By PAUL BINZ

Deacon Josue “Josh” Ramirez is a soft-spoken, unassuming man who has lived his life with a steady devotion to service. He attributes his impressive list of accomplishments to answering God’s call to take action on behalf of others – and then doing so. 
“If God opens the door for us, then he wants you to go through that door,” Deacon Ramirez says.

He notes that Mass ends with an exhortation, “Go in peace.” That’s the time to go act and lead by example, he says.

“Not just go think about it. Show it. Do it. Get it done.”

“That’s the beautiful part of it for me,” he says. “Taking the service. Even at work. … ‘How can I help?’ ”
Deacon Ramirez’s work includes three decades of city jobs throughout the Rio Grande Valley. He is currently the assistant city manager of the City of Harlingen. Previously he was public health director for Brownsville, then health and code enforcement director for McAllen, followed by environmental health director in Harlingen. Interwoven with these posts has been his higher education, church work at his home parish of Holy Family in Brownsville – and family life with his wife Mary and their three children, all now adults.

A graduate of Porter High School in Brownsville, he has earned certifications, bachelor’s and master’s degrees during his studies at Texas Southmost College, the former UTPA and UTB, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and Our Lady of the Lake University. He is now closing in on a doctorate from OLLU.

While in McAllen, he became the liaison between the city and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley during the refugee crisis that emerged during the years 2012-14. Eventually this led to support from the city, Hidalgo County and the federal government for the incipient Humanitarian Respite Center.

“I was at that time overseeing emergency management” for McAllen, he said. “We started noticing a lot of people hanging around parks. And then they were in the streets as well, sleeping on the sidewalks in the downtown area. Our mayor heard that there was a nun out there going around and feeding those people. ‘What’s going on?’ we said. 
‘Let’s go find out.’ 

“Interestingly enough, when we started looking into it, we came across Sister Norma (Pimentel, director of CCRGV),” he said. “I had known her for a long time as well. I had helped her when Casa Romero opened up in the late ’80s. We’d donate clothing; we’d make sandwiches for the migrants that came to Casa Romero.” 

“When I saw her in McAllen, I said, ‘OK, here we go again!’ ” 

“We started talking to the mayor and the city commissioners … sending them my report, my findings,” he said. “I remember saying if we don’t do something for this population, we’re going to have a lot of them either abducted, abused, or some harm will happen to them. These were women and children at the time. So our concern was that we needed to help them somehow. 

“By this time we were getting thousands of people on a daily basis,” Deacon Ramirez said. In his roles in city government, he began requesting and applying for assistance.
“The City of McAllen started getting emergency funds from state, county and city resources, (so) we were able to manage,” he said. “We used the mercy response component to allow us to use resources. And we did, successfully.”

This occurred about the time he was pursuing a master’s degree – and had started formation for the diaconate. 
“I got the message. God wants me where he needs me,” he said. “That’s the interesting part. We leave it to up to him to take us where we are needed.

“So I was busy. I like to stay busy, I guess.”

Asked why he decided to become a deacon, he said, “I don’t think it was my decision. I was told, I was called upon!”

“It opened up doors for me, and all things fell into place.”

He said he was already helping the diocese and Catholic Charities when he began to hear a calling. 

Three different priests, including Father Jorge Gomez, now rector at the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle-National Shrine, advised him to keep praying for guidance. 

His wife was also supportive.

One day at Mass, he was praying and asking God what to do. At that very moment, he said, the priest invited those present to the diaconal vocation. “ ‘We’re now accepting diaconal applications. Please come forward, and see me after Mass,’ ” he remembered the priest saying. “That was my calling.” 

“That’s one of the things we talk about … with young adults. When you pray, if he’s calling you, answer. Say, ‘Here I am, Lord. Tell me what to do.’ ”

Diaconal candidate Ramirez was part of the famed “Class of 2018” when Bishop Daniel E. Flores ordained 43 new deacons on Feb. 3 of that year at the Basilica. 

“It was amazing to see so many of us ordained at the same time, which Bishop tells us was historic – it had never happened like that,” he said. “The commitment that grew out of that was outstanding.”

He still serves at his home parish in Brownsville, although he said some Catholics in Harlingen would like to see him move there.

Change was in the works in 2018, as Deacon Ramirez took on a new government post there.

“I remember telling Sister Norma, ‘Well, I have to move on. Harlingen’s been calling me,’ ” he said.

Then, two years after taking that job, the COVID pandemic broke out, bringing an unprecedented challenge. The virus hit nursing homes in the area very hard.

