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Confirmation Retreat to Catholic Tech Innovator with Jerome Placido
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Join us as we sit down with Jerome Placido from San Jose, California, who shares his riveting journey from childhood in the Philippines to becoming a beacon of faith and inspiration in the Catholic community.
Jerome’s story takes a poignant turn as he recounts the challenges of growing up with a single mother and the internal battles he faced regarding the church’s teachings on marriage and purity. His life takes a dramatic shift during a confirmation retreat, where he encounters a supportive community and begins to experience God's love in a way he never imagined.
Finally, learn about Jerome’s transition back to society after a period of religious life, his academic pursuits, and the rekindling of a friendship that blossoms into a meaningful romantic relationship. Discover how his faith and spiritual practices have played an integral role in his marriage and family life. Jerome also shares his involvement with the Catholic tech company Tabella, where he combines his ministry and tech background to help people connect with God through the sacraments. This episode is a compelling exploration of faith, resilience, and the guiding hand of divine providence in Jerome's life.
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Welcome to yes Catholic, where real people share their real stories and discover God's grace at work in their lives. I'm your host, David Patterson, and every week we bring you inspiring guests who share how they came to say yes to Jesus and his church. Let's dive into their journeys of faith and see how grace is transforming lives in our world today. Really excited tonight to welcome Jerome from Tabela. Welcome, Jerome. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story. Hey David, Thanks for having me. Absolutely so for those who don't know you, why don't you share a little bit about yourself before we get to know you more with the rapid?
Speaker 2fire. Yeah, yeah, sure. So my name is Jerome Placido. I am coming from San Jose, california, beautiful state of California, regardless what anyone else might say. Yeah, I work for a company called Tabella I know we'll get more into that later Married one kid and just excited to be here.
Speaker 1Let's get to know you more with the rapid fire. I'm just going to rhyme off some questions. Ready to go? Yep, let's do it All right.
Speaker 2Describe yourself as a kid. In three words Loud, rambunctious and curious.
Speaker 1Okay, would you say you're a morning person or a night owl?
Speaker 2Normally a night owl, but with Tabela and such a global team actually even the last company I've learned to be a morning person. So I get up like every day at like six now All the different time differences and stuff like that. I should also say, even though it wasn't immediate, which was unfortunate for my wife, I turned into a morning person a few months after having our son. So, yeah, Fair enough.
Speaker 1And what's helped you get up in the morning?
Speaker 2Lots of alarm clocks or yes, yeah, there was one time I even did like an alarm clock that you had to solve some math problems to like turn it off.
Speaker 1What.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was super stressful.
Speaker 1I've done it where I've actually like, sent messages to myself where it's like the time is now to wake up. You need to wake up, go to order at a coffee shop.
Speaker 2Hot oat milk latte with a quad shot.
Speaker 1Okay, I've never had that, but I'm going to try it someday for sure. You should, you should, you should. Right, okay, go to short prayer Going about your day.
Speaker 2Hail Mary, hail Mary, just anytime that I feel anything that's other than peace, or anytime I need a little help. It's just a quick shout out to our blessed mother, and she always helps, asking for mom and Mary's health.
Speaker 1That's great. Okay, if you could have coffee with any saint, who would it be?
Speaker 2This is a good question. So many, so many. But St Francis de Sales is like my spiritual father, so just to get some pointers from St Francis de Sales would be like clutch, very cool. So, intro to the devout life yes, I've read that like four times.
Speaker 1I listened to the audio book like as I'm doing things just like randomly, I'm going to have to do that because I'm in the middle of it right now and it's so good. So much wisdom there, for sure. Okay, if you could ask God one question what would it be?
Speaker 2This one I know it's like super, like this is hard just because there's so many things, but I think it would be. There's a lot that I would ask him like write like God willing, right, like God willing that I enter the gates of heaven. I'm like why'd you do this or this? But like right now it would be what's the one thing I could do to make sure that myself and my family make it to heaven. To like the promise.
Speaker 1All right, man. Well, you flew through the rapid fire. Let's begin with a prayer, and you can't think of a better prayer than asking our lady to intercede. So, if you'll join me in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen, hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, jesus.
Speaker 2Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Journey of Faith and Discovery"
Speaker 1St Francis de Sales. Pray for us In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen, Amen. All right man, let's dive right in. Where's your story begin?
