By Marlene Quaroni - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | The message couldn’t be any clearer. The Virgin Mary was calling David Fernández.

“I had a dream about a beautiful woman wearing a white dress and veil,” said Fernández, 53. “She came to me and called my name. She said go to a Catholic church and tell the priest I’m sending you.”

The Sunday following the dream he told his wife he wanted to go to church. But it was the first day of her vacation and she had planned to meet friends at the beach.

“We drove to Fort Lauderdale beach early in the morning, but there weren’t any parking spaces,” he said. “It turns out that Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull were filming a video on the beach. So I dropped my wife off and headed to St. Jerome Church.”

It was May 2013, and Fernández coincidentally walked into a Mass that included the crowning of an image of the Virgin Mary.

“Again, I dreamt of the beautiful woman in the white dress and veil,” he said. “She told me that ‘you will be seeing me many more times’.”

That week, as part of his wife’s vacation, the couple flew to Panama. They traveled to the island of Taboga.

“Every house had a Virgin Mary statue in front of it,” he said. “It was the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. I was amazed. My youngest child, Samuel, who was 5 years old, said to me, ‘I think the Virgin Mary wants you to go to church’.”

Fernández entered the Rite of Christian Initiation program and was among 304 candidates who became fully initiated as Catholics during two Rite of Reception Masses celebrated at St. Mary Cathedral May 18.

Candidates are people who have been baptized Catholics but not received the other two sacraments of initiation � Communion and confirmation � or those who have been baptized in another Christian faith and now wish to become Catholic.

Catechumens � who were never baptized in any Christian denomination � were initiated during the Easter Vigil in their parishes. This year, there were a total of 514 catechumens throughout the archdiocese, according to Fior Ramirez of the Office of Lay Ministry.

Army Staff Sgt. Derrick Auguste, 32, wore his military uniform to the May 18 Mass. He said his experiences in Iraq and elsewhere in the world brought him to the Catholic Church. He is stationed at Homestead Air Reserve Base and attends St. Martin de Porres Parish Leisure City.

“My experiences have made me more mature,” said the father of two children. “In Iraq, Christians were oppressed. I’ve seen a lot of heartache.”

The Catholic Church is a cornerstone in the world, he said. “No matter where I was, there was a Catholic church I could go to.”

Ariatne Ramirez and her husband, Reiniel Beltran, from San Lazaro Church in Hialeah, also attended the Mass. They were married eight years ago in a civil service in Havana, Cuba. They came to Miami six years ago.

“We want to be married in the Catholic Church,” said Ramirez. “I’m happy to be Catholic and receive the blessings of God.”

Archbishop Thomas Wenski welcomed the new Catholics into the Church.

“I greet all of you that will be received into full communion with the Catholic Church,” he said. “Catholic means universal. You are members of one universal church built on the foundations of the Apostles and their preachings.”