News

Juan Manjarrez will be first priest from IC in 78 years

Published: June 18, 2011   

By Maryanne Meyerriecks
Fort Smith Correspondent

Karen Schwartz

Deacon Juan Manjarrez distributes Communion during his diaconate ordination May 21 at the Fort Smith Convention Center. He spent his pastoral year at St. Theresa Church in Little Rock.

Karen Schwartz

Deacon Juan Manjarrez distributes Communion during his diaconate ordination May 21 at the Fort Smith Convention Center. He spent his pastoral year at St. Theresa Church in Little Rock.

FORT SMITH -- When Juan Manjarrez was ordained to the diaconate May 21, the first diocesan transitional deacon from Immaculate Conception Church since 1933, the parish had to rent Fort Smith Convention Center to accommodate the crowds of worshippers.

More than 400 parishioners and friends attended Manjarrez' bilingual ordination Mass, celebrated by Bishop Anthony B. Taylor and concelebrated by diocesan and religious priests of the Diocese of Little Rock. Manjarrez' 23 fellow seminarians were altar servers. The English choir and the Coro Latino led the music, and the parish life committee, assisted by six parish organizations, hosted the reception following Mass. Two brothers, Jose de Jesus and Rene Manjarrez, served as lectors, and Manjarrez's family presented the gifts.

It was a joyous homecoming for the deacon who first moved to Fort Smith from Guanajuato, Mexico, when he was 11 years old in 1996. Parents Isidoro and Estella Manjarrez recognized their fourth son's love of God and sent him to Subiaco Academy in 10th grade. At Subiaco, Father Aaron Pirrera, OSB, who taught English as a Second Language and served as headmaster, was very influential in his decision to become a priest.

Manjarrez, 26, entered St. Joseph Seminary in Covington, La., and received his bachelor's degree in 2007. He transferred to St. Mary Seminary in Houston for the next two years and spent his pastoral year at St. Theresa Church in Little Rock, working with Father Mark Wood. He will spend his final year before being ordained to the priesthood studying at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana. This summer he will be serving as a deacon at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Rogers.

Before leaving for Rogers, Manjarrez assisted at his first Mass in his home parish May 22.

"The journey to the priesthood has been filled with many great joys and wonderful experiences," he said. "I just finished my pastoral year, which was a great blessing to me and it helped me in so many ways. I have grown so much in all these years of formation. I have made so many wonderful friends who have taught me how to truly love. Moreover, it has been God who has led me throughout all the wonderful times and difficult moments in my formation."

With other seminarians, Manjarrez went on a one-week Holy Week retreat at Subiaco Abbey, directed by Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB. While on retreat, he reflected on the final step before ordination to the priesthood. 

"I am excited, contented and at peace," he said. "It's an important step in my life."

Manjarrez's youngest brother Rene, a student at University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, said the family is proud and supportive of his brother.

"It's a blessing and an honor and a source of pride for all of us," Rene Manjarrez said. "Not really just a boast but just to know that your parents did something. When we were growing up, I never thought he was going to be a priest, but it's been a surprising blessing."

Deacon Greg Pair, said, "He's an exceptional young man and the Church is so blessed to have him as a deacon and future priest. I hope he will be an inspiration to some of the young men in our parish to consider the priesthood."