When Angelo Centeno, a senior at St. Xavier High School, enters the Catholic Church this Easter, he will be one step closer to answering a vocational call to join the Xaverian Brothers.
Though his family isn’t Catholic, Centeno said he has long identified with the church.
“I always knew I wanted to be Catholic. It was just a matter of when and how,” he said.
Centeno, a catechumen, will receive the sacraments of baptism, Eucharist and confirmation during the Easter Vigil, March 30, at St. Martin de Porres Church. He is one of more than 350 people in the Archdiocese of Louisville planning to enter the Catholic Church this spring.
“I’m so overjoyed that it’s official,” he said. “I’m in disbelief.”
He also called it a “miracle,” noting that his life hasn’t been easy.
“After I’ve been baptized and made new, I’m looking forward to a new transfiguration internally,” he said. “This will be a new chapter in my life.”
Centeno, who graduated from Nativity Academy at St. Boniface, said the seeds of his vocation started taking root when he became a St. Xavier High School student and learned about the Xaverian Brothers’ charism and service.
He noted that Xaverian spirituality calls for individuals to give the gifts they’ve received. When he became a student at St. Xavier, Centeno said he felt as if the “gifts were pouring in. … I’ve been given so many gifts — the gift of Catholic education, the gift of love, the gift of community and the gift of religion,” he said.
This prompted him to ask, “How can I give these gifts back to the world?”
Centeno said his greatest desire is to serve.
“I’ve always had a heart for giving and a heart for serving. The act of servicing others has always been instilled in me,” he said. “My grandmother had a heart for giving. Through her teachings and her giving, I picked up on it.”
Last year — following a retreat and a conversation with a brother serving in Africa — Centeno said his vocation grew stronger.
“That’s when I knew I was going to become a brother and that I was going to Africa,” he said, noting he’s always had a deep connection to different cultures and languages. He taught himself Swahili, a language widely spoken in East Africa. He attends St. Martin de Porres’ Swahili Masses and practices by speaking to parishioners who are natives of Africa, he said.
The Xaverian Brothers have been serving in East Africa for seven decades, according to the order’s website, xaverianbrothers.org.
Following his graduation this spring, Centeno said he will travel to Bungoma, Kenya, where the brothers have a high school. He will spend the summer immersing himself in the language and culture and meeting the “people who need to be served,” he said.
He also hopes his vocation to religious life will inspire the youth, he said.
“It’s a sign that God is always working and that religious life is still alive. I’m hoping my vocation will show young men and women that this is something you can still do,” Centeno said.
The support he’s received from the Xaverians in the U.S. and in Africa and from the Catholic community in the Archdiocese of Louisville has helped strengthen his vocation, Centeno said.
M. Annette Mandley-Turner, executive director of the archdiocese’s Office of Multicultural Ministry, is part of that community supporting Centeno’s faith journey.
Mandley-Turner is his confirmation sponsor.
She said she met Centeno when he and his classmates attended a “Symposium on Racism,” sponsored by the archdiocese last year.
“I was looking for the voice of the students. I invited him to present for his group and after hearing him speak I said, ‘This kid is special,’ ” Mandley-Turner said.
She noted that his story resonated with her because she, too, entered the Catholic church as a teen.
Unlike many teens, Mandley-Turner said Centeno’s “understanding of his relationship with God is so profound. … His belief is a common thread throughout whatever the conversation is and whatever he’s doing.”
After his graduation from St. X and his summer in Africa, Centeno plans to study theology at Thomas More University, a Catholic university in Crestview Hills, Ky.
