Contemplative Haven

Apr 30 2008

Giving and Receiving

Published by gabrielle at 1:01 pm under Careers/Vocations, Happenings, Music, Prayer Request

I was recently contacted by a young man who has discerned a call to the priesthood, and who would like to share his story with all of you. Neven Pesa has been accepted to the Order of Basilian Salvatorian Fathers in Massachussets, U.S.A., a semi-contemplative order of Catholics of the Eastern Rite. Neven currently belongs to the Byzantine Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary in Brooklyn, New York. His personal story was recently featured on the site Catholic Exchange, and you can also read more about Neven’s background/calling at his personal site, A Priestly Vocation.

In order to start his Novitiate in September 2008 he is required to be debt-free, and after a four-year course of study at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, this will be no small task. Neven is working two jobs towards this end, but God has blessed him, and in turn ourselves, with yet another means of achieving his goal.

Neven is a singer/songwriter who records under the name of Shekinah Hosanna; his first CD is available at CD Baby, where you can listen to samples of his tracks. He hopes to have another CD available by this fall, on which he will have the “Hail Mary” in Hebrew as well as another Marian song. Neven has a beautiful voice and is a gifted lyricist. He has also set up a YouTube Channel called ShekinahHosanna in order to let people become aware of his music. Here is one of Neven’s original songs, ”Dear God“, which he has set to scenes from the movie “Bella”. Above all, Neven has asked for our prayers, so please consider supporting him in this way as well as by bringing his beautiful music into your lives. His music is a gift to all of us, as will be his future priesthood.

[Edited to add: Please visit my post of today at Consecrated to Mary for another beautiful song by Neven as well as a glimpse into the role Mother Mary has played in his life.]

7 responses so far

7 Responses to “Giving and Receiving”

# Piaon 30 Apr 2008 at 2:49 pm

beautiful…so moving – music, scenes. WOW
# Laureon 30 Apr 2008 at 5:50 pm

Today is a day when the powerful touch of the Holy Spirit is reverberating throughout the blogosphere, yes?! Thank you for sharing this with your readers, Gabrielle. Many, many thanks!
# C.O.on 30 Apr 2008 at 9:30 pm

Well, I will certainly be praying for this young man.. beyond that, I don’t know, but prayer, indeed.
# gabrielleon 30 Apr 2008 at 10:10 pm

Pia, a powerful combination, isn’t it? I can envision Neven writing and performing the soundtracks for Catholic movies (which I’m sure some of you out there will soon be writing/directing/producing)??? I remember Terry once telling us it was his “dream” to do that.

Laure, I’ve only visited you so far today, but I certainly found the Holy Spirit there!

C.O., thank you for your prayers. I know Neven will appreciate them. But I encourage you to read his story on his website, etc. He is not unfamiliar with the mystical.
# C.O.on 30 Apr 2008 at 11:53 pm

I’ve read it.. actually, 3 times, now (I encountered it elsewhere, too). I guess maybe he doesn’t know that many of us have two or more kids trying to pay off school loans even years after the fact, even after our help, and one trying to get through bankruptcy filings even again after marriage while trying to raise kids. I feel for him — he is between a rock and a hard place, and he is anxious to enter, I do understand.. but he has put his deadline onto others, hasn’t he? In all honesty, there are folks on my list ahead of him.. not least of all a good fellow in Sierra Leone, and a padrone in Italy (his two sisters work with the destitute in a village there), Casa Juan Diego, Karim (and a shrine church in Mary’s honor) in Lebanon, and so many CNEWA projects in Iraq.. My little money can’t do much for an American seminarian, but prayer.. well, that’s a wonderfully unpredictable kettle of fish. His music is indeed beautiful, tho’.
# ukokon 01 May 2008 at 9:47 am

I’ve never seen the movie ‘Bella’..my goodness, istening to Neven’s beautiful music and watching those scenes had the tears rolling in no time at all!

Beautiful…Neven will be in my prayers.
# gabrielleon 02 May 2008 at 9:18 am

C.O., I understand what you’re saying, and I’m sure Neven would too; his family emigrated from Croatia and as he mentions in is bio, he is the first of his family to ever graduate from college, so no doubt he has experienced/seen difficult times too. But I am certain, from his emails, that I could say on his behalf that your prayers are worth their weight in gold to him.

As I watched the EWTN special yesterday on St. Louis de Montfort and learned that they called him the “vagabond troubador”, it made me think of both Neven (not that he’s a vagabond) and also John Michael Talbot, and then by accident, I came across an article from just a few days ago that said that John Michael Talbot’s community had a huge fire, and their chapel and hermitage burned down.

Ukok, on Neven’s behalf, thank you for your prayers, and I know what you mean – I experienced the same thing and kept running for tissues.