Asking Catholics of California’s central coast to “work with me, minister with me, collaborate with me, build with me and love with me,” Bishop Richard J. Garcia was installed as the fourth bishop of Monterey during a multilingual Mass Jan. 30.

More than 1,700 people gathered in the Monterey Conference Center to welcome their new shepherd and participate in a festive liturgy radiant with color and multicultural tradition.

The ceremony included songs by a choir of more than 100 people with trumpets blaring, liturgical dancers carrying incense in procession, and prayers of the faithful offered in seven different languages.

Joining in the celebration were 40 archbishops and bishops, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, who presided at the Mass, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop George H. Niederaurer of San Francisco and Bishop William K. Weigand of Sacramento.

More than 200 priests attended from Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Dioceses of Monterey, Sacramento and San Jose. Ten representatives from each of the Monterey Diocese’s 46 parishes also attended.

Bishop Garcia, 59, was a Sacramento auxiliary from 1997 until December, when he was named to replace Monterey Bishop Sylvester D. Ryan, 76, who retired after 14 years as head of the diocese.

He will lead some 200,000 Catholics in Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo and San Benito counties. He is one of 25 active Hispanic Catholic bishops in the United States.

During the more than two-hour Mass, emotion was visible on Bishop Garcia’s face. As he took the pulpit to begin his homily, he departed from his prepared text and asked the crowd, “I’m excited, are you?” The congregation responded with sustained applause.

He stepped into his new role “humbled and grateful” he said, for the presence of so many of his fellow bishops, priests, family and friends at the liturgy. Among those in the assembly were his sister and brother-in-law, Joanne and Daniel Foley from Benicia, his brother and sister-in-law, Bill and Evelyn Garcia from San Leandro, numerous nieces and nephews, and many cousins.

Speaking in English and Spanish, Bishop Garcia said in his homily that a young Hispanic man in the Diocese of Sacramento told him at one of his farewell celebrations that God would be waiting for him in Monterey.

“I have pondered these words time and time again over these past several weeks and have felt them to be words of wisdom, grace, consolation, counsel and love,” he said. “Here in your midst, in this local church, God is waiting for me, I dare say waiting for us all in love.”

Bishop Garcia said he felt a spiritual closeness to the sea and the Monterey Peninsula, referring to verses from the day’s first reading, from Isaiah: “Your heart shall thrill and rejoice because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you.”

“God brings us the abundance of the sea this day,” he said. “God awaits us in the gifts of and by the sea to remember God’s care and compassion for us.”

He said his grandfather, Guillermo, was “a God figure” to him, and took him to Playland at Ocean Beach in San Francisco as a youngster.

“I would walk with him, his hand holding mine and mine his, as we walked on the shore,” Bishop Garcia said. “We would not say much, but just simply look beyond to the vastness of the sea and in our simple ways see God in all before us.”

When he was a child, Bishop Garcia said, his family took “special vacations” to the beach at Pacific Grove. His father would tell the children that the sands there were good for gardening, and the bishop and his siblings would bring boxes of it back to their home in San Francisco.

“That might be another reason God is waiting for me in Monterey – to somehow return the sand,” he said jokingly. “This is the place where I have found God and he has found me.”

The Mass began with a lengthy procession of clergy and ecumenical leaders into the conference center as the choir sang “We Rely on the Power of God.”

In a ceremony of canonical possession at the entrance of the conference center, Cardinal Mahony, metropolitan of the Province of Los Angeles, presented Bishop Garcia to Bishop Ryan, who welcomed him on behalf of the Diocese of Monterey.

Father Peter Crivello, vicar general of the diocese and pastor of San Carlos Cathedral, presented Bishop Garcia with a crucifix and then offered holy water to the bishop, who sprinkled himself and all who were present at the doors of the conference center.

The rite of installation began with Cardinal Mahony greeting the people. “We come to welcome a new shepherd and to continue the great work, the pastoral and spiritual ministries of this great church of Monterey,” he said.

The cardinal then asked Archbishop Sambi to read an English translation of Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter appointing Bishop Garcia as bishop of Monterey. Before reading the letter, the archbishop expressed his good wishes to the people of the diocese.

Following its reading, the pope’s letter was presented to the diocesan consultors and Sister Patricia Murtagh, a Sister of Charity of the Infant Mary, who is chancellor.

Cardinal Mahony and Archbishop Niederauer led Bishop Garcia to the “cathedra,” or bishop’s chair, where he received the pastoral staff from Bishop Ryan as the former bishop of Monterey.

The Mass then proceeded with the Liturgy of the Word, with the first reading from Isaiah (60:1-6) and the second reading from the Acts of the Apostles (17:24-28), the passage from which Bishop Garcia chose his episcopal motto, “In Him, We Live,” when he was ordained nine years ago in Sacramento. The Gospel reading was from John (1:1-10).

To begin the Liturgy of the Eucharist, members of the bishop’s family and representatives from the local church of Monterey presented the offertory gifts of bread and wine as well as other gifts reflecting the cultures of the people of the diocese.

During the Communion rite, Bishop Garcia invited members of the assembly to recite the Lord’s Prayer in their native language.

At an evening vespers service on Jan. 29 in San Carlos Cathedral, Bishop Ryan passed possession of the cathedral to Bishop Garcia by presenting him with a crucifix and sprinkling him with holy water.

Kevin Drabinski, communications director for the Diocese of Monterey, said Bishop Garcia will spend the next few months traveling to each county of the diocese to make pastoral visits to each of the 46 parishes.

His first official visit was to be at a confirmation for several teenagers Feb. 2 at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Pajaro.

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