New deacons' stories: RCIA and a 'slap in the face'

By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

Photography: TOM TRACY | FC

MIAMI | The eight men who were ordained deacons last month come from different countries – as far away as Sri Lanka – and work in different professions – one is a “tree farmer.”

But most of them have two things in common: involvement as teachers or students with the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults); and a path to ordination that began when someone flat-out told them: consider the deaconate.

 

A SLAP IN THE FACE

Deacon Andrew Hernandez, 46, a Miami native, recalls the moment vividly. After attending daily Mass at St. Louis Church in Pinecrest – where he received all but the sacrament of baptism – “one of the deacons that was serving that Mass, as he was greeting people leaving, he literally slapped me in the face and said, ‘You need to be a deacon.’

“I don’t know what inspired him by the Holy Spirit to do that, but I watched and he didn’t do that to anybody else. So that was the first moment that the thought entered my mind,” said Deacon Hernandez, now a member of St. Augustine Church and Catholic Student Center in Coral Gables.

By that time, he and his wife of 22 years, Angela, were deeply involved in the Church, although that wasn’t the case when they first met.

“When we first started dating, I had not completed all my sacraments of initiation, so she was always praying for me to be in full communion with the Church and complete those sacraments, which I did as an adult through the RCIA program,” he said.

 

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Deacon Nicolas Diaz – the tree farmer, of Homestead-based Manuel Diaz Farms – shared a similar experience. Born and baptized in Cuba 53 years ago, he came to the U.S. as a three-month-old.

“I was far from the Church when I met my wife (Juanita). She got me into the Church,” he recalled. They met in 2002 and married in 2005.

With Hurricane Irene threatening South Florida in 2017, he, his wife and two daughters fled to his sister-in-law’s house in Mississippi. She used to run the bookstore at St. Alphonsus Church, in the Diocese of Biloxi, and the church’s deacon and his wife came in one day after hours.

“We chit-chatted for like about an hour or two,” Deacon Diaz recalled. At the end of the conversation, the deacon's wife said, “‘You look like a good deacon.’ That just stayed with me.”

“I said to myself, I’m going to pray on this, and I felt the calling and I answered,” he said on the eve of his Dec. 16, 2023, ordination at St. Mary Cathedral.

A member of St. Hugh in Coconut Grove, Deacon Diaz said he’s particularly interested in working with teenagers and the men’s ministry. But, he added, he will serve “wherever God wants me.”

 

A ‘VERY CATHOLIC LADY’

For Deacon Robert Puyada, 63, a native of Cuba, the impetus for serving the Church began in seventh grade, with a “very Catholic lady” who was principal at the private school he attended in Hialeah. He had only received the sacrament of baptism at that point and his family were not avid churchgoers.

“She saw me praying one day in the school by myself, in my own way, and she came and approached me and asked me, ‘What are you doing?’ And so she taught me how to pray and put me through CCD (religious education).”

He completed his sacramental initiation at age 12 at St. Cecilia Parish in Hialeah, and “ever since then, I always wanted to be a priest,” Deacon Puyada said.

But he met his wife of 41 years, Maria Elena, when they were 15, “so I decided maybe the priesthood wasn’t going to be the way to go.”

He and Maria Elena continued their involvement and service in the Church. Then they went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with their pastor at Blessed Trinity Church in Virginia Gardens, at that time Father Jose Alfaro (he is now pastor at St. John Neumann in Miami).

“While I was there, I just felt God talking to me and saying, ‘I want you to do more’,” Deacon Puyada recalled.

He was 56 then, and figured he was too old for the deaconate. But Father Alfaro told him no, look into it. “And that's God's answer, when he told me that, because I really had written it off,” Deacon Puyada said.

 

‘A LOVE FOR SCRIPTURE’

Deacon Robert Velez, 56, said he never really considered the priesthood, even though the New Jersey native grew up in a family that attended Mass every Sunday, and two of his uncles on his mother’s side are priests. That changed after the marketing professional became involved in the RCIA program at his parish, St. Timothy in Miami.

“It's something that really just stirred in me a love for Scripture, a love for the Lord. And I got the bug for teaching,” he said, citing as models two longtime RCIA teachers at St. Timothy, “Martin and Elsa.”

“It’s amazing how God puts people in your path,” he added, recalling how a “permanent acolyte” at the parish told him about the deaconate formation program.

Inspired by all of them, he decided, “this is what I would like to do. This is what I would like to study. I'd like to learn more about my faith. I'd like to grow in my faith. And now that I like the whole idea of teaching, why not be able to teach it?”

He did not tell his wife of 25 years, Paulina, until he had been accepted into the deaconate formation program.