Harlingen at that time “did not have the capacity to provide vaccines or anything else to help their citizens,” Deacon Ramirez said.
Once again, he used his experience and position to pull in funding and grants. 

“The blessing was, I was able to get it,” he said. “We started providing the vaccines at the time that was crucial because we were losing a lot of people.”

“I was proud of my work that year because our citizens needed help, and I was able to provide, to bring the resources that we needed,” he said, adding that people still come up to him with thanks for saving their lives with the vaccinations. 

Summing up his career, Deacon Ramirez says, “I’ve done a little bit of everything. … I’ve been doing my best work now. And I’ve enjoyed it so much – being called upon.”

He remains powered by his faith in Our Lord, and the example he left us. 

“I always say, what did Jesus do? What would Jesus do today in this world? … We have a role model in Jesus.”  

For diocesan priest, waiting out pandemic would not be enough.
By PAUL BINZ
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a certain priest in Brownsville sallied forth into the streets armed with the Blessed Sacrament, fearlessly bringing Christ to the isolated and homebound of his parish. 
Some might call this mission to the peripheries at such a risky time emblematic of Father Joshua Carlos’s remarkably straight path to the priesthood, and the way he’s conducted his ministry since his ordination. 
“Some priests are very good with music, and some are very good with homilies; some priests are great walkers – we have so many different talents,” he said. “That’s just a reflection of all the people of God. We all have our talents; we all have our capabilities. But we’re one body in Christ.”
Father Carlos’s journey began at a young age.
“There are pictures of me pretending to celebrate Mass that I don’t even remember,” he said. “I was genuflecting, holding up a cup of whatever, and bread. I remember I used to cut out little circles from the tortillas!”
But this childhood role-playing foretold things to come. His own father’s devotion had planted the seeds of faith. 
“My dad particularly was always very close to the Church,” Father Carlos said. “That’s where I would have to say a lot of my spirituality comes from, because of my dad. I had to pray a lot.” 
“As I child I was thinking, well, what do I want to be?” he recalled. “Some people want to be firefighters; some people want to be doctors, and stuff. Well, I wanted to be a priest.”
In high school, though, he considered entering the medical field, and as a junior visited hospitals to witness medical moments. But those experiences returned him to a familiar path.
He said he noticed that some patients seemed borne by their own faith in God and had “a smile on their face all the time, even though they had lost almost everything.”“T
hey would often speak about their faith. That touched me,” he said. “So I was drawn to an idea of being a doctor of souls.”
Although by his senior year he was set on the priesthood, conversations with his counselor and confirmation sponsor, Father Stephen Hernandez of San Martin de Porres Parish in Weslaco, convinced him to go to college first and use a four-year scholarship he had already earned. He studied psychology, math and sociology at what was then UT-Brownsville.
“I had this packet that my godfather gave me of an application for the seminary … a constant reminder that this is what I feel God is calling me to do,” he said.  As I got closer to the end of college, I knew this is what I’m going to do. So I started to fill it out.”
He graduated from UTB in 2009, and then attended seminary first at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois, and finished at Pontifical College in Columbus, Ohio. He was ordained by Bishop Daniel E. Flores in May of 2016.
Father Carlos’s first assignment was at St. Joseph the Worker Parish in McAllen. The pastor there in those days was the late Father Alfonso Guevara, whom he cites as a profound influence.
“I appreciate everything he taught me through example,” Father Carlos said. “He was careful. He took his time. He also taught me a lot of things about how to be a shepherd that’s with their flock, because he was always like that.”
Father Carlos next moved on to Holy Family Parish in Brownsville as parish administrator.
Into the streets
Father Carlos’s 4 1/2 years at Holy Family Church encompassed the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and most of its duration. The coronavirus outbreak resulted in churches being closed to the faithful for some weeks, and attendance plummeting even after they reopened. The parish began seeing three or four funerals a week. The year 2020 was one of closed doors, masks and fear.
“That kind of pushed us to do things that we never thought we would do,” he said.
“It was a difficult time,” Father Carlos said. “I knew that the people were struggling, and I just didn’t know how else to reach out to them. … I really didn’t know how they were doing. We really needed to go see the people.”
It began with him and one other person.
“We formed a little ministry – it was called ‘The Santiago Ministry, Walking in the Streets,’ or something like that,” he said. “I got somebody to help me, to accompany me so I wasn’t alone. And we hit it off, and we kept walking.”
“At the beginning, we were wearing masks, because we didn’t know what we were dealing with,” Father Carlos said. “I had no idea where we were going to go, and how we were going to do this. … It was just about going to see the people, blessing them.” 
“Then we started using bells – the bells of Mass,” he said. “We rang the bells through the streets, and people would hear it. … Some people would come out, and some people wouldn’t.”
“Eventually we came up with a system and divided up the whole territory into six or seven sections. And we would cover those sections monthly. For a long time, we covered all the parish territory in the course of a month.” 
“It spawned an awareness of where I could actually go and visit the sick. At one point I had 20-30 different homebound and elderly people that I would visit over time, taking them the Blessed Sacrament. … I became much more familiar with my people.”
Later, the walks became more elaborate as on certain occasions, altar servers accompanied him and provided a canopy for the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance. And the mission eventually brought the celebration of Mass out into the community.
“I would spread out flyers, and invite everybody to come to a Mass that we would hold at a home nearby,” Father Carlos said. “I wouldn’t say that there were crowds at the home Masses, but certainly there were people that I never had seen before. And there had been some conversations with people about why they had stopped going to Mass, even before the pandemic.”
“I heard enough to know that it did bear fruit of some kind, that it did impact people, but to what extent I don‘t know,” he said. “I heard stories of people going back, but to their own churches. I’m not here to steal them or anything – I just want them to go to church! That was the most important thing to me. 
“It was a beautiful ministry, and it was what God wanted me to do at the time.” 
A new parish 
Father Carlos spent most of two years walking the length and breadth of Holy Family Parish. 
“One of the things that I noticed at the end was that I was getting very, very drained,” he said.
In early 2023, he was reassigned to Prince of Peace Parish in Lyford and its two missions in Sebastian and Santa Monica, this time as pastor. He has now been in Willacy County for a year and a half.
“They’re all beautiful, and they all have their own character,” he said of his new communities. He notes that the people there all seem to know – and care about – each other. When he had an auto accident recently, parishioners quickly turned out to make sure he was OK.
His biggest worry that day, though, even though he had totaled his car, gone to the hospital in pain, and was released in time for a scheduled dinner with his parents, was whether he would have time to say his daily Mass.
“Another thing that Father Alfonso taught me: It’s so important to celebrate Mass,” Father Carlos said. “For me, it’s a source of strength. I cannot fathom going without Mass.
“That’s how important it is, and I stress that. If we would just celebrate Mass every single day, things can change in our lives, and certainly can change in the Church and the world.” 

