Angelus News | June 4, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 11

Patrick Ayala
Age: 28
Hometown: Santa Clarita
Home parish: Our Lady of Peace,
Santa Clarita
Parish assignment: Santa Clara,
Oxnard
Like many others about to take
this step, Patrick Ayala has a lot
of people to thank for getting
him to this point, especially his mother
and father, who “raised me in the
faith.”
But, like so many, he’s also thankful
for those people who appeared, seemingly
at random, during a critical moment
in their lives. In Ayala’s case, that
person came in the saving presence
of Sister Sarah Goggin, SSMO, who
helped deliver that faith back to him.
Ayala first thought seriously about
the priesthood when he was just in the
fourth grade at St. Ferdinand School
in San Fernando.
priests visited the school to engage
kids in community services like
preparing food for those in need. “I
looked at that and said, ‘I would love
to do this for the rest of my life.’ ”
But childhood can be a trying, sometimes
brutal time in a person’s life. It
was for Ayala, who experienced bullying,
who had come to believe that he
“didn’t have any hope or chance or
any friends.” Things were so desperate
that it caused him to first question
his faith and then to stop practicing
altogether.
It was at this point that Sister Sarah
appeared, ostensibly as his social justice
religion teacher, but in actuality,
Deacon Ayala making his profession of faith and oath of
freedom before priestly ordination.
Ayala with his father, Patricio, and Sister Sarah Goggin, SSMO.
“I remember my fourth-grade teacher
teaching us how to pray in class, meditating,
and taking time after lunch
to close our eyes and do a little bit of
contemplative prayer,” he said. “With
my mom raising me in the faith every
night, teaching me to say the Our
Father, I started to hear the call.”
The call grew stronger whenever
as someone who would remind him of
his great worth to God and others.
“She saw a child that was seen
as nothing, that I was not going to
amount to anything,” Ayala said. “She
saw something special in me. From
that first day I encountered her, she
helped build me up, she brought
me back into the faith, she had me
confirmed. She introduced prayer,
reintroduced service and that tug was
still there. I have enormous gratitude
toward this sister who helped me and
who gave this kid who was told he was
never going to amount to anything
confidence and strength.”
And now, at what is no doubt a critical
moment in so many people’s lives,
he wants to be there as Sister Sarah
was for him.
“A lot of churches are struggling right
now. Schools are struggling, and families
are struggling. But as this crisis,
God willing, passes soon, we want to
be there to help rebuild, to help invite
people to come back to the Church
and to continue those efforts that a lot
of priests have been doing during this
time, to bring that hope, to remind
them that, yes, things happen in life,
but Christ is eternal, and he will
continue to remain here, regardless
of the circumstances and situations. I
want to bring that message of hope to
them.”
ÁN
June 4, 2021 • ANGELUS • 11