Sidney Pereira made his solemn profession as an Augustinian Recollect saying a resolute yes to follow Christ.
Accompanied by religious and his own family, the Brazilian Sidney Pereira made his solemn profession last Saturday, September 18, in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim (Est. Espirito Santo, Brazil). The religious responded with a resolute yes to the call of God to become an Augustinian Recollect. In the Parish of Nossa Senhora da Consolação, and following the marked ritual, the young man became an Augustinian Recollect for life.
The Prior Provincial of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova, Miguel Angel Hernandez Dominguez, presided the Eucharist and received the religious vows of Sidney. As the rite indicates, during the solemn profession there was the interrogation, the litany of the saints, the formula of profession and the solemn blessing of the professed. Afterwards, the Augustinian Recollect religious embraced the religious.
In his homily, Miguel Angel Hernandez praised Sidney’s courage to be an Augustinian Recollect despite the circumstances of the society. “In a world that preaches the ease of self-sufficiency, sex and pleasures, in a society where having is more than being, a young man from the city of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, in the south of the state of Espírito Santo, listening to the request of Pope Francis, swims against this current and affirms that it is possible to be happy, to be free, following in the footsteps of our Father Saint Augustine and living the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience.”
Sidney Pereira was born in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, was formed in Franca, where he studied philosophy; Colombia, where he did his novitiate and São Paulo, where he studied theology. He currently resides and collaborates in pastoral work in the Parish of São José de Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo.