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Mario Jacobo and Taryn Whittington are on similar paths to the priesthood.
Both men are 37 years old, born 20 days apart, and attend St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana. They followed various career paths until their 30s when they listened to the Lord’s calling to become priests. On May 28 the pair was ordained transitional deacons at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock by Bishop Anthony B. Taylor.
They are expected to be ordained priests in May 2016.
During the bilingual Mass, Bishop Taylor delivered a personal homily standing in front of his bishop’s chair with the two men seated in folding chairs directly in front of him.
“Both of you were raised in deeply Christian homes and the seed of faith in Jesus was planted in you early on,” he said. “Mario, you had the blessing of a very supportive mother who relied on the Lord amid the many challenges she faced raising you as a single parent. Taryn, you on the other hand, had the blessing of being raised in a solid Christian home in which both parents were present, and the even greater blessing of having a father who is the pastor of a Pentecostal church. Taryn, it is a special grace from God that you have a father who can share with you a wealth of pastoral experience as you begin your own life of public ministry in the vineyard of the Lord.”
Whittington said, “I really enjoyed the bishop’s homily. It was very sensitive. It was very personal to sit so close … He didn’t want to speak to us over this great distance. He wanted to make eye contact. I thought he did a really wonderful job.”
Whittington grew up in Scott (Pulaski County) and worshipped in the Pentecostal church where his father was a minister. He converted to Catholicism in 2000 while attending Hendrix College in Conway.
“When I was in college I kind of drifted (away from the Pentecostal faith) for a few years after I graduated high school,” he said.
He earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in philosophy at Baylor University in Texas. He taught philosophy at Malone University in Ohio for several years while discerning his call to the priesthood. He spent time discerning with a religious order, but eventually decided he was called to remain in Arkansas as a diocesan priest.
The Rev. Richard and Regina Whittington sat on the front row with their son.
“I was nervous,” he said of his parent’s acceptance of his ordination. “I didn’t know if it would be hard for them to see me get ordained. They seemed to be very happy there. It in some ways broke the ice.”
In the congregation were Susan and Leon Holmes, members of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Little Rock, who met Whittington through a mutual friend and have been praying for him.
“He is outstanding,” Susan Holmes said. “The diocese has a real gem in him … He is going to make a marvelous priest.”
Whittington, a member of the Cathedral of St. Andrew, will be assigned this summer to St. Edward Church in Little Rock while teaching a philosophy course to seminarians at the House of Formation.
Jacobo became active in St. Clement Church in Calhoun, Ga., after high school. The Spanish-speaking community was growing, but the pastor was not fluent in Spanish. Jacobo attended Masses and other sacraments and translated for the priest. He eventually volunteered as the parish youth minister while working as a manager at a carpet store.
His mother Maria Urtes raised him alone, along with his two sisters.
“I knew in high school (that he wanted to be a priest),” she said. “He liked to go to church and he played the guitar in the youth group at church. That is when I knew…. I feel really happy. It was a gift from God (that he was ordained today).”
He entered St. Joseph Seminary in Covington, La., in 2008 to study for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. While in the seminary, he met Diocese of Little Rock vocations director Msgr. Scott Friend.
“He met my spiritual needs at that moment,” he said. “I knew he spoke Spanish, and I needed to speak to someone in my own language. In the spiritual things, you need to speak in your own language, I think.”
After much prayer, Jacobo transferred to Arkansas in 2011 and joined Our Lady of the Holy Souls Church in Little Rock. Jacobo said his family and pastor, Father Joseph Shaute, who attended the diaconate ordination, have accepted that his calling took away from the Atlanta archdiocese.
The litany when the new deacons lay prostrate and the laying on of hands were the two most important moments of the Mass for Jacobo.
“That was very powerful,” he said. “Something happened. It was one of those feelings I don’t know how to describe.”
