denies.”

Sarah attends Corpus Christi Cathedral and competed against 64 essayists for a $300 first place prize. She wrote about the three priests she most admired; Father Rudy Vasquez, Father James Farfaglia and Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey.  “Each of them is a wonderful priest, and each has influenced me in a different way,” she wrote.

The elementary category saw 50 entries vying for the $100 prize. Eleven-year-old Joseph Michael wrote about Father Shaji Varghese as the priest he most admired. In 2009, Father Varghese was brutally attacked and stabbed by a parishioner and almost lost his life. “Father Varghese was hospitalized for several weeks but he recovered and when he came back to our parish he showed compassion to his attacker forgave his attacker and showed no ill towards him,” Joseph Michael wrote.