Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Thank you for welcoming me to the Lexington and Mansfield area Catholic parishes of Resurrection, St. Mary of the Snows, and St. Peter. Working alongside Fr. Miller, our pastor, and Fr. Kevin gives me joy, enrichment, and enthusiasm. I am grateful to be here!
My name is Father Kishore Kottana, the oldest of five children. My brother, my three sisters, and I are two years apart, one from the other. We had a wholesome childhood. As a family, we went to Mass every Sunday.
In India, my great grandparents together with their children, were the first generation of Catholics as converts from Hinduism. My parents are cradle Catholics. French priests of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales congregation came to our native place in the 1870s and introduced us to Jesus Christ and His mother, Mary. They built a beautiful St. Peter church, and my grandfather helped build it.
While grandpa played the harmonium at Mass, my aunts and uncles sang in the choir. It was in Latin and Telugu languages. From our village, in its century and a half of Catholic history, a few hundred of the homegrown boys and girls became priests and religious sisters. Among them are two of my uncles as priests and four aunts and cousins as religious.
My parents gave us a devout upbringing. We were nurtured in family values, went to Sunday Mass and holy days, received the sacrament of Confession, prayed the rosary, and participated in church festivities and Eucharistic adoration.
During my younger years and professional life, there was a continuous tug in my heart, “Come, follow me.” Jesus’ voice gently whispered, “Come, follow Me.” As a teenager and young adult, I was seeking silence and had a longing for God. I spent time in quiet prayer.
In the three and a half decades of living in India, in big cities, a common sight and daily experience was poverty, inequality, and injustice among some peoples. There were hungry people roaming the streets or begging. There were homeless people, the sick, and the dying. There were people also with the dreaded disease, leprosy. There was a pull in my heart, a movement toward compassion, and the loving invitation from our Lord, “Come, follow Me.”
The call to follow Jesus became loud and clear at an eight-day Ignatian retreat. I received the courage and the faith to leave home and family for religious life. Eventually, I left my profession as a submarine refit coordinator at the Indian naval shipyard, and also let go of my treasured scooter as I entered seminary studies.
Living in Rome those seven years, I learned philosophy, theology, and spent lots of time in prayer. After being ordained a transitional deacon in Rome, I came to Toledo, Ohio. In 2009, at Rosary Cathedral, I received priestly ordination, and since then, I have served in Sandusky, Maumee, Tiffin, Sycamore, New London, and Perrysburg.
Jesus says, “Come, follow Me.”
Gratefully,
Fr. Kishore