It is a match made in heaven.

At the invitation of Bishop William K. Weigand, Bishop Joseph J. Madera, known for inspiring others to dedicate their lives to God, will serve as director of the diocese’s house of discernment and formation for young men in Sacramento.

Bishop Madera, a member of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, is unpacking his well-traveled boxes and bags at St. John Vianney House for pre-seminary students, located next to St. Anne School in the Meadowview area.

The energetic 76-year-old bishop may be still locating the light switches in his new home, but in the days since his arrival he already has begun to make his presence felt among six student residents from Colombia and Mexico.

“These men have the inspiration to follow God,” Bishop Madera said in a recent interview with The Herald. “To channel and orient them is very important.”

The bishop relishes the opportunity to provide spiritual direction to young men who are learning English in preparation for entry into American seminaries.

“A man is what his ideas are,” he said. “My role is to clarify ideas and then present the positive side of the priesthood.”

A prayer service and dinner to welcome Bishop Madera, attended by Bishop Weigand and Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Garcia, was held at St. John Vianney House on Oct. 3.

Bishop Madera will be continuing work begun when St. John Vianney House was opened in 1998 by its founder Father James Murphy, currently rector of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and co-director of vocations for he diocese.

The home for seminary students was temporarily closed in 2003.

Following Bishop Madera’s retirement Sept. 15 from his most recent assignment as Auxiliary Bishop of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, he put aside assignment invitations from two other bishops to take the job in Sacramento.

“What moved me was the thought I would be working in formation,” said Bishop Madera, who is a distant cousin of Bishop Garcia, with whom he shares a long friendship and common birthplace in San Francisco.

Another of the bishop’s Sacramento relatives is his cousin, Sister of the Blessed Sacrament Leonor Gomez, a teacher is at St. Peter School in Sacramento.

Bishop Madera’s family left California when he was three and moved to Mexico where he was raised. He recalls discovering his own vocation in the priesthood when he was attending high school in Jalisco and made a trip to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

“I visited the Blessed Mother and then asked her to guide my life,” Bishop Madera said. “Two months later I was in the seminary.”

Bishop Madera smiles at the memory of beginning of his seminary experience.

“I thought everyone in seminary was a saint,” he said. “Then I had a fist fight the first day.”

It seems being “called names” one too many times while “doing a bad job” playing in a soccer game had predictable results.

From that day forward Bishop Madera, who was ordained in 1957 for parish work in Mexico, focused his energy in a more positive direction toward serving God.

His first assignment in the United States was in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he worked for 15 years, much of the time spent in youth ministry. He served as bishop of Fresno from 1980 until 1991, when he began his appointment as Auxiliary Bishop of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services.

His military service work included three years in Germany as vicar general for military bases in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Throughout his years as a priest, Bishop Madera has given numerous retreats and missions to religious communities and diocesan clergy and has been a lecturer on pastoral Spanish at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.

He heads the military archdiocese’s pastoral support department, working particularly with Hispanics in the U.S. military.

Fluent in four languages — Italian, Portuguese, English and Spanish — Bishop Madera is already enjoying informal conversations in Spanish with this new group of seminary students who he engages with fatherly grace and quick humor.

He is with them to celebrate daily Mass in the home’s chapel and when they come together for prayer, meditation and meals.

Bishop Madera plans to create opportunities for the pre-seminarians to observe priests and bishops at work in the diocese as well as to experience parish life.

“We want to put them where there is a gathering of people of faith so they can discover the richness of themselves to the people of God,” he said, adding with some paternal pride, “There is a good spirit among them.”

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