FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
On December 4, 2023, I celebrated my 86th birthday. I joyfully said to the good Lord, “Thank you very, very much.” Not only for the gift of life, but also for the gift of my Dominican vocation; in particular for keeping me a Dominican priest up to today, 61 years after my ordination. Like life, vocation is an undeserved gift – and a mystery.
An important prenote: all Christians – and many others – are called by God. All vocations -to the different states of life are equal in dignity: All called have the same goal: heaven. All – priests, religious women and men, lay faithful – have the unique way to follow: Jesus Christ. All are disciples of the Lord. Essentially, all vocations are equal, that is, “neither better nor worse: simply different” (M. Gelabert). Every vocation implies a passionate love for Jesus.
Let me narrate to you some highlights of my vocation and the main pitfalls I encountered on the way up to today. I will focus on four points: first, I will tell you of the main steps leading to my priestly Ordination; second, of my mission as a Dominican; third, on the principal negative events that – thank God – did not point to me the exit door. and finally, on the power that keeps sustaining me up to today.
1. THE JOURNEY OF MY VOCATION
There is a title of a well-known book: “Todo empezó en Galilea” (“Everything started in Galilee”). For me, the whole thing started in a small town in Avila called El Oso. On a cold day of winter, December 4, 1937, I was born in a modest family of farmers. I have three other brothers and two sisters. I love my roots, my town, my family, my people. From my father, I learned impartial justice and passionate commitment to my work. From my mother: love, tenderness, prayer, and compassion with the poor.
At seven, I became an acolyte in the town parish. I loved to be an acolyte and serve my parish priests. I loved, above all, to be an acolyte in Holy Week – then celebrated with great solemnity and sobriety. During Holy Week, I met the first Dominicans from Avila: they celebrated frequently the Holy Triduum in the town. I remember I loved their preaching and their habit (white and black as in life and death).
In elementary school, I was a normal boy who liked to learn. One morning – I think it was spring, 1948 – the teacher, knowledgeable and always punctual, Don Jacinto Santos called my name and asked me to stand up. He told me: “You will go to the Dominicans.” I felt very happy! A few months later, a Dominican came to give me and another townmate an oral exam. I barely passed it: I was so nervous! We both were accepted, and proceeded in October 1949 to La Mejorada (Valladolid), our apostolic school, to begin our high school studies with the Dominicans. I went with great joy, but also with great sadness – the sadness of leaving my parents, my family and my town (I remember the first night I did not sleep at all!). I recall the words of the great writer T. S. Eliot: To be human is to belong to a particular region of the earth. The tree of my life has grown, and always grounded on my dear town El Oso in Avila, Castilla.
After two years in La Mejorada, I went with my classmates (74) to Santa Maria de Nieva (Segovia) for the next three years and finished high school in May 1954. I loved to study during my high school years. Love the humanities and languages, literature, music (in Santa Maria, I started to play the piano). I was poor in sports, except in handball.
We (now 39) received the Dominican habit in Ocaña (Toledo) on July 12, 1954. I enjoyed my Novitiate year (in spite of its normal difficulties), and improved my relationship with God and with others. I learned to pray as a Dominican and to sing the Gregorian chant, which I loved. I started to love Our Lady of the Rosary, St. Dominic and our Dominican saints, in particular St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, Saint Martin de Porres, and the martyrs of our Dominican Missionary Province of Our Lady of the Rosary. We had to learn, then, the Rule of St. Augustine by heart in Latin (it was the heart of our exam before professing). I remember my Novice Master, Fr. Rodrigo, with great love: he was already old, he loved us, and he was enamored of the Order, of Jesus, of Mary, of our Father Dominic … He taught us about religious life and Dominican spirituality, the vows, etc. He explained to us the mottos of the Dominicans: Veritas; Laudare, Benedicere et Praedicare and Contemplata aliis tradere. At the end of our Novitiate, we made our simple profession in Ocaña on July 11, 1955. (By the way, our Dominican Province is a missionary Province, focused especially in Asia. This is the reason why we make a fourth vow: to go to mission lands, wherever we are sent).
We transferred then to our great Convent in Avila, Monasterio de Santo Tomás, where we studied our three years of philosophy: in Avila, the lovely and mystical city of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. Since I was a child, I also loved these two Carmelite saints. Facilitating a retreat to Dominican Sisters in Manila (where I often quoted the mystics from Avila), a sister asked me: Why did you become a Dominican and not a Carmelite? Because God called me to be a Dominican – and I love it. I liked in particular, during our studies of philosophy: the inspiring accounts of our missionaries, the lessons on preaching and use of the radio (we had a radio station through the third year) by Fr. Florencio Muñoz, who was our model preacher, one of the best preachers in Spain then. During the third year of philosophy, we had to preach one sermon in the refectory during lunch. I remember I preached on the First Word of Jesus from the Cross. In my philosophy years, I learned to appreciate the essential importance of study, prayer and community life: the three ordered to preaching. I began to write: my first article (column) was entitled, “If Saint Thomas would come back” (Si Santo Tomás volviera).
I took my first year of theology in San Pedro Mártir (Alcobendas, Madrid). My class and the other philosophy classes (over 100 students in all) inaugurated the Convent of San Pedro Mártir in 1958. Here, on December 3, 1958, I made my solemn profession. (I remember I asked my kind and dedicated Master of Students, Fr. Pedro Tejero, if I had a vocation because I had some superficial doubts. (I had the normal jitters before an important decision in life). He told me: “Just make the Solemn Profession; God wants you to be a Dominican missionary. Amen!
I enjoyed my first year of theological studies in Madrid very much, and I am most grateful to my mentors and advisers. Most seldom we went out of the walls of the convents.
With another classmate (one more joined us one year later), I was sent to the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC to study the remaining three more years of theology plus one more for the Licentiate in Theology. At the beginning, it was terribly hard and painful: we did not speak any English. We could communicate in Latin with our Professors. With our classmates? Not in English, not Spanish, and not Latin. Some nights, we went to bed (both in the same room) really sad, almost in tears. Later on, we enjoyed our stay in Washington DC: we tasted freedom. (One day a month: each one of us was free to go anywhere; we were given 5 US dollars). The American Fathers treated us excellently well as well as our dear classmates. (Through the first years, I was allowed to answer my exams in Latin; I studied in Spanish).
In Washington I had two idols: John F. Kennedy (I attended his inauguration as President, the first Catholic president in USA, in January 1961, when I heard him say: “Ask not what the country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” My second idol: Bishop Fulton Sheen, whom I heard preach at the lovely Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is almost in front of our Dominican House (in front is the Catholic University of America). I learned so much from Bishop Fulton Sheen the greatest preacher and best Catholic televangelist I have known: When you preach, he said, do not sit, for you do not start a fire while sitting! (Fulton Sheen is now a Venerable. I pray he will be beatified soon, and later canonized).
I was ordained priest on June 14, 1962, at the Church of Saint Dominic in Washington DC. We were 11 ordained Dominican priests: three from our Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary (Spain) and eight from the Dominican Province of St. Joseph (USA). During the ordination I felt wonderful but numbed. (By the way, in the noviciate we were 39; Spanish co-novices ordained: 16). I always remember the words from our ordaining Bishop Russell when he presented to me the Book of the Gospels. (These same words were first addressed to me – some months earlier, when I was ordained Deacon, but then did not touch me): “Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you now are. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.” After the ordination, I felt good but also sad: I had no family there, only a few friends, and some people from the Spanish Embassy in Washington. My first Solemn Mass in my town on June 29, the Feast of our Patron St. Peter the Apostle, was boundless joy!
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