By Florida Catholic staff - Florida Catholic
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
Rudy Gomez, a graduate of Immaculata La Salle High School in Miami, was among 22 young women and men commissioned by the Salesians of Don Bosco as Salesian lay missioners. He will spend a year working in a Chicago parish.
Salesian Father Thomas Dunne, provincial superior of the New Rochelle Province, presided over the commissioning Mass.
Gomez and another Salesian volunteer will serve at St. John Bosco Parish in Chicago, a predominantly Hispanic parish. They’ll be engaged in the youth ministry program, including teaching religion, English as a second language, and computation skills.
Gomez is the son of Rudy Gomez and Ana Diaz. He and his mother are members of Blessed Trinity Parish in Miami Springs. Rudy earned a degree in communications from Florida International University.
Already familiar with the Salesians because of his high school experience, he was attracted to the possibility of bringing his faith and service together in the context of a Salesian parish.
He said he believes that he’s called “to do more than just work after college” and that “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
The Salesians of Don Bosco are the second-largest congregation of religious men in the Catholic Church. They serve the young, the poor, and mission populations through academic and trade schools, universities, youth centers, hospices, orphanages, parishes, mission stations, medical clinics, the media, and other ministries in 136 countries around the world.
Since 1981, some 350 participants in the Salesian lay missioners program have served for periods of one to three years alongside the Salesians, the Salesian Sisters, or affiliated groups in about 35 different countries.