Benedictine nun finds enduring joy in religious life.
By PAUL BINZ

Sister Frances Solum, 90, lives the Benedictine life at the Monastery of the Good Shepherd near Rio Grande City and rural El Sauz. With decades of teaching grade schoolers here and abroad long behind her, she now devotes herself to another tenet of her religious order – hospitality. 

“I’ve learned so much about hospitality from the people of the Valley,” Sister Frances said. “Their warmth, their welcoming spirit, their faith – wonderful examples for me, and so the joy of living in the Valley with such wonderful people.”

Sister Frances and her colleagues, Sister Nancy Boushey and Sister Luella Walsh, are delighted to welcome visitors to the monastery, which occupies a number of buildings on 115 acres of nearly undisturbed Starr County monte. Only the wind and an occasional bird song break the silence. Among the stones, small bunches of rare cacti sprout spring flowers. Signs on the paths admonish, “This is a nature preserve. Take nothing but pictures and leave only footprints.”

From her home in this rustic but idyllic setting, Sister Frances marked 70 years of religious life in March, and garnered recognition at World Day for Consecrated Life Mass on Feb. 11 at the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle-National Shrine.

Her last name is pronounced SO-lum – “a good Norwegian name,” she said.

Her father, a convert in middle age from the Lutheran Church, was a grocer in her birthplace of Barnesville, Minnesota, a farming community of about 1,300 people. One of six children, Frances was baptized at Barnesville’s Assumption Catholic Church, and as a child went to Benedictine school there. But even before that, at the age of four, little Frances got her first inkling of vocation.

“Prior to going to school there, I think what really influenced my vocation to become a Benedictine was that my mother was what you and me call a ‘designated driver,’ ” Sister Frances said. “She took the sisters to visit the various missions around there. 

“In those days, the sisters didn’t have cars for their use. But they seemed to be having so much fun – their simplicity, their enjoyment together, the camaraderie – that I really loved to be with them,” she said. “And at that time, I thought I wanted to be a sister. But if I had known at that time how much they prayed, I’m not so sure I would have wanted to be a sister!”

Sister Frances recalled her childhood mischievous streak – perhaps the trait that evolved into her characteristic sense of humor. 

“I was not a very prayerful child. But I was very adventuresome, and I wanted to be outdoors,” she recalled. “When it was time to take a nap, I was never tired. 

