By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

MIAMI | The six men to be ordained this Saturday by Archbishop Thomas Wenski make up the largest archdiocesan ordination class since 2008.

They hail from as near as Hialeah and as far as California. Three were born abroad, in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico.

One worked as a chef. Another achieved his “American dream” in the hospitality industry. A third studied neuroscience with a view toward becoming a brain surgeon.

After mostly brief — but sometimes extended — arguments with God, all wound up in the seminary. Following are glimpses of their journey to priesthood.

Deacon Javier Barreto: I kept hearing that question

From his native Manatí, Puerto Rico, to Key West, USA: Deacon Barreto’s profession as a chef with the Hyatt hotel chain brought him to South Florida in 2004.

The fourth of five siblings — three brothers, one sister — he says he grew up “Catholic but not practicing.” His mother’s side of the family is Protestant. His father’s relatives made sure the children received the sacraments.

But he does remember serving at the altar at age 8, and an uncle telling him afterwards, “You look like a little priest. So I think that’s when the seed was planted.” Still, “I was in denial.”

Cajoled into attending a retreat in high school, “I did feel the call again. I told the Lord on the retreat, I feel you are calling me to serve you but I don’t know where or how.”

He joined his parish youth group, which he says helped him overcome his shyness and “shaped me” for leadership. He dated seriously for over a year, but “I felt like I was cheating on her because I was still struggling with the idea of a vocation.”

They broke up and he never told her why. After arriving in Key West, he joined a newly-formed young adult group at what is now the Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea. He soon became the group’s leader.

His career was going well and he was happy, he says, but “at the same time there was something missing.”

One Holy Thursday, he decided to remain in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. St. Mary’s pastor at the time, Father Francisco “Paco” Hernandez, who is now at St. Raymond in Miami, noticed he was “the only young guy there.”

He took the opportunity to ask him, have you ever thought about the priesthood? “I said no, and I kind of ran away.”

Eventually, he admitted it. “I keep hearing that question… I don’t know what to do.”

Going on a Marian pilgrimage to Spain, Italy and France served as confirmation of the call. So did Hurricane Wilma. He had wanted to attend the vocation awareness retreat offered every November at St. John Vianney Seminary in Miami, but he couldn’t get out of work that weekend. Then Wilma hit and the hotel shut down. He went on the retreat.

He shared the news with his family while visiting Puerto Rico in January 2006, just before his return trip to South Florida. “They were very supportive but they were like in shock,” he recalled. His father asked him three times: “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

When he got back home, he learned that his father had been admitted to the hospital. He asked a priest he knew to visit him. That very night, his father made his confession and received Communion, and “since that day, he was active in the church.”

He was ill, though, and Deacon Barreto admits he was torn that whole summer: Should he stay in Puerto Rico with his father or enter the seminary? His father sensed the tension. “He told me, ‘I don’t want to be an obstacle to your vocation.’ So that was a huge consolation and confirmation for me.”

He entered St. John Vianney Seminary in the fall of 2006. His father died his first month there — essentially, as his first convert.

“I love to work with youth, with the elderly, with the sick,” said Deacon Barreto, 34. “I want to keep building God’s kingdom here and now and be that instrument to bring people back — like my dad.”

He will celebrate his first Mass on Saturday, May 9, at St. Catherine of Siena in Miami, where he spent his pastoral year. He has been assigned as parochial vicar at Our Lady of Lourdes in Miami.

Deacon Julio De Jesus: The American dream

At 43, Deacon De Jesus is the oldest of the newly-ordained. But he is the youngest in his family, which consists of 14 brothers and sisters. Born in the Dominican Republic, he came to the United States — specifically New York — at age 15. “A lot of my brothers were already there,” he said.

He studied hospitality management at Florida International University and worked 12 years in the hotel industry, eventually becoming director of catering at a local hotel.

“It became my American dream,” he said.

But obtaining it nearly made him forget about an earlier call, a seed that had been planted when he was much younger, back in the Dominican Republic, by a Haitian priest who simply told him, “You’re going to be a priest.”

“I saw him as a model. He was a great priest. He used to lead us to Christ,” Deacon De Jesus recalled.

In the midst of his success — perhaps precisely because of it — the seed germinated. “I thought I had everything. As a young man and an immigrant, I had met all my goals. I had all the things that make people happy. But I still had that emptiness in me.”

After much prayer and participation in daily Mass, he decided to follow the call to priesthood.

“I told the Lord, if you’re really calling me, I am going to say yes radically,” Deacon De Jesus said. So he moved back to New York and joined the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, where he professed temporary vows as a brother and lived with the community for four years.

But when the time came to enter the seminary, he realized “the Lord was leading me to diocesan life.” So he returned to Miami and entered St. John Vianney.

Looking back, he said, “the call was really clear. I could not say no. So at the end, I gave up and I said, Lord, you win. And now I don’t see myself doing anything but being a priest,” Deacon De Jesus said.

He is a little worried about his new title, however, because translated from the Spanish it literally means “father of Jesus.” So he might add his mother’s last name, just to clarify: Father De Jesus Melo.

