In the midst of the National Vocational Year in the church of Brazil, which has as its theme Vocation: Grace and Mission, and the motto “Fiery hearts, feet on the path”, we celebrated on Saturday, November 2023 in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Nazaré in Lábrea, Amazonas, the solemn profession ceremony of our Augustinian Recollect brother Sergio Pérez García.
Sergio, a Mexican from Mochitlán, Guerrero, born in 1992, is the oldest of three brothers, sons of Doña Elpidia and Don Ignacio. He was baptized on March 8, 1993 in the parish of Santa Ana, in his hometown.
In 2013 he met the Augustinian Recollects and made the decision to enter the seminary of training in Querétaro when he was 21 years old. After a year of aspiring, in 2014 he went to Mexico City to study Philosophy at the Intercontinental University and discern his vocation in the postulancy stage.
After three years of study of human, and spiritual formation, he received the approval of his formators to travel to Spain, where in August 2017 he would begin the year of the novitiate in the Convent of Monteagudo (Navarra, Spain). After professing simple vows on the 4th of August 2018 he continued his Theology studies in the formative community of Las Rozas (Madrid, Spain), for four years, at the Pontifical University of Comillas, in Madrid.
He finished his studies in 2022, and was destined to complete the insertion year, the last year of the cycle of initial formation, in the mission of the Prelature of Lábrea, specifically in the religious community of Lábrea.
He arrived at the Prelature at the end of the month of November 2022. And here he took his first steps as religious, integrating one’s own formation and pastoral service, in a new community, outside of the environment of a training community.
This experience was strong, impressive and challenging for various reasons. First, because in the Prelature the communities are very small and, due to the immensity of the territory of our parishes, for a good part of the year, the communities are reduced to two members. Communities also composed of friars of different ages, from different countrie, with different visions, as in our case is the community of Lábrea. Strong by the social reality of injustice, corruption and brutal inequality.
Impressive for the special biome that is the Amazon, with its biodiversity and pluralism cultural heritage of indigenous and riverine peoples. And it always was challenging, but with more emphasis after the Amazon Synod and the Santarém meeting of 2022, because the Spirit asks us to be a more prophetic church, incarnated and liberating, who places herself as a servant at the service of life, cultures and the territories of the peoples of our Prelature, and promoter of an integral ecology.
In this environment of the Prelature Sergio had the opportunity to live and grow as person and as a religious in his last year of formation. Let us hope that, despite all the limitations, has been more positive, and has helped him strengthen his decision to consecrate his life to Jesus.
Our brother Sergio had as pastoral assignments those most focused on the
accompaniment of the different youth groups that exist in the parish, in the social work of the
Hope Center, as well as in the Vocational Ministry.
On Saturday, November 4, the year of insertion concluded and his solemn profession of the evangelical vows of chastity, poverty and obedience in the Order of Augustinian Recollects. His profession was taken by the delegate of the Recollects in the North of Brazil, Brother Juan Cruz Vicario Corral, who a few days before arrived from Manaus to Lábrea for this reason. Friar Juan Cruz was also who preached the gospel and highlighted the value of what the evangelical vows mean for God’s people.
The bishop of the Prelature of Lábrea, the Augustinian Recollect Dom Santiago, presided over the Eucharist. Sánchez Sebastián, and the priest Henrique Giera also concelebrated, in Lábrea, and the Recollect brothers of the community Luis Almílcar Reyes and Luis Antonio Fernández. Present were the Augustinian Recollect Missionary sisters Deuza, Isaura and Ivone, and the religious of the Sementes del Verbo congregation of Manaus Susana e Eloíza, who are cooperating for a few days in Lábrea with the social work of Fazenda Esperança San Agustín, recently inaugurated in Lábrea for the recovery of alcohol and drug addicts. Also present was a young woman from Lábrea, Juciane, who recently professed her vows in Rio de Janeiro, and she was spending her vacation in Lábrea.
It was an opportunity to show a strong presence of the vocation to consecrated life for the town of Lábrea. We wish our brother to be increasingly happy on the path of consecration.