Speaker 2You know, I think it's very important to just for me at least in my story, to understand sort of the circumstances of coming into the world, and it's such a big part of what one struggled with, but one that has been such a source of grace later on in my life. So I was born out of wedlock. I think that was for me the later on in my life. Not realizing this until I was sort of coming into like a maturity, even spiritually, was a big hurdle to sort of like try to reconcile. So, born in the Philippines, but my mom raised me as a single parent in the Philippines. By the grace of God and, you know, the help of family, we migrated to America at the age of three. So I don't know if she planned this or not, but we providentially landed in America on July 4th 1987. So every July 4th we celebrate sort of like our arrival to the United States, right. But one of my earliest memories in the United States was just looking for my dad, wondering who he was. My father had another family in Australia and so he couldn't be with us, right. And so just looking for him and constantly actually looking for that father figure my whole life, and so I grew with these two things.
Speaker 2Right, my family we ended up moving in with aunts, uncles there's a lot of us, a very typical migrant household in America. Right, there was my mom, my aunts, cousins, grandmother, grandfather, in the same house, which was both really wonderful, but also, like, there was a lot happening all the time. One of the things that really happened all the time was prayer. We prayed a daily rosary, went to mass every Sunday, so the you know catholicity of like our family was very embedded into our culture, and so that was very much part of my childhood growing up.
Speaker 2As I grew older and sort of like started to like try to reconcile those things where, like, we're very Catholic and we do these very Catholic things, but I was born in a way that, like, morally, like, we have to say what it is right. It was, sin is right, it was sin, and that really weighed on my heart for so long, for a long time In high school, especially to hold that, to hold these two truths that God is who he is and he's love and he's everything, but to be brought into this world as a result of sin, were two very different things. That took me a long time to reconcile and even just like wondering what, whether or not, like I was supposed to be here right, and whether or not God wanted me to be here.
Speaker 1And what would you say?
Speaker 2you started to kind of have these thoughts around high school. Around high school, it was really just around the time, you know, I started to dive into learning what the church taught about, like moral teachings about marriage and purity and matrimony and the sanctity of life, and all these things were very much bubbling up and like these are all good and holy things and learning God's plan of creation was interesting. But then there's like oh, but here I am and here are the things that brought me into this world, and so, like, around high school it became very hard to sort of like reconcile those two things. I at that same time was invited to a retreat. Actually, I wasn't invited, I was told to go to a retreat.
Speaker 2It was confirmation retreat and I encountered quite, you know, quite a few people who were just really on fire with the faith. They were young and enthusiastic about the faith and I found that curious as well. So as I sort of like started to make friends with some of these people, I started to get involved in ministry as well. In that same time I started to understand sort of you know, god's own compassion and his love for me. But it didn't quite like settle yet, it didn't quite like resolve, at least within me, like this tension that I felt internally of who I was.
Speaker 1What would you say were some of those glimpses of compassion?
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, just at least initially, it was really those, those moments of joy, those internal movements of joy and of love, that overwhelming like sense of like being loved, not necessarily by the group that I was a part of, but simply being in prayer and like being like flooded. Hey, like you are loved. Now, internally still, I still I still saw myself as unlovable right, and so there's still a lot to heal from in that. But you could see early on that he was trying to penetrate my heart with like hey, I love you, but I personally just hadn't encountered the love of a father in that way, that I just wasn't. I didn't know how to receive it, but I still carried that a little bit. But that sort of began like a dichotomy in my life where I was like I was helping in church, I was part of a youth group and I was, you know, helping with retreats and I was teaching catechism and all these things. But then this other part of me, this part of me that just wasn't ready to receive the father's love fully, was out partying and doing all these things and it was like very much a dual lifestyle that I was like living as most I guess conversion stories happen or not. Most maybe mine. Let's just say my conversion story. You know, there was this. There was this really pretty girl. Let's say that there's this girl who I who had caught my eye and I was like wow, she's like really pretty and she's beautiful, but she's also really devout, and it really inspired me and so I tried to like to ask her out and I was like, hey, like you know, like let's we, we ended up planning a, a event together, two different youth groups we were part of two different youth groups and we were tasked to plan a pro-life dinner together, and so we were planning it together and I was like, hey, like let's go together, let's go, you and me, let's go. And she, very politely and you know all in God's time and God's plan I mean spoiler alert I ended up like, much later on, we ended up getting married. That's my wife now, but at that time she said no, she said I'm personally right now discerning religious life and I'm not like pursuing any sort of relationship. And I was like, well, fine, but she said, hey, there's this retreat coming up, and this retreat is like it's super cool, it's about the Eucharist. You should come. All I heard that she was going to be there and that it was going to be a couple days where, like, I could like, maybe spend some more time with her. So I was like, yeah, I'll go to the retreat. And so I ended up going to this retreat and I think that's where a larger turning point for me personally happened.
