Aristotle Quan

Hello dear Filipino community I want to first thank you all for your prayers. Your prayers truly mean a lot to me and I will need them for my vocation. I want to take the time to talk a little about myself and how my vocation came about. Hopefully this will shed some light on who I am and where my vocation came from. My name is Aristotle Quan and my mother was the one who named me. She wanted her son to have a strong name. I am now 20 years old and will be 21 on December 12. I was born in Fountain Valley, California. God blessed me with an amazing family consisting of two wonderful older brothers and two loving parents. I was never a religious person in high school and really did not believe that God was real. My mom always was the one running after all her children, telling all of us to pray and go to mass. However, I had no idea that my life would change, after going to Jerusalem. My family went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem a year ago. My life completely changed and it was as if God revealed Himself to me. He made me aware of His presence and I was never the same after those 10 days of peace, happiness, and joy. When our pilgrimage to Jerusalem was over I came back on fire and in love with God. But, as most teenagers are I lost my fire and was living a lie. I knew God was real, but I still did not have a true conversion of heart. God gave me the grace to read books which I hated to do before. The first book I ever read was Medujorje: The Message by Wayne Weible. After reading this book it was as if my life changed again and I began to hunger for truth. After finishing that book I began to read more and more and I was discovering what God wanted from me. I slowly began to change internally and began to read the lives of Saints to understand and try and imitate there examples. God did something very special to me during this transformation. He slowly took away my love of this world and made me love spiritual things and at the same time showing me the greatness and sweetness of Himself. I would not enjoy going to the movies, but would love to sit and pray. I would begin to do spiritual things and not understand why. God revealed to me secrets that were about the meanings of life and I was completely blown away at these truths. An event that truly changed my life was on November 1, 2008 on all Saints day. I woke up feeling the love of God. It was as if my body was inflamed by a fraction of His divine love and I could have died of joy if it was any more. I was so incredibly happy and joyful and I just knew that what God had in store for all of us was something that we could never comprehend in this life. After that day I begin to continue on with my conversion. I began to pray every day, fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, go to monthly confession, and read the bible every day. After doing those things I truly began to transform. The moment I knew that God was calling me was when I was sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I was in a spiritual battle interiorly and God said something to me. He said, “Aristotle I have shared with you all these secrets and have given you many graces, because I have chosen you to share my love with others.” “My child I have chosen you to be a witness of my love and I have chosen you to be a priest for all.” “Do not be afraid because I am with you.” At first I fought this thought and said that there was no way that I would be a priest. How could I be a priest? An unworthy sinner who is far from perfect. I told God that I wanted to have a girlfriend and Marry and then God said to me that my reasons for wanting a girlfriend were not for the best and that he has chosen me to do something greater. I share this story with you all to share my experiences with God tremendous mercy. God is love and I am so grateful and incredibly blessed to have this vocation. I love you all and I thank you for your support. God bless.