“So I used to run off and climb the highest tree, looking at the robin’s eggs in the nest, swinging in the breeze. My mother couldn’t find me, and I remember her calling and calling for me to come and take my nap, which I never liked to do!”

At Catholic school from first to eighth grade, young Frances learned to sing Gregorian chant. 

“There was not a Catholic high school in Barnesville, so I attended the public school, and I sang in the choir all that time.”

As a teenager, she again began to hear the call to vocation. 

“It had started when I was four, but I kind of let go of it until I was a junior in high school,” she said. “I started getting nudges again that I better start looking into it.  

“So there was a retreat at the academy at Mount St. Benedict in Cookston, Minnesota. It was there that I sensed that I was truly being called to be a Benedictine sister.”

She entered Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Cookson, Minnesota in 1952 and made her first monastic profession in 1954. 

She then taught in various schools in Minnesota.

“I loved teaching to the extent that I couldn’t wait for Monday to come around so that I could see the kids again!” she recalled.

She also found time to do two stints of missionary work with the poor in Colombia, in 1966-69, and again in 1980-84. She learned Spanish by translating thank-you letters, but got much of her verbal fluency with the help of her first-graders in Bogotá.

Sister Frances was recalled to the United States in 1984. Eventually she and her colleagues found opportunity in Starr County, with a chance to found a monastery on a piece of ranchland.

The tract was surplus held by Texaco, and was small by Texaco’s standards. The sisters found out about it from a friend and wrote to the company, and seemingly by divine providence, their missive came to the attention of a company lawyer in New Orleans who was also an Ursuline sister. She promptly convinced Texaco’s executives to donate the parcel. 

Although the donation occurred in 1997, legal challenges stemming from Spanish land-grant titles prevented the sisters from getting control of the land until 2000. The first building was completed in 2002, and today, with the help of volunteers, there are a dozen more structures including cottages and dormitories for retreats. With the sisters now advancing in years, a hundred Benedictine Oblates handle most of the work at the monastery.

Sister Frances at 90 may seem slowed a bit by age, but she moves with prime-of-life speed through the halls with the aid of her walker. And her enthusiasm for life as a Benedictine is just as fresh.

“The greatest joy is to be in community with the sisters – to live with them, pray with them,” she said. “Community is very important to me, and that has been the most enjoyable part – to be all together in one family, like that.” 

“As far as I’m concerned, it keeps getting better and better. And I love it more and more!” 

Sister Mary Vianney Uyeno For seven-plus decades, Our Lord and Our Lady have been her guides.
By PAUL BINZ

SAN JUAN – During her remarkable 70 years of religious life, Sister Mary Vianney Uyeno of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament has been a teacher, a principal, a menial, a healer, and has ministered to children, adults, the poor, and the sick. 

A convert to the Catholic faith in her youth, she has lived a full, active life notable for its turning points and accomplishments. She may be 92 today, but she speaks with no trace of sadness or regret.

“If not for God’s hand from the beginning, I would be nothing,” she said. “He’s guided me every step of the way. I talk to him and our Blessed Mother all the time.”

For her seven decades of service, Bishop Daniel E. Flores recognized Sister Uyeno at the special Consecrated Life Mass Feb. 11 at the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle-National Shrine.

Even in so-called retirement, she seems indefatigable.

“What haven’t I done?” she exclaimed when asked about what she’s been up to during the past 10 years. 

She still teaches a liturgy class to a handful of students at Brownsville’s Guadalupe Regional Middle School. 

“I worked with children all my life, and I’m not going to give that up!” she said.

Battling through a bout of bronchitis in recent weeks, Sister Uyeno has been getting ready for a quick spring visit from her order’s superior from Corpus Christi. She describes an array of preparations at the order’s Brownsville house, accomplished through the help of a faithful maintenance man.

She was born in Hawaii and raised in a large Buddhist family whose occupation was the Hawaiian version of migrant farm work, according to an autobiographical article she provided in 2014 to the Hawaii Catholic Herald, the newspaper of the Diocese of Honolulu. 

In her story, Sister Uyeno describes growing up in poverty and graduating from high school with few prospects for higher education. So she moved to Corpus Christi to work caring for a U.S. Navy officer’s small children; at that time, Corpus Christi was an important Navy homeport. 

The family’s name was Truxler and they were devoutly Catholic, she recalled in her story. While living with the Truxlers, she converted to Catholicism and acquired them as godparents.