Speaker 2I remember two things very vividly. One is I encountered, I encountered this group of religious missionaries. It was a religious community that was hosting and organizing the retreat and they were just the brothers were there in their cassock, the sisters were there in full habits, but they were on fire for the faith and I had not encountered that ever, like to see such a radical. These were young men and women who had left their lives to say yes to God and to serve them fully in religious life, and that really piqued my curiosity to see the joy that they had. And then the second was they kept throughout the entirety of the retreat pointing to the Eucharist, saying Jesus is present here, this is where Jesus is, he's made himself available to you, talk to him. And at that retreat they had a adoration chapel that was open the entirety of the time, like middle of the night. You could drop in.
Speaker 2But one night I decided to go and, truth be told, it was for two reasons. One is like I did want to go and the girl is there and so let me go. She wasn't there, it was me and Jesus, right, and so I ended up just spending quite a long time, I remember maybe there for an hour and a half, but when I first got there, I just knelt down at the very front row and like my heart just called out and it was just a way that, like I, it wasn't like words, but it was just like Jesus, if you're there, you know, like Jesus, like let me know, and I think that was the first time that I really experienced and I really like concretely felt his true presence in the Blessed Sacrament. And to think, I mean, that was like I was 20 at the time, I was already in college, I had been receiving, you know, holy Communion and like intellectually knowing that was Jesus in the blessed sacrament, but never really like synthesizing it, believing it in my heart, right, and that was the first time I had experienced, like him just sitting with me, like there there were no words said, there were no, like the lights didn't like turn off. And then a spotlight on me and suddenly, like he and I are just like have it, like I just knew this, like relationship that didn't exist before, right Was just formed, and like that day, just, we just became best friends.
Speaker 2After that retreat I started to to explore, you know, like deepen really that devotion to our Lord and the Eucharist. But it also enkindled in me a curiosity for religious life. It was so radical and so different from everything that I'd experienced in college, just in the world. It really intrigued me and it really interested me. So I ended up joining that religious community and I was part of their. It was a newer community, so the postulancy in Novish it was a little bit longer Because it was a newer community. I had the opportunity and benefit to also travel, just like those other religious missionaries did. So during that time I was in the community for three years and I traveled across all the United States. You know we went to Virginia, washington, new York, texas, oklahoma, california, where I'm from, and just got to, you know, to witness and to serve the church in this beautiful and wonderful way, hosting retreats and meeting with youth and just while maintaining a very strict life of prayer and close bondness of this fraternal community that I'd never encountered before. That time, I think, was very. It was very formative and very changing.
Post-Religious Life Transition
Speaker 2What I had been doing my whole life was praying the rosary. What I learned to do in religious life was to really pray it with my heart. Oftentimes, especially for people growing up in the church, we just learn the motions and we learn to just do as we're told, and in religious life I learned not only to just do it, but I genuinely learned how to pray the rosary right, not just to say the rosary, but to pray the rosary. Now I'm also the only child right my mom never married and so I also learned a fraternal bond with other men, other guys that I'd never really encountered in this way. At college I had guys, my bros right. We got together and we did things, but what I encountered in religious life was a group of men who genuinely cared for the state of my soul and my relationship with Christ and who we would, you know, look out for each other. We would give each other a hard time. It wasn't like all serious, it was a lot of fun, but like we would also call each other out when, you know, we were maybe being a little lazy or not being as diligent as we should be or not being as mortified as we should be. I had never thought before religious life that, hey, you should probably mortify your eyes and immodest scenes on a movie. But that's one thing that I learned how to do in religious life just because of the fraternal corrections of the brothers around me. Right, in the end it also brought a sensitivity to my soul, because now, not a scrupulosity. I think there's a big difference and you, I think there's an importance to like learning the difference with the spiritual director, but being able to like be sensitive to sin, but also the occasions of sin, so that you can, so that you can really do what I think the sacrament of confession draws us to do is to really just avoid sin completely right, and just to like avoid mortal sin, and that sensitivity is what I think helps us to do that. And I really learned that in religious life as well.
Speaker 2In religious life, I ended up going to the Philippines for my novitiate, which was also a great experience. People ask me why I currently right now, I'm just starting to go camping again but my whole thing about like I have an aversion to like the outdoors, like since I came back from religious life. Well, I spent a year and a half in the Philippines, literally in the jungle, like we would rock around barefoot in the jungle. So I felt like I got my a good taste of like the outdoors in the Philippines. But we were in the Philippines for our novitiate and after my novitiate I discerned out with my spiritual director. We decided that religious life wasn't for me. So I came home how was that? You know, I had a good friend. I was so blessed, I'm so lucky.
