By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

Photography: Florida Catholic staff

MIAMI | Seeds planted in childhood bloomed into a lifetime commitment to serve God and his people when four young men were ordained priests for the archdiocese May 11.

Carlos Cabrera, born in Cuba; Elvis Gonzalez, born in Nicaragua; Daniel Martin, born in Miami to parents of Indian descent; and Fredy Yara, born in Colombia, received the sacrament of Holy Orders from the hands of Archbishop Thomas Wenski during a splendorous ceremony before an overflowing, joyous crowd at St. Mary Cathedral.

"I am super happy because he has been waiting for this for many years," said Luz Marina Salgado, mother of Father Carlos Cabrera, 41.

She used to take him and her two other children to church as often as possible even though it was frowned upon by the communist government. As he was being ordained, she thought back, she said, to "the first day, when he was six years old, that he told me as we were leaving the church, 'I am going to be a priest.' And look at him here."

"I have a very vivid memory of that moment," Father Cabrera said. But "the atmosphere" on the island was not conducive to practicing the faith. So he embarked on a career in medicine.

After a year of studies, an aunt who lived in Spain offered him a way out of Cuba. It seemed an "impossible" feat for the government to allow a 22-year-old male to leave the island, but something inside him told him it would be okay. "That moment was a crucial moment because God has his plans," Father Cabrera said.

His journey to the priesthood began when he arrived in Spain in 1992. He lived with his aunt while waiting for permission to come to the U.S. At that juncture, he befriended a young priest and began helping him in his work, a ministry to young people with problems.

"That is where I really decided, after discerning with him," Father Cabrera said. 

In 1994, he entered the seminary in Santiago de Compostela, later transferring to the seminary in Plasencia, which is affiliated with the Pontifical University of Salamanca.

After his aunt died, though, "I had no one left" in Spain. Because his father was a political prisoner, he had been able to bring the rest of his family - his mother and two siblings - to the U.S.

Father Cabrera eventually joined them and in 2005 he entered St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami. After four years there, he moved on to the major seminary of St. Vincent de Paul in Boynton Beach.

"I would like to be a priest for all," Father Cabrera said. "To be close to the people and present them with the message of the Gospel. To try to fill their hearts, nourishing their faith with the word of God."

Father Cabrera will begin his priestly ministry at St. Joseph Parish, Miami Beach.

Father Elvis Gonzalez, 29, also was six years old when he told his mom in his native Nicaragua, "I want to be a priest."

He remembers the parish priest in his home town of Sábaco was an old man who "was always helping" the people. He would let the young children sit around the altar during Mass.

"For me it was a mystery. I always wanted to do what that guy was doing," recalled Father Gonzalez, who is one of 10 siblings: nine brothers and one sister.

He began writing down the parts of the Mass so he would know them once he became a priest. At one point, he remembers attending an evening Mass where there were no lectors and he was the only young person in attendance. The priest asked him to do the reading, and then, after reading the Gospel, questioned him: "What do you think about the readings?"

"That was like my first time preaching," Father Gonzalez said.

Eventually, however, he and his siblings moved to Miami to live with his father. Young Elvis joined the youth group at his home parish, Our Lady of Divine Providence in the heavily Nicaraguan city of Sweetwater. After graduating from Coral Park High School - the first in his family to do so - he applied to two colleges: the University of Miami, where he would have studied medicine, and St. John Vianney.

He figured he would do "whichever came back first" even though "I knew I wanted to be a priest."

"It's a gift that God gives you," said his younger brother, Jader Gonzalez, one of dozens of relatives - along with three busloads of Divine Providence parishioners - who attended the ceremony. "He will be the first (priest) in the family."

"I'm really looking forward to confession," said Father Gonzalez. "Even now people come to me and they share their life. So I think I can touch their soul."

Father Gonzalez will begin his priestly ministry at Our Lady of Lourdes in southwestern Miami-Dade County.