“I was thinking he was going to go for law or accounting. When he gave me the news that he was going for the diaconate program, it was a blessing,” she said.

But it was also a challenge, as the program requires the men to spend many weekends away, studying at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach. Several of the deacons noted the difficulty in combining nearly six years of study with their daily responsibilities at work, as husbands and fathers.

But Paulina Velez looks on the bright side. “I think they sustain us with their prayers when they go away,” she said. “We know that they're going to be very in good company with the Lord.”

 

UNUSUAL FIRST DATE

Deacon Victor Martinez, 62, and his wife, Kimberly Anne, had an unusual first date. Even though she was not Catholic, he took her to a Charismatic Renewal meeting.

“She loved it,” said the Bronx, New York, native and business owner. In short order, she became a Catholic and they were married. Thirty-nine years and three children later, Deacon Martinez – active by then in the Knights of Columbus and other ministries in his parish, St. Gregory the Great in Plantation – was asked by his then pastor, the late Msgr. Noel Fogarty, to become an extraordinary minister of holy Communion.

“I did that and then I kind of had this calling to teach CCD,” Deacon Martinez said. After a few years of preparing children for first confession and Communion, the calling to deaconate “started to manifest itself,” even though he had never really thought about it before. He entered formation in 2014, but an ailing mother and other family issues led him to pause his studies.

“The first time was more or less not God’s time,” Deacon Martinez says now. But in 2018, he and his wife agreed, “Now is God's time. And I was like, OK, and here we are.”

 

EARLY VOCATION

Deacon Charles Villar, 52, did discern a vocation to priesthood. Ironically, it was questioning from his then fiancée, now wife, Sandra – who was a “devout Christian” but not Catholic at the time – that led him to break off their engagement and enter the seminary.

“She had a lot of questions about the faith,” recalled the New Jersey native, who works in business development. “It just reconverted me to such a deep state that I wanted to see if that's what God wanted me to do.”

Spiritual direction led him to realize that the priesthood “wasn’t my path” and he “happily came back to the world.”

“Thankfully, when I came back, she was still single and we picked up where we left off,” he said. They were married 20 years ago at Little Flower Church in Coral Gables.

He continued his involvement in the Church, specifically teaching in the RCIA program at his current parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Doral. But he continued to feel a calling.

“I always said, Lord, if this is something that you want, it can't come from me. It has to come from someone within the Church,” Deacon Villar said. Six years ago, that request was fulfilled through a young priest in his parish, Father Luis Pavon, who told him, “Hey, you know what? We've been talking about people, and we think you'd make a good deacon.”

Two weeks later, Deacon Villar was accepted to the program. Three years ago, his wife joined the Church.

 

‘NOW WE KNOW’

“I didn't know what God wanted me to do here. Now we know,” said Deacon Jorge Escobar, a native of El Salvador and member of St. John Neumann Parish in Miami.

He came to the U.S. to study in 1990, first in New York and then in Miami. He returned to El Salvador in 1997 to pursue a career in business and married his wife, Glenda, there in 1994. In 2001, he came back to Miami after receiving a job offer.

“Somebody went to El Salvador and offered me exactly what I was planning to make in order to move back to the States, to the penny,” Deacon Escobar recalled.

About six-and-a-half years ago, a priest in his parish, Father Luis Rivero, who now serves as assistant administrator at St. John Vianney College Seminary, presented him with the idea of becoming a deacon – something he had not considered “even in my wildest dreams” even though he had always been active in the Church.

“I said no, and the reason was I'm too young. All the deacons are old and with gray hair,” said Deacon Escobar, who is now 52.

Reassured that wasn’t the case, he went ahead and entered formation. “It hasn’t been easy,” he said, but “I’m really happy that it came to be.” Moreover, he’s certain “that’s why God brought me back to Miami.”

 

‘SOMETHING VERY NEW’

Deacon Srinath Perera, 50, an accountant by trade, left his native Sri Lanka in 1999, then lived in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. He came to Miami 15 years ago and he and his wife of 20 years, Dona Chulie, settled at Little Flower Parish in Coral Gables.

He was active in the church and went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his then pastor, Father Michael Davis (now pastor at St. Gregory in Plantation). “It was beautiful. I had a very good experience.” Afterward, Father Davis simply asked him, “Will you consider the diaconate program?”

“We don't have the diaconate, actually, in Sri Lanka. So it was something very new for us, for me and for my wife,” Deacon Perera said.

He thought it over, prayed about it, and finally said yes.

“It’s the best gift I can see,” he says now. “We are blessed to be here. We love over here. And we are grateful for the opportunity to serve God.”