Speaker 2It really can go two ways coming from a life of, you know, steeped in grace and steeped in just the sacraments. The devil does a special job to like tempt people coming out of that lifestyle. Because, like, the temptation really is like hey, like, now you're free, do whatever you want. And in religious life, I think what a lot of people may not know is like everything is decided for you, which was actually very freeing. Your habit is what you wear. That's decided for you. Your schedule of every hour of the day is already predetermined, right? You're going to wake up at this time, you're going to pray, you're going to do chores, you're going to have lunch, you're going to X, y and Z the whole way through. So that freedom was a little strange, also freeing, but also very scary.
Speaker 2But I had the benefit of some really really good friendships that before even religious life when I came home, those same friends, good friendships that before even religious life when I came home, those same friends. They kept me in check. They were like hey, like don't forget about your prayer life, don't forget about this, don't forget Now. Granted, that wasn't the entirety of the case when I came back, but because of those friendships I did eventually regain my regularity and my spirituality, right, it's sort of like I overcorrected one way with the freedom and then I came to the other way and now I'm back in the middle. So coming back from religious life was a little bit of a culture shock as well. It's like coming out of a time machine. So I'm turning 40 this year. Gosh, I just said that and everyone's going to know now I'm turning 40 this year Because I spent three years in religious life.
Speaker 2I really do feel like I stepped out of a time machine, like time stopped for me, and so when I came back, I think I was like 27 at the time. I really did feel like I was 24. Right, and so I had came back, I had re-enrolled in university and I took a break and I was able to re-enroll in the same program and just pick up where I left off. But everyone else had finished, some people had already gotten married and all these other things that people were doing and I felt just like it's a little bit of a reset, like life moved on and I had to pick up where I left it, right, but I did. I picked it up where I left off. I went back and I continued to pursue my degree in computer science, the University of California Riverside.
Speaker 2One of the other things that happened when I came back was that I had rediscovered my friendship with Ann, the girl who invited me to that retreat. At the time I wasn't at all trying to pick up a relationship with her, for a couple of different reasons. One is I was really just trying to finish school and two is there was just so much other things going on. But I did recognize the special grace that that friendship had brought into my life. It was because of her that I encountered those religious missionaries. It was because of her that I actually even religious missionaries.
Speaker 2It was because of her that I actually even started to go to daily mass frequently, and every time I went to daily mass or every time I went to adoration I would invite her. It just happened to be, sometimes she could, sometimes she couldn't, and and it was a little, it was a little bit of a slow ramp up in that friendship just because, like, she was finishing like her nursing program, I was in school, but little by little we started to spend a little bit more time together. We would go to mass together. You know one thing that I'm really never known how to like talk to like girls are so awkward, right, and so when I finally so if this is a podcast of how not to tell someone that you have feelings, because what I did is we ended up like watching a movie one night After she had left, I sent her a text message and I said, hey, I think I have feelings for you and you know it was by the grace of God. I think that she reciprocated.
Marriage, Family, and Faith Journey
Speaker 1Hey friends, I want to pause for a moment to give a quick shout out to our friends at Tabella. They're a sponsor managing the production of this podcast, so I can keep bringing these powerful stories to you week after week. Join ministry groups, stay connected to your parish and grow in your faith with the best Catholic content, all for free on Tabella. If you haven't checked it out yet, you can download the Tabela app on the App Store or Google Play. You can use it to listen to all your favorite podcasts, like this one, father Mike Schmitz Abiding Together, and more, as well as other exclusive content. You can also use Tabela as a communication tool for your parish or group. If you're interested in activating Tabela in your diocese, parish or group, just head over to wwwtabelaapp to learn more. All right, let's get back to listening to God's grace at work in our world today.
Speaker 2She texted back and she was like hey, and she basically is like hey, like I think that you know she's like basically she said that feelings were mutual, but she also said and this is something that I felt as well that she just wanted time. Right, we wanted to take our time and not just jump right into anything. For a few reasons. I mean, we had a lot going on in our lives, but also I knew, at least, that the next relationship, or any relationship that I entered into, I was going to seriously discern marriage, continuing our friendship, knowing about those things, praying together. And then eventually, you know, we began our courtship and, and you know, we did it in a way that we did the total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary and sort of use that time to like, try to understand whether or not we really wanted to just be together and try to discern marriage. And after that we started dating. Eight months later we got engaged and got married. So we got married in April of 2014.
Speaker 2That whole time, you know, even prior to getting married to her, after coming back from religious life, I had a strong sense that God was calling me to marriage, and so the whole motivation coming back.
Speaker 2And even when I signed up for school, my motivation in my courses and even after graduating, finding a job was everything that I was doing, just like religious life was in preparation for that vocation. How am I going to provide for my family? How is me saying no to this temptation right now going to strengthen me in virtue for that vocation? And so it felt actually really good, after getting engaged, for us to begin that preparation together, because I'd been doing it sort of alone right With this, like God knows who she is. I don't know who she is yet, but I'm going to prepare. But like now that we're engaged, you know, and now that we decided that we're going to approach the altar together, sort of praying together and going to mass together, reading even Three to Get Married by Fulton Sheen, right, all those things, it felt good to do it with someone in preparation for the sacrament.
