Fr. James Cervantes, MIC

Director of the Association of Marian Helpers
Quezon City, Philippines

First Vows: 8/15/2007
Final Vows: 5/31/2010
Priestly Ordination: 5/28/2011

Previous assignments:
Shrine of Divine Mercy, El Salvador, Mindanao, Philippines
House of Formation, Davao, Mindanao, Philippines

Do you have a devotion to a particular Saint?
I do have a great love for St. Faustina. She is an amazing saint in her humility and simplicity, yet deep love for God and desire to proclaim His Mercy and save souls. She has been my constant 'assistant' in giving retreats and conferences.

I use so much of her Diary to explain and support what the Church teaches. I hope and pray that she will become a Doctor of the Church.

Do you have a favorite story from your ministry?
God is so merciful! In the first year of my priesthood, I was hearing confessions of an elderly man. He spoke only Visayan, and I only spoke English. So I was listening to him. After he confessed his sins, I gave him a small prayer card with the Divine Mercy Image. I said in very simple English, "Look at His heart, it's full of love and mercy. Open your heart and allow His mercy to go inside." This man started to cry. He started to weep so strongly he was shaking and was wiping his face with a handkerchief. I gave him absolution. The man walked away.

The next person sat down, but I could still see this man weeping. After all the confessions that day, I thanked the Lord for this man's confession. This man was able to experience God's mercy for the first time in many years. It’s amazing how the Lord brought him to the Shrine of Divine Mercy and even to the confessional. And despite the language differences, God's mercy came through.

Favorite quote from the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska?
There are so many. But one that has stayed with me for some time is:

My life at present flows on in peaceful awareness of God. My silent soul lives on Him, and this conscious life of God in my soul is for me a source of happiness and strength. I do not look for happiness outside the depths of my soul in which God dwells; of this I am aware. I feel a certain need to share myself with others. I have discovered a fountain of happiness in my soul, and it is God. O my God, I see that everything that surrounds me is filled with God, and most of all my own soul, which is adorned with the grace of God. Already now, I will begin to live on that on which I shall live for all eternity. (Diary, 887)

Favorite prayer to Our Lady?
The Rosary.

His story:
James was five years old, and had just started kindergarten. After school he noticed a classmate going home with an older brother.

"I thought, 'Wow, that's so cool. He gets to go home and go play basketball or baseball and games with his brother.' That's like a forever friend," he recalls. Without hesitation, he asked his mom if he could have a brother.

"I want someone to play with at home," he told her. "I don't have anyone here."

The following year, on May 29, the day after James' birthday, he got the gift he wanted: a brother.

Well, his brother wasn't quite what James had in mind. Not yet learned in the biological tenets of procreation, James had hoped he'd get an older brother.

"Wait, he's so small," he thought. "He can't play. He doesn't do anything!"

As soon as his brother gained hand-eye coordination, James was teaching him to throw a ball and even play chess. "I had someone to play with," Br. James says. "He was my best friend. It was so much fun."

At the age of 15, Jerry was diagnosed with cancer. His illness prompted James' parents, Oscar and Yolanda, immigrants from the Philippines, to pray the Rosary, to pray the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy, to pray intensely for Jerry's healing. James, hitherto unpracticed in prayer, joined them. Prayer was the only thing he could do, so he did it, out of love for his brother, and out of desperation.

Jerry died in October 1999.

Some people might be inclined to get up off their knees for good. After all, God didn't seem to answer all those prayers. But for James, 26 years old at the time, his conversion had begun.

"I accepted his death as God's will," he says. "And then I just felt a hunger to know God more."

A few months later, James quit his job as a computer programmer. He felt a calling to the religious life. He was advised to pray on it more. So he did. He was invited to teach CCD at his parish in Rowland Heights, California. Through teaching, he delved more deeply into the Catholic faith. Just to confuse things, he met a girl. They dated. They loved each other. The choice soon became clear: Either propose to her or answer the Lord's calling to the religious life.

Providentially, during a trip to northern California to visit his grandmother, James attended Mass and met Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, the Marians' vocations director whose conversion story has inspired many vocations. Father Calloway was in town to give a talk. James wondered that day if God was calling him to the Marians.

Two weeks later, he received a sign in the affirmative. Not knowing that James had met Fr. Donald, one of the Confirmation teachers James worked with handed him a DVD. It was Fr. Donald's powerful conversion story.

"I watched it and thought, 'Wow, this guy's amazing."

He knew God was leading him to the Marians. That was further confirmed when he learned he was one of three men from the same part of California, all of whom were inspired in their vocations by the work of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary who run a parish in Hawaiian Gardens, a gangland section outside of Los Angeles.

One of the men, now Fr. Angelo Casimiro, MIC, also came from a Filipino heritage.

James joined the Marians in 2005. He was ordained in 2011, and now serves in the Philippines.

Publications:
Divine Mercy in Our Souls: Thoughts of St. Faustina

More on Br. James:
Ordained!
Br. James Cervantes: What God Has Taken, What He Has Given
Deacon James’ Answer to God’s Call
Familiar and Foreign
His ‘Great Gift from God’
Present and Accounted For