PHILADELPHIA — Former Charlotte resident Leo Tiburcio, a seminarian studying for the priesthood with the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) in Philadelphia, was ordained a transitional deacon May 26 at the Miraculous Medal Shrine.
He was ordained by Bishop Alfonso Cabezas, CM, bishop emeritus of Villavicencio, Colombia.
“Vincentians are called to go out into the poor, to be humble, to be modest and to be zealous missionaries,” said Vincentian Father Emmet Nolan, formation director. “Vocation is born within the womb, and being ordained at the Miraculous Medal Shrine signifies how Mary always manages to manifest herself within the poor. In a time when the world has lost its way, Mary reveals herself through the seminarians that we are always very close to her heart.”
Tiburcio was vested with the deacon’s vestments of a stole and dalmatic – the same hand-made dalmatics first worn by the deacons at the canonization Mass of St. Catherine Labouré in 1947. St. Catherine Labouré was a novice with the Daughters of Charity, a religious order founded by St. Vincent de Paul, when she received the apparitions of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, during which the Blessed Mother asked that the medal be widely distributed.
Originally from Cholula Puebla, Mexico, Tiburcio grew up and worked in Charlotte until 2009, when an encounter with the Vincentians at his parish grew into a call to enter the seminary and begin formation to enter the order.
Deacon Tiburcio is pictured (front row, second from left) with Vincentian Father Stephen Grozio, provincial for the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission; Bishop Edward M. Deliman, Archdiocese of Philadelphia; Bishop Alfonso Cabezas, CM, bishop emeritus of Villavicencio, Colombia; Bishop Timothy Senior, Archdiocese of Philadelphia; Vincentian Father Emmet Nolan, formation director of the Theologate; and fellow newly-ordained Deacons Luis Romero, Noe Ramirez and Anthony Raymundo.
— Danielle Ferrari