Speaker 1And how would you say the religious life has really shaped you to be prepared for family.
Speaker 2A few things. One is the discipline, especially. You know, growing up as an only child, growing up in a house essentially full of women. My grandfather, who was one of my only father figures, passed away when I was 13. We lived in the same house together.
Speaker 2I did that, that was me, and religious life taught me that you know mortification and that, like discipline, is essential to like flourishing in your spiritual life. And so I think that, while we're all called to it, you know, men and women alike. I think that men especially were built in that way and called to sort of a higher level of discipline, especially in a family, who we are, as husbands and fathers and heads of household. And I think that that especially was instilled into me in religious life. And that goes for discipline, you know, in mortification, like in food, but also in prayer, right, like knowing that, you, a prayer before meals is not the only prayer that we should be saying each day. Right. Like knowing that, you, a prayer before meals is not the only prayer that we should be saying each day, right. And then, finally, I think that also the power of the sacraments right, having the sacraments so readily available in religious life. We had mass every day, confession whenever you needed, adoration and benediction all the time, right. I think all of those things showed me what's possible when you just depend on God's grace, right.
Speaker 2It was very edifying to see that in action in religious life, and seeing that helps me to understand what's possible in family life as well. You know, after getting married, we obviously and any newlywed couple will tell you that you know there were the growing pains, right, of trying to learn how to be married together. I think one of the things that, as I was writing my bio, like one of the things that I really reflected on, is, in each stage of these moments in my life, you also shed off the selfishness that's like attached to just living in the world, right, like no one teaches it to you, you just sort of learn it like the self-preservation or self-satisfying of like whatever you want for yourself. And in marriage especially, you sort of learn to shed off one of those final layers. You're never done right, but like the biggest chunk, like you're shedding off in marriage, right, because you're now living and it doesn't matter just what you want, right. What matters is like what's good for, like us and our family, right. So that was quite a shift.
Speaker 1And would you say that shedding was like mainly year one or just ongoing?
Speaker 2I think the biggest part, the biggest shedding, happens like in the first couple of years, which is, I think, statistically, if you take a look at, like you know, divorces and marriage like the hardest time, is like those first couple of years, right, I think five years, within the first five years, most divorces happen and I think it's because, like you are called to a higher degree of selflessness than you're used to, right, and so if you're not prepared for that or if you don't know the reality of that, then it's definitely hard. So I think most of it happens. You hopefully get into a groove later on, but I think we're all always on a continual path.
Speaker 1Learning that sacrificial love agape right.
Speaker 2Exactly Getting married. I think one of the things that I I guess I try to say this like in all humility, because I know it's not me, but like I do, I do understand it to be like very special point in my life is when we prepared for marriage, is we tried to prepare ourselves as well sacramentally as possible. So we went to Mass the day before our wedding, we did a general confession the day before our wedding, we went to adoration with our bridal party, whoever was available the night before our wedding, and I was praying the rosary the whole morning up until the ceremony started. I can tell you without any doubt that I left that church after receiving that sacrament with my wife. I left a different man Physically, and there are parts of old me that were still there, obviously, but I was different and it was, I think, a very big moment in my life of like receiving God's grace and the sacrament and like the power of that sacrament. That really I can still vividly remember that feeling today, right 10 years later. That's incredible. I think it's. It's a beautiful thing, because when people are like oh yeah, like I'm not ready to like date yet, because like I'm, you know, there's still so many things that, like the sacrament itself, like you know, like if you're called to this vocation, this is the vocation that God uses to perfect us, right To to to start to change us, so it shouldn't be like the only hindrance for us to like discern marriage with someone.
Speaker 2After we got married, our plan was, you know, like we had so many families around us and friends around us who were having kids, and kids and kids were like, yes, absolutely, we can't wait to have children. But God's plan is always surprising us and our journey was different than some of our friends. It was five years before we could have our son, joseph Pio, and in those five years we suffered some very heavy crosses, some losses, or even just having to just bear the unmet desire of something that we know that we wanted, that we know that God wanted for families. That was incredibly heavy for the both of us as a couple, but I also think that it was also very formative for her and I, right In learning how to trust in God's will and learning to be formed in that patience that he calls us to grow in.
