The Official Newspaper of the Diocese of Little Rock
TEXARKANA — Robert Cigainero’s vocational journey began at an early intersection of faith and community, but exactly when appears to be something of a local controversy.
Moments after witnessing her youngest child’s ordination to the diaconate, Robert’s mother Jackie relayed a story from his second-grade year.
“It was around the time of his First Communion,” Jackie recalled. “His Sunday school teacher, Carolyn Elliot, told me that she saw something in him and said he would be a priest one day.”
This came as some surprise to Robert, who had never heard the second-grade story and didn’t tell his mother or father, Mike Cigainero, that he had decided to follow a vocation until his eighth-grade year. However, the thought of others taking note of his spiritual potential didn’t surprise him — when you grow up in his Texarkana parish, the term “faith family” takes on a whole new meaning.
“St. Edward isn’t like a lot of parishes,” he said. “Many of the families who are there today are the same families who founded the church and the Cigainero family is one of them. I received all the sacraments here and a lot of the people at my ordination were there at my baptism. We’re very supportive of one another.”
Predictably, Cigainero’s diaconate ordination Mass was packed May 25. Joining his parish and birth families were a large number of seminarians, deacons and priests filling the first few pews. Their presence greatly enhanced the event, Cigainero said.
“I’ve been praying with these guys for years already and we have had so many conversations, where we allow ourselves to be completely vulnerable,” he said. “People have no idea the bond that guys form in the seminary.”
In his homily, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor’s remarks built on the faith family theme, stressing to Cigainero the daily mission of loving others as his own.
“Robert, you stand before us today eager to commit yourself to a life of sacrificial love,” Bishop Taylor said. “By promising celibacy, you sacrifice many good things … But for many of us the bigger sacrifice is the promise of obedience, which involves the sacrifice of our will and involves much more than just going where I assign you. Obedience has to do with what goes on inside your heart.
“It flows from your gift of self to the Lord, so the obedience which you promise today is that of a listening, loving heart … (We) gather today to formalize your response to the call of Jesus and his Church, committing yourself to a life of sacrificial love — loving others as Jesus has loved you. Sacrificially, completely, to the death.”
The significance of the moment broke through during the Litany of Supplication. Visibly emotional as he arose from a prostrate position before the altar, Cigainero wept as the bishop laid his hands on him and then helped him to his feet — a physical gesture profoundly symbolic of the unwavering support Cigainero received from so many to get to this day.
“How best to explain it?” Cigainero said. “It just finally hit me when I was prostrate that after the Lord had been calling me for such a long time, it was finally here. I was laying down my life for the Lord and his Church. I was humbled; it was very powerful.”
The 27-year-old Cigainero will spend the summer at Immaculate Conception Church in North Little Rock before returning to St. Meinrad Seminary for his final year of studies. He is scheduled to be ordained a priest May 31.
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