Editor’s note: this is the final instalment in our series of profiles of the men who will graduate from St. Augustine’s Seminary this spring and be ordained to the priesthood for various dioceses.

Growing up next to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Nathan Andrew Siray said there were two choices of what he would do with his life: be a doctor like his dad or a professional snowboarder.

“There was no place for the priesthood in this young boy’s mind,” he said.

But when Siray attended World Youth Day in Paris in 1997, he was inspired by Pope John Paul II to deepen his faith.

“I remember coming home thinking I was going to be a more zealous Christian soul,” said Siray. “But then high school came and I decided, ‘Well, let’s just have fun.’ Religion can wait.”

The winner is... Twelve-year old Agustin Andres Villegas is undecided if he should be an artist or an archeologist when he grows up. Meantime, we sure do dig his drawing.

Villegas’ portrait of the Resurrection is the colourful image we selected to grace the cover of The Register’s 2011 Easter edition.

It was one of 370 entries submitted to the children’s Easter drawing contest conducted by The Register and Joseph’s Inspirational Inc.

TORONTO - Ann Perron, the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s director of education, announced her retirement on April 14.

During her tenure, Perron’s accomplishments have included the “implementation of a balanced and sustainable multi-year budget plan, a review of school board governance and the initiation of a three-year pastoral plan to ‘Nurture our Catholic Community Through Word, Worship and Witness,’ ” the TCDSB said in a statement.

Perron began her career as a teacher with the board in 1983. She taught in elementary and high schools and also worked as an elementary school principal. She has served as the provincial co-ordinator for the Institute for Catholic Education. From there, she became a superintendent with  the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.

Perron also served as strategic advisor to the deputy minister of education in 2008. Perron returned to the Toronto board to take on the director of education role in  March 2009.

The board is seeking a new director of education for September.

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LONDON, Ont. - Sauro Camiletti has been appointed the new academic dean at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario.

Effective July 1, the appointment follows an intense international search and a broad consultative process within the King’s community.

“It is a great privilege to serve as a leader in an academic community that is recognized for the quality of its degree programs, the teaching ability and scholarship of its faculty, its Christian values and the services it provides its students,” said Camiletti.

Hezuk Shroff says he has been blessed with not one, but two vocations.

Born in Calcutta, India, in 1971, Shroff was raised in the Zoroastrian religion. When he came to Canada to attend McGill University in Montreal, he discovered the first of those vocations, a conversion to the Catholic faith.

While exploring his faith and the possibility of becoming a religious brother, Shroff was sent to Cebu in the Philippines to do missionary work. It was there he found his second and deeper vocation, a call to the priesthood.

“Father doesn’t have time for us,” said the youth of Cebu, according to Shroff. “Father is too busy running the parish.”

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Press the play button in the centre of the slideshow to view. Use the small icon in the bottom right corner of the player to view in full-screen mode.

Ages 6-8 Part 1

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Ages 6-8 Part 2

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When he was six, Andrew MacDonald blessed himself like a priest following Mass one Sunday. At 31, he is now becoming one.

“The Lord was slowly opening my heart to the reality of the priesthood,” he said.

“I had no idea at the time, but that’s the case.”

God continued to gently lure MacDonald to the priesthood throughout his youth, when he attended a number of retreats in Prince Edward Island, where he was born and raised. Attending public school in a Protestant community, MacDonald was “blown away” by being with so many other passionate Catholics.

Whenever Eric Mah thought of the priesthood in his Grade 9 year of high school, he felt an “enduring sense of peace and joy and consolation.” But he spent more than a decade ignoring this feeling, however, before choosing to follow it.

While studying law in university, Mah was invited by his friend to a Lenten reconciliation service, where he had his first Confession in 15 years.

“After hearing the words of absolution, I remember feeling this huge weight lifted in my heart,” said Mah.

He was later asked by another friend to visit the seminary

Ante Market can still remember hearing gunshots from his childhood home in a violent Toronto neighbourhood. This didn’t stop him from also hearing the call to the priesthood at the age of seven.

Market’s parents and their Croatian heritage, he says, gave him a solid grounding in the faith at a young age. His mother died only three years after his father did, when Market was 18. He says their influence and prayers are why he felt the call to the priesthood.

“(My mother) never shared with me who she was always praying for,” said Market. “I am convinced that the silent prayer of my mother is the reason why, God willing, I will be a priest.”