Speaker 2And so not to say that anyone who doesn't have to wait isn't gonna appreciate their kids more. But I think we have a special perspective that helps us to look at our son in a way that, like really think, edifies us in gratitude. There's an immense level of gratitude that we feel when we think about how long we waited to be able to take our son to the baptismal font. We suffered a few losses. Our son knows that he has, you know, siblings in heaven. So like being able to like take our child to baptism and now like so I teach first communion at our parish and he comes with me. He's like five years old and he's like coming with me to catechism class and like answering those questions and like I can't wait for the day for him to receive his first holy communion Right.
Speaker 1And so like being able to like walk with him to the sacraments is especially like meaningful to me and to my wife you really spoke early on about identity and I'm just kind of curious like how being a father and having a son now, how that has healed those previous wounds prior to joseph being born, as the pregnancy progressed.
Speaker 2But me personally, I never really prayed to god the father. It was always just like praying to our lord pray like, and invoking, you know, our lord jesus christ and like asking him for his intercession and and his blessing and his prayer. But I'd never really approached god the father and there was actually, as I reflected on it, there was like a lot of, I think, distrust of like his love and his compassion towards me still, at least internally, and I recognized this, I think, gosh, we were like six months pregnant and I started to go to therapy because I just knew there were blind spots in my heart, just in my own brokenness, that I wasn't fully aware. I knew they were there. I just I needed help to like peek under like the rock with a flashlight, and that did help me to understand, you know, some truths of who I am. You know, wonderfully made, with inherent worth and dignity that I didn't have to do anything to earn. I just was. And so, intellectually, I was sort of like synthesizing this Now, when Joseph was born, I saw him and held him for the first time.
Speaker 2That's when it really kicked in because like he didn't do anything. He was there, he was crying. I cut the umbilical cord. I just knew that I loved him and he didn't do anything. And as I sat in that, it really just like it really was, like God speaking to me, like, hey, this is you too. You don't have to do anything, jerome. You are wonderfully made. There's nothing you have to do anything, jerome. You are wonderfully made, there's nothing you have to do. You don't have to prove anything. You don't have to make up for anything, for anything that anyone might have done before you were born. You are loved, and that was incredibly healing for me and it still hits me sometimes, and I think that's the beauty of the spiritual life is, as you progress through life, God really uncovers and uses those moments to reveal himself even more.
Speaker 2And so there was one time where Joseph had just learned how to walk a little bit and he was examining his shadow and just moving his hand up and down and and like the shadow would move and the awe that he expressed in that and like the, the joy that I felt in his awe at that moment, I didn't like.
Speaker 2Well, god also feels, probably like in a in a more perfect way, definitely in a more perfect way, that joy, when we experience like and take awe His creation in the things that he gives us right, even simple things like a shadow. Right, that's simple to us, to 14-month-old Joey, that was a big deal. And so for us, experiencing the miracles in our lives, those are the shadows that we're at awe with, but our Lord is just so happy that we recognize them and so like to just draw that parallel, I think, all those things and realizing how a father's love, like my love for my son, like imposing that or using that as a reflection point for you know God, the father, so that was definitely you know something that that only started to like, I think, hit me after.
Speaker 1Joseph was born. Yeah, it's amazing how there's just like certain moments Cause I got two boys and just comes out of nowhere, you know where it was like one morning my kid was just like standing there, you know, just sleepy, and I was like that's my son, you know, and it's kind of like this random moment and then the Lord's like yeah, and that's how I see you, it's so simple too, and like it helps us, I think, to realize that we don't.
Speaker 2You know, I'm a, I'm very, you know, super like into temperaments and I'm very sanguine, right. So like I like these, like big, elaborate things, and I react very strongly and like to sit in the simplicity of those moments and say, like God is just pleased with that, and to to understand that and to understand that, like we don't have to do so much, we just have to be who we are and be that well. So how did Tabela come to be? You know, after finishing college in computer science. You know, if it was up to me I would, and if it could support living in the Bay Area and supporting a family, I'd be doing some sort of ministry work for the church. But God has also blessed me with like knowing and loving technology.
Catholic Tech Company Tabella's Mission
Speaker 2I'd always been curious about how these two things intersected and how I could serve the church with my gifts that he gave me and my love for him and my desire to serve him. So when I first got out of college, I got into higher education, so higher ed, tech and the way that I thought about that was like well, catholics really were like the keystone of like higher education in Western civilization as we know it, like most colleges came from that you know, the education of like modern day Western culture came from, like all those Christian and Catholic universities, and so I was like, well, I'm just helping to continue that tradition by working for an educational tech company. During 2020, as the pandemic hit, I happened to hear about a tech company called Tabela and it was in. Did you ever get into a clubhouse? Are you familiar with that?
Speaker 1Not, too much no.
