Fr. Carlos Orozco

I was born in Mexico, the youngest of 5. With four older sisters and the only boy in the house, my parents had a lot of expectations and dreams for me and my future, expectations and dreams that I was happy to try and fulfill as from a very early age I leaned towards a high level of agreeableness.

At the age of 8, my parents decided to move to the U.S. due to the economic crash in our region, and the growing drug cartel violence. I thought I was moving into a country where my hair would turn yellow and I would be eating pizza every day. Now I know I was moving to a country where I would have the opportunity to discover my mission in life.

After a few year's I picked up the language and culture and began integrating myself into the American way of life. In High School, the question begins to emerge: what do I want to do with my future? Always having had an interest in science, I knew I wanted to persue a career in biology.

I graduated high school and had my life planned out. No one told me that if you wanted to make God laugh… you just have to tell Him your plans.

As I juggled college, work, and youth ministry full-time, it became too much. I stopped going to Church to focus on my career goals, and before I knew it my faith began to weaken, and I began to doubt in God’s existence. I would try to pray and ask God to let me know he was there, but the more I prayed the more absent he seemed. That first lent after high school was a real desert, I admitted to myself that God did not exist.

Then Holy Week came. I was at Mass faking my way through the motions. Then, at the washing of the feet, I had an overwhelming experience of God’s grace. As I saw the elderly priest wash the feet of the people, at an instant I had an awareness of God’s love for me, that I was loved, that God was there, and not only that, I felt the urgent need to replace that priest. It wasn’t a curiosity, it wasn’t a possibility, it was a desire deep within me to give my life so that others would experience the very same love and meaning I was experiencing at that moment.

These last five years of ordination have been the most fulfilling of my life.