He added that what he looks forward to as a priest is “to hear confessions for many hours.”

Deacon De Jesus will celebrate his first Mass at his home parish, Mother of Our Redeemer in Miami, on Sunday, May 10 at 12:30 p.m. He has been assigned to Nativity Parish in Hollywood.

Deacon Bryan Garcia: It stuck in my heart

A native of Hialeah and a product of Catholic education, Deacon Bryan Garcia is the second of three children born to Catholic educators: Ana Garcia is principal of Msgr. Edward Pace High School in Miami Gardens; Eddy Garcia is principal of St. Louis Covenant School in Pinecrest.

All the Garcias, parents and children, are alumni of Pace and Immaculate Conception in Hialeah, where Eddy Garcia served as principal until a couple of years ago. Family life revolved around church: Taking part in or leading the youth group. Close friendships with priests and religious.

Even so, priesthood was not where Deacon Garcia was headed when Father Richard Vigoa — now priest-secretary to Archbishop Wenski — arrived at Immaculate as a seminarian and suggested that he might have a vocation.

“I always said no. He was crazy. Leave me alone. But it just kind of stuck in my heart.”

Then the sex abuse scandals came, one of which hit close to home at Immaculate and Pace. Deacon Garcia began studying business administration at St. Thomas University while working part-time at a garden center. But he developed the habit of going to adoration after work.

“A lot of my friends (were) leaving the faith,” he said, so in his prayer before the Blessed Sacrament he started asking God “to heal the Church, heal these people that have fallen away. Bring them back.”

He didn’t hear a voice, exactly, but “I felt like his response to me was ‘I want you to help me.’ Then I looked around the chapel to see if there was anybody else in there, in case the lines might have gotten crossed or something.”

He admits “there was a lot of fear” at first. He was even afraid to tell his parents. Finally, he worked up the courage: “I think God’s really calling me to be a priest,” he told his mom. “So my mom starts crying. Eventually I found out that she was happy.”

That moment his dad walked in and asked what was wrong. Good news, his mother said between sobs. “It’s about time,” his dad responded. “Your mom and I have thought about this for years… But you had to be the one to make the decision, not us.”

“I’m actually excited for what’s coming,” Deacon Garcia said. “The idea of being able to celebrate Mass, hear confessions.”

He has already baptized more than 100 infants — the 100th, by pure coincidence, being his own nephew, his sister’s son, who was born in February. He has also presided at the wedding of two of his high school classmates.

“These are all opportunities of being able to show God’s love for people and the welcoming embrace of the Church,” Deacon Garcia said.

His age — 26 — is also a witness.

“We remind people that the Church is still alive,” he said. “They’re shocked to see young people. The fact that we’re answering this call (so) young kind of gives them pause. It makes them ask me about the faith.”

Deacon Garcia will celebrate his first Mass at Immaculate on Sunday, May 10 at 11 a.m. He has been assigned as parochial vicar at St. Andrew in Coral Springs.

Deacon Michael Garcia: People point the way

Miami-born Deacon Garcia, 26, is just three days older than his classmate, and no relation. Deacon Michael is the son of Cuban exiles and the elder of two brothers whose family moved to Atlanta when he started high school. His mother is a public school teacher and the brothers always attended public schools.

Catholic by culture more than practice, the family became really active at St. Agatha Parish in Miami during a rough patch in the mid-1990s. His parents’ marriage was shaky. His father’s computer business had failed.

Feeling as if he had lost everything, Carlos Garcia sat in his car with a gun in his hand and contemplated suicide.

“The only thing that kept him from pulling the trigger was the thought of my brother and me being left fatherless,” Deacon Garcia recalled. “That’s where he had his conversion experience.”

The family joined a charismatic prayer group at St. Agatha, and eventually his father became leader of the parish youth group.

One night, driving back from a youth group meeting, “I turned to my dad and I said to him, I think God wants me to be a priest,” Deacon Garcia recalled. His father said nothing until they got home. “Then all he said to me was, ‘That’s something to think about.’”

The subject didn’t come up again until the end of his junior year in high school, when “God stirred in my heart the priesthood again,” Deacon Garcia said.

At that point, he thought, “Lord, whichever comes first.” Either admission to Georgia Tech and becoming a helicopter pilot or pursuing the priesthood. The seminary responded first, “in like two days.”

Looking back, both father and son trace their vocation to that charismatic prayer group: Carlos Garcia is now a permanent deacon for the Atlantaarchdiocese 

His son also credits their pastor at St. Agatha, Father Felipe Estevez, who later became auxiliary bishop of Miami and is now bishop of St. Augustine.

At one point, Deacon Garcia recalled, Bishop Estevez told him, “Michael, if you ever join the seminary, I will be at your first Mass.”

Even though a scheduling conflict will keep that from happening, the words served to confirm the feeling that “I was born” to be a priest.

“Maybe it was the Holy Spirit that made him say that. He didn’t ask my brother,” Deacon Garcia said. “I feel God sends people to point me in this direction, in this vocation.”