Speaker 2It was very weird. I think it was popular because of 2020 and all the social isolation that we were doing. It was audio chat rooms, so you would just jump into a chat room and people would be talking no video and you would just talk. So it piqued my interest. I joined the app and I happened to find lots of Catholics on the app, so we started a little Catholic group. We prayed the rosary, reflected on the gospel all these different things.
Speaker 2But one of the people in that app happened to be working for tabela and she was always like hey, like you guys should hear about, you guys should try out tabela. We're a catholic app, you know, helping to help parishes communicate and ministry groups communicate. What I heard was catholic and app and I said, well, that's cool. I really I'd already sort of like been following a lot of other Catholic tech companies, and so I reached out to her. Her name is Mariana, she's still with Tabela. I said, hey, I'd love to meet your founder. I'd love to just see how my passions and what I'm doing intersect with what you guys are doing. With no intention to like hey, I want to like join you guys today. But, like, I just wanted to see how I, as a Catholic, could support other Catholics doing something in technology. And so I met Juan At that time.
Speaker 2He had just started the company and at that time, ann and I were either expecting or we just had Joey. So we had very different. We were at very different places in our lives, right, and the company wasn't at a place where I could join. He already had staffed up and everything. But I continued to keep in touch with him and continued to reach out with him, just because I thought that it was just really cool what they were trying to do and it's just really cool to see Catholics in tech. I didn't want the opportunity to just go away and whatever way that I could help, I wanted to be helpful. And you know, the winter of 2022, just got some funding and needed a technical leader. He said, hey, like we have a need for a technical leader, Would you like to join? And I was just pumped.
Speaker 2I really felt and I still, as I reflect on today, I really felt and I still, as I reflect on today, I really felt and feel that God had prepared me for something like this, this or something like this, just because I mean, at the previous companies I was at, I was able to build projects from the ground up, see them launch, get customers live, create new products, create new teams, and so I had lots. I had a wealth of experience in that area, right, and it just fit perfectly. That and all of my experience in ministry I'd been doing catechism and youth ministry by then for about 18 years, and so, just like being able to understand the church, you know how to like talk to people in ministry, but also understanding like the dynamics of how to work at a, but also understanding like the dynamics of how to work at a scrappy startup, seemed like the perfect opportunity here, and so it's like it was more of a God wink, right, like he's like well, what are you thinking about? And it's so funny because I had asked her, I was discerning whether or not to join when Juan had like talked to me and I was interviewing and I had emailed someone who I worked with at a previous company she's not Catholic at all, actually very like opposite and um, when I was talking to her, I was like, hey, like there's this opportunity.
Speaker 2I just, you know, like it's in faith tech, and one of the fears was like, well, will it like pigeonhole me or like keep me from growing, like professionally, like anywhere else, right? Like, if I joined this company and like something happens and it doesn't work out, like what happens, like will I still be able to like have opportunities elsewhere, because sometimes the world of tech is, you know, hostile to the values that we uphold. And her response to me was like Jerome, are you dumb? Like this was made for you, like this is perfect for you. And like that was just like an additional piece of affirmation, right, like even someone who doesn't align with my values or faith was like hey, like, come on. Like this is like this is perfect for you. And so I joined. You know, I've been there for gosh about a year and a half now, so, um, but the company itself has been around for a lot longer, obviously, but I've been there for a year and a half heading the communities and engineering team.
Speaker 1And what would you say is the main mission of Tabela?
Speaker 2So the mission, as we communicated to everyone and as I continually remind my own team is, our mission in Tabela is to bring people closer to God through the sacraments. So to bring parishes and communities to God through the sacraments. So to bring parishes and communities to God through the sacraments. And so we do that by helping parishes, ministry groups, really any faith community, and when I say faith community I mean your youth group, your young adult group, the bunch of dads who get together like every other week to like grab a beer and to talk about things of the faith or just how to be a dad and Catholic at the same time. Those are all faith communities and what we're trying to do is to help them, give them a safe place to connect with each other, while not putting them in a place that is built with more secular intentions in mind.
Speaker 2Let's say, you know, it's not built for addiction. It's not built for addiction. It's not built with content, contrary to what we believe as Catholics. So a safe place for you to connect with communities that you are part of or care about. So really it's any church, ministries, like it could be choir groups, and that's great. We have some parishes that they host it, they use it for their own communications, have some parishes that they host it, they use it for their own communications and then they're all. One time we got recently we got a request to to create like I think it was like 98 ministry groups, like one church, 98 ministry groups. Now they were all using like different things, right, but now they're all just like in tabela, which is pretty cool, and so if people wanted to check out the app.
Speaker 2They just the bell in the app store and yeah, so you could search Tabela the Google Play Store, the Apple App Store, or you could go check it out at wwwtabelaapp, and we have everything that you need there to learn more about it or even to get your parish on it.
