Conrado Carlos Hernandez
From: Bronx, NY
Year: Third Year of Theology
Seminary: Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, CT
How did you first experience or hear "The Call" to the Priesthood?
When referring to my vocation to the priesthood, I usually say to my friends that, on this quest, I had departed from a point on the circle and went gradually around it until I finally returned to the point where I had initially begun, meaning that I began to think on the priesthood during my early adolescence and now, after many years, I have resumed the quest. I awakened to the call to the priesthood during junior high school, when I was 11 or 12 years old, and joined a Jesuit-run Diocesan Minor Seminary (high school) in my native Puerto Rico.
The Holy Spirit deemed then that it was not my time yet, that I needed to enrich my life with other worldly experiences. I left the Seminary at 18 and, then, went to Hunter College in New York City, where I received my Bachelor of Arts degree and advanced studies in journalism and literature.
What was your work before entering the program?
I was professor of the Spanish language to foreign speakers in my country, and to high-school students in NYC. I worked for 14 years as a weekly columnist for the Daily News and as reporter to El Diario, the main of NYC Spanish-language dailies.
As a writer I have authored three books: two on poetries and short stories awarded by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and the third on the manifestations on world religions of the paranormal phenomena.
From journalism I went to work with different political officials of New York's City and State governments as liaison and public relations agent for 17 years. I worked for the New York City Council President; the Bronx Borough President and, finally, as Press Secretary to the New York State Attorney General.
I am presently at the end of my third year of theology at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
What were your thoughts and feelings when you first thought about becoming a priest?
How did this journey through worldly accomplishments lead me into pursuing my call to the priesthood? I guess that the call had been latent throughout all those years, but I was not in the best disposition to listen to it. It was not until the nineties when I began to feel and listen to the urgency of God's mission. There are stages in our lives which are marked by turning points. These turning points help us in the discovery of our mission in our faith journey. A series of factors converged raising my awareness to the pursuit of a higher cause. My wife died of breast cancer in 1987.
Do you have any further thoughts about your vocation?
I do not think that a vocation is something you reach out and grab. It is offered to you. It is a gift, really. You think about it, you pray over it, you talk it over with people, because it works through people. And then you say: I accept. Once an invitation is made, it is just kind of hard to ignore. Besides, the Lord calls us to live lives that will help us to grow in the fullest and be happy. By experience, I have learned that the only way to attain happiness is by doing God's will. I always remember St. Augustine's precept: "Our hearts were restless for you, O Lord and they are restless until they rest in you."
I have done a lot of reflection on my personality and its role in my responding to the call to the priesthood. It was God, and only God, who was forming my personality through circumstances throughout my whole life. Nobody knows me better than He does. When I was a young man, I had an inquisitive tendency in my personality, which I had to explore in order to grow up and be the person that I am now. I understand that now.
What was the reaction from your family and friends?
Values and personality are intertwined. While your personality is being molded, you go acquiring values which are inculcated during the process of growing up. The most important values that I uphold were learned from my family. The biggest concern of my parents was to keep the family united, making us grow in self-respect and decency. I learned how important it is to be a law-abiding citizen.
Spirituality is that deep-seated feeling which indicates that we need to transcend ourselves, because our existence on this planet is incomplete. It is the inward journey of the soul into God. Prayer is the exercise of the spirit. St. Alphonsus Ligouri wrote that an individual who has a customary practice of prayer, has his salvation guaranteed. To improve the communication with God, one has to try an assortment of initiatives. They should be consulted with a spiritual director. St. Ignatius of Loyola recommended the use of the imagination, while praying, to listen to conversations which might have happened in the Scripture passages being meditated on: to use the eyes of the mind to recreate a scene, to smell the odors and feel on your skin the wind, the sun rays or the raindrops.
What would you suggest to those who are thinking about a vocation to the priesthood?
Remember that you are only providing the raw material upon which God’s amazing grace will build. A calling to the priesthood involves both a gift and a demand. An inner-peace will come over you during this quest, because you will be working with God as a team. Your life will stop being a series of turns and become a growing process. As a priest, you can touch life, in a single day: at its beginning in baptism, at marriage, and even in the final stages of death and seeing someone enter into the glorious life that awaits each of us hereafter.