He will celebrate his first Mass at St. Agatha on Saturday, May 9 at 5:30 p.m., with his father serving as deacon. He has been assigned as parochial vicar at St. Louis in Pinecrest.

Deacon Yamil Miranda: Follow me

Deacon Miranda, 30, calls himself “a Little Havana boy,” even though he was born in Nicaragua. The youngest of three — two boys and a girl — he came to Miami at the age of 12, to join his mother who was already here.

“I landed and I went directly to St. John Bosco. I fell in love with the church,” he said, because it reminded him of his church back in Managua. “Since very little, I loved serving at the altar. I loved when the priest lifted up the host.”

But at 15, he decided to leave the Church. For about two years, he ignored his mother’s pleas and refused to go to Mass.

Then a friend invited him to join the St. John Bosco youth group. He did not want to hurt her feelings, so he told himself, “I’m just going to go once and then I’m not going to go back.”

Within a year, he was leading the group. Once, out of curiosity, he asked the newly-ordained priest assigned to the parish, Father Wilfredo Contreras, if there was a seminary in Miami.

Father Contreras, now administrator of St. Martha Parish in Miami Shores, sensed a vocation. He invited the young man to attend the vocation awareness retreat at St. John Vianney.

Hold on, Deacon Miranda recalls telling him. I’m not interested. “You priests have a boring life.”

Father Contreras countered: “If you don’t like it, I will never talk to you about a vocation again.”

By this time, Deacon Miranda was studying at Miami-Dade College, aiming for a career in law. But he went on the retreat, and discovered he liked seminary life.

“This is nice. This is different. These guys are not praying on their knees 24/7,” he remembers thinking.

Then he became impatient. What did God want him to do? He remembers literally locking himself in the chapel at St. John Bosco and prostrating himself before the Blessed Sacrament, demanding an answer.

“The words I heard in my heart were ‘sígueme’ — follow me. I looked up at the Blessed Sacrament and I said, that doesn’t tell me anything!” He told Father Contreras, “I can follow the Lord and not be a priest.”

But he turned to the Bible and looked up the passage — in the Gospel of Luke — where Jesus calls Levi, the tax collector: “The Lord saw him with mercy and told him ‘follow me.’ That was my confirmation,” Deacon Miranda said.

A semester away from graduating from Miami-Dade, he entered the seminary. He had filled out all the paperwork in secret and only told his mom and dad the night before.

His dad said, “I knew.” His mom “was happy but kind of in denial,” pretty much until he was ordained a deacon.

The years in the seminary were not all easy. “Being celibate is easy,” Deacon Miranda said. “The hardest part is being obedient.”

But by the time he reached St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, “I felt the chrism already in the ambience.”

He looks forward to working “with the poor, with the marginalized, with those in need,” he said. “Working with the poor is something that really brings joy to my heart.”

Deacon Miranda will celebrate his first Masses at St. John Bosco on Sunday, May 10 at noon, and at Our Lady of the Lakes in Miami Lakes, where he served during his deaconate year, on Sunday, May 17 at 12:45 p.m. He has been assigned as parochial vicar at Blessed Trinity in Miami Springs.

Deacon Phillip Tran: A lot of sacrifice

A son of Vietnamese refugees who still make their living as nail technicians, Deacon Tran was born in Long Beach, Calif., but moved to Boca Raton at age 2. He is the oldest of two siblings, a boy and a girl.

After graduating from St. Ambrose School in Deerfield Beach and Pope John Paul II High School in Boca Raton, he entered the University of Miami and earned a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. He was aiming at a career as a brain surgeon.

But the calling he initially felt at 14 returned in earnest midway through his college studies. It was a calling precipitated, he says, by “the example of my parents, the example of good models of priests.”

He sort of had both in his dad, who had studied for the priesthood in his native Vietnam. Just before he was due to be ordained a deacon, the communist regime threw him in prison — precisely because he wanted to become a priest.

After three years in prison, Dinh Tran found refuge in Thailand. He eventually made his way to California, “but he couldn’t become a priest because he couldn’t speak English,” Deacon Tran said.

That’s when Dinh Tran met My-Van, also a Vietnamese refugee who had come to the U.S. at age 14 and helped raise her six brothers and sisters. They married and moved to South Florida, where they put their children through Catholic schools while working as nail technicians.

“They’ve always been very poor but very joyful, very faith-filled. That’s basically like the foundation of my vocation,” Deacon Tran said. “The life of sacrifice that they showed us was a very good example.”

Deacon Tran, 28, is the first priest of Vietnamese ancestry to the ordained for the archdiocese. He spent a summer in Vietnam improving his language skills, since he can speak it better than read or write it.

He said he finds strength and comfort in the Vietnamese spirituality, which is marked by “a lot of sacrifice, a lot of martyrdom, a lot of real suffering for their faith.”

A couple of years ago, he recalled, his father paid him the greatest compliment. “He said, ‘I think you’ll make a better priest than I would have been.’”

Deacon Tran will celebrate his first Mass on Saturday, May 9, at 5 p.m. at the newly established Vietnamese mission, Our Lady of La Vang in Hallandale. He has been assigned as parochial vicar at Little Flower Church in Coral Gables.