Speaker 1I was actually having coffee with a couple of friends and I was talking about the Dibella app and they were all like pulling it up on their phone and downloading right on the spot. I'm like let's go.
Speaker 2That's great. That's great. I love to hear that. I think that what's cool about it if there's a little bit of a just the content, I think, is like it's really powerful and it's also just very like you know, we go onto like other platforms and like we'll look for content. If you go to YouTube, for example, and you type in rosary, you'll get the rosary, but you'll get other things like conspiracies of the Vatican or why you shouldn't pray to the Blessed Mother. We should be clear that these other platforms are still good in that we can talk to and communicate and evangelize to the world. But to communicate to the faithful and to enrich the spirituality of the faithful for those in our community, I think that I think that we were called to be a little bit better and it's a huge grace to have that.
Speaker 1I always like to ask, uh, every guest that I have on the the show. This question is what is your hope for the future of our church?
Speaker 2I happen to be aside from tabella. I also I serve on alumni board for Divine Mercy University. I also help out on an advisory board for Catholic Polytechnic University and the reason I do those things is because I know there has been effort to try and separate, like science and faith. You can do both, but it's okay if they're contradicting each other is what the world would tell you, but for so long, and St Thomas Aquinas really laid the groundwork with his Summa Theologica and all his work is in. The two aren't contradictory and actually the church as a whole really led the way in like science and technology and the discovery of the world as God created it and the laws that he used to create that world.
Speaker 2And in Italy and Catholic Polytechnic University in California or all the colleges that exist today that are starting to like dive deeper into the STEM subjects, I'm looking forward to seeing us reintroduce ourselves in a meaningful way into those conversations as a church with a clear and a better understanding of creation, of the human person and of all those things.
Speaker 2I think another example is, you know, divine Mercy University and their work, the Catholic Christian metamodel of the person being able to really marry psychology, which is traditionally and just, I mean, even a lot of Catholics today are like oh well, psychology, like maybe we should stay away from that, but there are. There's some beautiful work being done to like show how both can be congruent and how you can use a proper understanding of the human person to help people flourish in their lives, both spiritually and mentally. And so, like all those different works and all those different things, I'm hoping for the church to really lead the way again, the way that we used to, because without the church being the foundation of those things, you really can go astray. Especially now with like AI and all those different things. We really should be part of the conversation, if not leading the way.
Speaker 1I love that. Well, Jerome, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and for your yes to Jesus and his church has been such a gift to be able to hear the ways that God has moved throughout your story and you can just see just the truth that he was speaking throughout those little yeses throughout your story, which is just so powerful If people want to connect and learn more about what you've got going on with Tabela. I think we already shared about the app store and stuff, but how can they connect?
Speaker 2Yeah, so definitely check us out on the app store, both Google and Apple. Just look at Tabela or wwwtabelaapp. You want to reach out to me directly and say, hey, like I'm a Catholic in tech, I love, I love to. It's like collecting baseball cards, like every time I meet another Catholic in tech, sure? So, jerome at tabellaapp, I'd love to meet you and I'd love to just like you know, like, build a community of other Catholics in technology as well. So definitely reach out Amazing.
Speaker 1Well, thanks again, man. Do you want to close some prayer tonight?
Speaker 2Absolutely and the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 2Amen. Heavenly Father, we praise and we thank you for all the gifts that you've given us, all the ways that you have moved in our lives to draw us closer to you, for the gift of faith, especially to recognize who you are, to recognize all the things that you've done for us, and especially in a special way. We thank you for David and for his ministry here to help to bubble up and to share with the world the way that you touch individuals and the way that you move in our lives, so that people have a clear, concrete and edifying example of how you enable your faithful to be drawn closer to you, that we all might reach our eternal home. Pray also for our families, all the listeners and especially for all the priests and religious of the world that may continue to be inspired to lead more souls to you. Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Speaker 2Amen. Thanks again, brother.
Speaker 1I appreciate you, appreciate you, thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy this episode and want to support our ministry, please share it with others, post about it on social media and leave a rating and review. To stay updated with the latest stories, follow us on Instagram at yescatholic and visit our website at yescatholiccom. If yes Catholic has made a difference in your life, consider joining our Patreon community at patreoncom. Slash yescatholic A big shout out and thank you to our current patrons for all the prayers, support and contributions that help us reach thousands of souls around the world every week. Let's remember the words of Saint Peter always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you. You have a story. Don't be afraid to share the good news of how Jesus has moved in your life with a family member, friend or colleague. Give Jesus your yes every single day and witness the ripple effect of the gospel. Join us next week as we continue the journey right here at yes Catholic.