Father and son’s strong faith culminates with their ordinations
A special Father’s Day feature explores the faith journey of a father and his son, and how their paths led to religious life.
German and Matthew Gonzalez sit and talk in the empty church of St. Bartholomew in Scotch Plains, N.J. They aren’t speaking about anything seemingly important—only of simple memories. German dressing Matthew when he was a child. German setting the table for dinner. The type of memories that only carry weight between a father and his son.
Recently, however, those memories have taken on a different meaning – a grander one. That’s because Matthew is now a parochial vicar at St. Bartholomew, newly ordained. German is a deacon at his parish of St. John Paul II in Perth Amboy, also newly ordained. Ordained in the same month as each other. Cloth and tables mean something very different to them now.
But life has always had a greater meaning for the Gonzalez family. Matthew’s father is from Columbia, his mother from the Dominican Republic, and as he puts it, they “brought their faith back from their home countries.” His memories of childhood are of praying the rosary with his family and church at the center of life.
For German, it was a matter of passing his faith down: “What I was trying to do, is to do what my parents did for me. And my desire for my children was always for them to do the same: to then give that faith to their children. Even though Matthew is not going to have biological children, he can give that faith to his children that he will be serving as a priest.”
In many ways, father and son grew towards vocational life together, stumbled together and picked each other back up. Matthew became increasingly involved in church life, and German would often be the one taking his son and his friends to youth ministry activities, which initially sparked his own calling to the diaconate.
The parents always knew their son had a disposition to the priesthood, even when Matthew lost sight of it. German felt this especially to be true during his son’s Confirmation. It was then that he and his wife presented Matthew in prayer: “We said, ‘Lord, if you’re calling him to be a priest, reveal that to his heart. And if not, reveal that to his heart as well, because whatever he wants to do, we’re there to support him.’
We said, “Lord, if you’re calling him to be a priest, reveal that to his heart. And if not, reveal that to his heart as well…”
That prayer stood strong. Even when Matthew’s doubts towards the priesthood were at their height in high school, that prayer stood strong. Even after he had accepted the call, and was struggling to adjust to seminary life, that prayer stood strong. And German was there to support his son.
Matthew recalls: “When everything was really new to me, I would come to him and say, ‘Dad, I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t know if I can make it through.’ And he would reply, ‘Son, you know nothing in life is easy, no matter what you want to do, there’s going to be challenges.”
German took his own advice when his road to becoming a deacon was seemingly impossible. When he initially considered it 15 years ago, there wasn’t a Hispanic tract to the diaconate, and the calling was subdued. But after moving to Perth Amboy, he spoke with a pastor who asked him if he ever contemplated it. German said, “Yes, but that was 10 years ago!” He nevertheless confirmed his interest, and received a phone call from the Diocese of Metuchen the next day.
The timing was perfect, in a way that neither father nor son could have possibly predicted. The two would end up ordained in the same month, exactly two weeks apart.
When speaking of each other’s ordinations, they both name the Litany of the Saints as one of the most moving moments. German was ordained first, on May 14, and as Matthew watched his father prostrated on the sanctuary floor, any shred of doubt about priestly life vanished.
“I saw a man who gave an example for me to lay down my own life. Seeing him lay down his life for the Church in that way, as I was preparing for the priesthood, was such a huge inspiration for me. I saw that it was really his life that gave so much life for me.”
After the Litany of the Saints, Matthew still had a part to play as a participating deacon: “My father could have chosen anyone to vest him, and he chose me. That had to be one of the most powerful moments, just imagining all the times my father dressed me as a young man, now I’m vesting him as a servant of God for the Church.”
Just imagining all the times my father dressed me as a young man, now I’m vesting him as a servant of God for the Church.
Two weeks after that father-son moment, Matthew had a request for his own ordination. Instead of participating as a deacon in the ceremony, he asked his father to sit with his mother in the cathedral pews. This, their mom-dad moment: to witness together the culmination of their support.
It wouldn’t be long until German would play a more hands-on role, when he assisted in his son’s first Mass at St. John the Evangelist in Bergenfield a day after the ordination. As a professor of Matthew’s remarked to him afterwards, “When your father was up there preparing the altar for you as a priest, I couldn’t help to think of all the moments where as a father he set the table for you.”
For Matthew, those words and that Mass underlined his father’s lifelong service for him. For German, he pondered something else: a question posed to him by some priests who recognized him at the Mass. He recalls them asking: “So what are you going to call Matthew? When you ask for his blessing, are you going to say ‘Son, your blessing’ or are you going to say ‘Father, your blessing’?”
His response: “After reflecting on it, Matthew is my biological son, but now he’s also a spiritual father for me.”
Featured image: Father Matthew Gonzalez and his father, Deacon German Gonzalez, celebrate Mass together at St. Bartholomew Church in Scotch Plains, N.J. on June 5, 2022 (Courtesy of St. Bartholomew Church).
