Bio's of Rev. Mr. Ervin Caliente and Rev. Mr. John McNamara. The two will be ordained to the priesthood, Saturday, June 6.

Rev. Mr. Ervin Caliente

Transitional deacon Rev. Mr. Ervin M. Caliente was born in the Philippines on April 6, 1979.

He grew up in Catholic surroundings and says that “much of the most exciting moments of my life as a child are connected with the Catholic traditions and local customs.” Growing up in a rural area, he says, meant that “since we did not have shopping malls, outlet stores or movie theaters to go to … we went to church … Processions, the rosary, devotion to the Sacred Heart and devotions to Mary and the saints and many traditions in the Catholic world have shaped me and brought me to where I am now.”

He attended college at Our Lady of Peace College Seminary in his home diocese after high school.

“Those were very good and happy years of formation in the seminary with its four pillars: spiritual, intellectual, human and pastoral formation,” he says. “They were years of establishing friendship with the Lord and beginning camaraderie with fellow young men like me, who felt the call to the priesthood.” He was involved in the Charismatic movement and the Focolare movement, and he began to feel called to the consecrated religious life.

With that call, he came to the U.S. to a monastery that followed St. Augustine of Hippo’s ancient monastic rule of the fourth century. He lived that contemplative life for eight years before he experienced a change.

“Strongly hearing and heeding the call of God to the ordained priesthood, God led me to the Diocese of Rockford,” Deacon Ervin says. “I spent my first year in the diocese at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Crystal Lake, which introduced me to the American parish setting … There, I taught, shared and served and, in turn, learned and received love from the people whom I now consider good friends.

He graduated from the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary after four years of formation and study.

“I am very grateful to the vocations office of the diocese for all the support I received these years,” he says. “I also want to thank all the priests who are examples of priestly joy and holiness, and the pastors and the people of God in parishes where I been assigned since I came to the diocese five years ago.  For all that has been and for all that will be: Praised be Jesus Christ!”

His interests include: “reading, walking, bicycling, snowboarding, cooking, making rosaries, and gardening.”
 

Rev. Mr. John McNamara

Transitional deacon Rev. Mr. John P. McNamara was born Oct. 19, 1979.

His home parish is St. Mary in Woodstock, and he credits his parents “for making it clear to my siblings and me how important our faith must be in our lives.” However, he adds, he did not always follow their lead.

 “Very early in my high school years, I began to focus more and more on friends, leisure, and my career … What was important to me at the time was finding jobs in restaurants and catering companies that would quickly shoot me up the corporate ladder into management and head chef positions.

Throughout my early and mid-20s, life was basically just about work and entertainment. … Life was good!”

Priesthood, he adds, “had never really been a thought on my mind.” His younger brother, however, entered the seminary, and Deacon John says his brother’s “courage, devotion to Christ and knowledge of our faith deeply impacted my re-conversion to being a good practicing Catholic. It was slow, but I began to think about things.”

He calls his two years of traveling the country to cook for musicians a “key turning point,” saying, “I saw a huge thirst for God among those I met and a great need for God among all those I was working with (and ) there were constant temptations to live against my beliefs.”

He “mysteriously began” to pray the rosary, he says, and had “a renewed desire to go to confession and receive the Eucharist while I was traveling.”

In August 2008, he says, “the second turning point arrived when I was called up to Wisconsin to help my friend run his restaurant.” The peace and quiet, the nearby Catholic Church and “experience after experience” brought more interior changes. “I truly believe God called me to that quiet, scenic, peaceful area of the country in order to hear His voice,” he says.

He returned to Illinois and was accepted to priesthood studies by the Diocese of Rockford in 2010, “and it has been an incredible journey from then forward,” he says. He was ordained a transitional deacon on May 17, 2014, and he graduated on May 2, 2015 from Holy Apostles Seminary in Connecticut.

“I’m overjoyed to soon receive the gift of the sacred priesthood,” he says, “and I can’t wait to serve the Church in the Rockford Diocese.”

His interests include: reading, golf, fishing, chess, cooking, walking, watching baseball.