{"id":10508,"date":"2010-06-27T10:36:53","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T14:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=10508"},"modified":"2010-06-27T10:40:07","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T14:40:07","slug":"falling-in-love-with-our-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2010\/06\/falling-in-love-with-our-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling in love with Our Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"

Worcester, Mass., Jun 26, 2010 \/ 01:14 pm (CNA<\/a>).- \u201cWhen I grow up, I want to be like him,\u201d\u00a0 The 5-year-old was talking about the priest. But while still a child the boy fell in love \u2013 with the image of Our Lady of Fatima. \u201cIf I find a woman who looks like her, and has her characteristics, I\u2019ll marry her,\u201d he decided.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 34 years I\u2019ve never met that woman,\u201d he says now. \u201cI guess the Blessed Mother wants me. I\u2019m all hers. Like John Paul II said, \u2018Totus Tuus Maria.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the story of Deacon Lowe Breta\u00f1a Dongor, who is to be ordained a priest today at St. Paul Cathedral. Now he\u2019s sparking an interest in priesthood in today\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

Deacon Dongor, son of Nelly Breta\u00f1a Dongor and the late Ramon Dongor, was born Feb. 17, 1976 in Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo, in the Philippines. He is the first Filipino to be ordained for the Worcester Diocese.<\/p>\n

His parents had the most important influence on his vocation, taking him and his siblings to church, he says.<\/p>\n

Also influential was his great-aunt, Dominican Sister Vincenta Breta\u00f1a, a religious for 50 years. She said devotion to the Eucharist and the Blessed Mother were most important, and those devotions kept him in seminary, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see the Virgin Mary carrying the baby, that\u2019s me,\u201d Deacon Dongor says, telling about his collection of Madonna and Child statues. \u201cShe\u2019s my Mother. Especially being a priest, there are times in your life when you\u2019re down. In the Philippines, when we get hurt, we always cry, \u2018Mom!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I leave the country, will you be my mother?\u201d he asked her before coming to the United States.<\/p>\n

That opportunity came because of priestly aspirations. He\u2019d attended Barotac Nuevo High School, and, in Manila, the University of Santo Tomas and Adamson University. He was at Our Lady of the Angels Seminary in Quezon City when he met Father Peter R. Precourt. Father Precourt, an Augustinian of the Assumption then with the congregation in Worcester and now pastor of St. Anne and St. Patrick Parish in Sturbridge, was meeting with men interested in an Assumptionist vocation.<\/p>\n

In 2003 he and other Filipinos came to Worcester to live with the Assumptionists and study at Assumption College. After a couple years, Deacon Dongor left.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed more working with the people in the parish,\u201d he says. \u201cI felt that I was called to be a diocesan priest.\u201d He found the diocese\u2019s priests very supportive, he says. His parish summer internships were at St. Joseph\u2019s, Charlton; Holy Angels, Upton; St. Christopher\u2019s, Worcester, and St. Bernadette\u2019s, Northborough.<\/p>\n

He recently invited students at St. Bernadette\u2019s Elementary School to his ordination and talked about vocations, he says. A third-grader said he wanted to be a priest and marry a model. He explained that priests don\u2019t marry, and the child later announced, \u201cI dumped that model; I want to be a priest.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or maybe the third-grader could become a model priest.<\/p>\n

Via CNA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worcester, Mass., Jun 26, 2010 \/ 01:14 pm (CNA).- \u201cWhen I grow up, I want to be like him,\u201d\u00a0 The 5-year-old was talking about the priest. But while still a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10508"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10510,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10508\/revisions\/10510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}