Father Daniel Martin, 27, also thought of the priesthood early on. He remembers serving on the altar at age 7, and how the priests at his home parish of St. Andrew - where he went to elementary school - "always seemed that they had a smile. They played soccer with us."

His father, John G. Martin, a psychiatrist, had spent some time in the seminary in his native India before meeting his mother, Thecla. "They all said my (younger) brother would be a priest," Father Martin recalled.

But it was Daniel, not John Paul, now in the N.Y. National Guard, who kept thinking about the priesthood while at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale.

"I was really coming to grips with my faith ... coming to understand it better and make it my own," he said, although he never wavered in church attendance or involvement. "The church was our family."

"I was always praying for him to be a priest, actually. I was disheartened when he wanted to learn C++ programming," said his father.

A National Merit Scholar with a keen interest in math and computers, Father Martin considered entering the seminary after high school but was advised to put it off. He got a full scholarship to Fordham - the only place where he applied - and was invited to join their honors program. He majored in philosophy, "knowing it was a pre-requisite to the priesthood."

The sexual abuse scandal dominated the headlines when he began thinking seriously about his vocation. Father Martin said that is not what he focused on. "The real crucial question is more about Jesus Christ. Who we are as human beings. Who is God. How do we relate to God. How do we connect to God."

"He's been my angel, a gift from God," said his very emotional mother, Thecla, as her son was about to be ordained. "I give him back and I know he's going to be a great gift from God to the people. I know he has it in him and I just hope God protects him through this whole thing, because I know he can get hurt."

Father Martin will begin his priestly ministry at Little Flower Church in Coral Gables.

"One can't be selfish with God," said Nubia Amparo Aponte, Father Fredy Yara's mother.

She certainly has not. Both her sons are now priests: Father Yara's younger brother, Father John Yara, who entered the seminary at age 14, ministers in their native Colombia. Their parents live in Miami, where young Fredy arrived in 1998.

He actually came at the prodding of an uncle who was a pastor in a Protestant church. Like the priesthood, musical talent runs in the Yara family. His cousin is a well-known recording artist, "la India Meliyará." His mother worked in a parish and led the singing at Masses for 22 years, her sons always in tow."They grew up in church," she said.

Eventually, young Fredy replaced her. He studied music for four years at the conservatory in Ibagué, Colombia, and can play the piano, trombone, electric bass and guitar. He also has been a performer since childhood, when an uncle who ran a circus turned him into "el Pedrito Fernandez" - in full mariachi costume - and taught him magic tricks.

But it was the other uncle, the Protestant pastor, who brought him to the U.S. to play in his church. After six months, the young man quit his job and returned to Catholicism. He began working for a Pepsi Cola bottler in Pompano Beach, vacuuming carpets and cleaning windows.

He remembered how he and his brother would play at celebrating Mass when they were little. "My brother was the priest and I was the altar server." The call to priesthood grew. He began talking to local priests while putting his musical talents to use at Catholic retreats and other gathering in Broward County. He attended a vocations retreat at St. John Vianney Seminary, until "what began as a game became a reality."

But he had to take a year off from his studies due to illness: a disease of the blood, of unexplained origin, that caused a terrible inflammation in his eyes. He could not do his schoolwork. "I could not see the light of day. I had to be in a dark room."

Specialists from Harvard had no explanation - and no cure.

Instead of considering it an obstacle to priesthood, however, he chose to view the disease as reinforcement for his decision. He began living and helping out in any way he could at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami, under the tutelage of the late Auxiliary Bishop Agustín Román. From him he learned "the true meaning of the priesthood."

All the while he was composing songs and writing poems, coming closer to God. He came to "recognize that I am fragile (but) that there is a strong one who can help me." He delved into the mystery of suffering and "entered into solidarity with those who suffer, with the sick, with the poor."

He also "prayed a lot to the Virgin Mary and she began working in my life. And all of a sudden, I was healed," Father Yara said. Now, "I will take Christ in my life to every person I meet. That is my mission."

Father Yara, 32, will begin his priestly ministry at St. Louis Parish in Pinecrest.