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My name is Br. Roger Lopez. I've been a friar for
six years.
I was interested in priesthood from the very beginning, I'd say probably in high
school.
I kind of got cold feet and I said to God, "Well, you know,
Lord let me, give me two years, let me go to college and kind of have my, my
fun and then I'll come back and
I'll be a priest. Two years became four years and four years became six years
and
six years became eight years. And
something clicked. And it was God,
kind of in retrospect saying, "You, I called you a long time ago
and you told me wait. I want to let you know
Roger, I'm still waiting." So I began this journey. I looked at diocesan priesthood
again and
for me something had changed and I started looking into
religious life and that was through the internet and
I came to these friars and, and something clicked.
We use the term fraternity to describe our kind of our relationship
and which can give a false image because you think of college
fraternities.
The concept of fraternity is,
it's a life together and
it's a relationship that you enter into with
people that you see as brothers. What becomes,
I think, one of the best expressions of the fraternity
is when you're hurting. Whether you receive horrible news
or you're going through some type of dry spell and the brothers are there
for you,
with you, to help you in those times
as a true brother. Our age has many challenges.
And I think one of them is
one of the challenges is authentic relationships or genuineness.
I think as Franciscans
we can provide that. What you see
is really what you get.