Attending Mass regularly, she first encountered the Sisters of the Incarnate Word at church. This meeting set her on the path of vocation, as she describes in her story:

“When the priest instructing me in the faith asked me if I was considering to become a nun, I responded, ‘Impossible.’ But he said, ‘With God all things are possible.’ That played on my mind. As I said my rosary while riding the bus, his words began to overcome me. What was impossible became my ‘Yes.’ It is a strange twist for a Buddhist to become a Catholic to become a nun. Whenever my classmates ask me what happened, I say that God just took over my life, and his grace has sustained me thus far.”

She entered the convent in 1952. After making her profession, she stayed with the Diocese of Corpus Christi and then the Diocese of Brownsville after its inception in 1965. She taught for decades at Incarnate Word Academy in Brownsville, and became principal of that school before retiring.

These days Sister Uyeno is preparing for another milestone celebration. Her 70th anniversary as a sister coincides with her order’s jubilee April 7 at St. Patrick’s Church in Corpus Christi. The pastor there, Msgr. Roger Smith, long ago was one of her first-grade students. 

Only three sisters of her original group will be at St. Patrick’s for the jubilee, she said, as more than half have already passed on. “We fought, we laughed, we cried together,” she reminisced. “And we prayed together.”

In their first years as nuns in the 1950s, she recalled, the work was hard. But they took consolation from their order’s little prayer book, which contained this gem: “Time passes; eternity approaches” – an admonition to make the most of every day.

Sister Uyeno described in her story how she “found my sustenance in serving the poorest of the poor and enduring in all the other activities I engaged in.” She also listed her personal prayer: “Jesus, you are my Savior, you are my love. Help me.”

When things got rough, she could turn to another devotion.

“I prayed the rosary whenever I was in a pickle,” she said. “And when I pray the rosary, things clear up!”

After leaving full-time teaching, she spent time in her order’s House of Prayer, and she recalled in her story how as she practiced quiet, humble tasks, she found new inspiration. 

“It was there that I worked in the yard, cooked, cleaned and did many other things. One day as I sat on the floor in the chapel, I prayed: ‘Lord, you know this is crazy. Here I am. Lead me. Show me what you want. Here are my hands, take me.’ It was after that, without my realizing it, that I went to a health institute gathering in Corpus Christi and met a little lady who was doing reflexology. So, I took courses in that and in massage therapy. … This gave me new life.”

“I worked on all kinds of people – babies, old folks, Bishop Fitzpatrick, and even ‘the Mafia,’” she recalls.

Among Sister Uyeno’s reflexology clients was a famous – and infamous – figure in border lore here whose name many would still recognize. To her, though, he was just another person she could help. His response was to give generously to the Church – and also to bring take-out lunch from his restaurant headquarters in Matamoros. 

“All of us are God’s children,” she says.

Years later, after a stroke and a prison term put the man in failing health, she went to visit him in a Mexican hospital. It was a meeting of old friends.

“We had a nice little chat,” she said. “I told him, ‘I pray for you all the time.’ I blessed him, and then I left.” 

Sister Uyeno has long ago retired from reflexology. But her former patients have not forgotten her. 

“People call me from far wide to this day,” she said.

Her ministry has since taken a different turn. She now devotes prayerful attention to a transplant support group. 

“I tell them, ‘Think positive!’ And I’ll pray for them,” she said. Her prayer: “Lord, take this person into your care!”

And she counsels the patients, “Pray for yourself, too! Turn to the Lord!”

Sister Uyeno’s future plans include at least a chance of seeing Hawaii again. But so much of her family is now gone, she said, with seven brothers and two sisters now deceased. A nephew has been lobbying her to visit, and even offered to put her up in a hotel in Waikiki. 

She’s ambivalent about that, though – hotels too often have bedbugs, she says.

Someone recently asked her, “Have you ever regretted being a religious all your life, and not being married and having children?”

“Absolutely not!” she says. “Jesus has been my constant companion, as well as our Blessed Mother.”

 “They ask if I didn’t miss being out in the world. I WAS out in the world!” she insists. “If you keep your eye on Jesus, he is going to see you through it.” 

Compulsion to serve moved Father Genaro from chiropractic career to ordination .
By PAUL BINZ

SAN JUAN – Father Genaro Garza III has become the newest priest of the Diocese of Brownsville, with his end-of-year ordination the culmination of an insistent call to vocation. 

“Definitely a long journey,” he said of his path to the priesthood.

Father Garza was ordained by Bishop Daniel E. Flores at a special ordination Mass Dec. 30 at the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle-National Shrine. He requested the basilica for his ordination because of his special connections there. His said his parents used to walk to the original shrine for Mass before its fiery destruction in 1970, and he received his First Communion and confirmation at today’s basilica.

“How fitting would it be to receive the sacrament of the priesthood there?” he recalled. “There was something about Our Lady of San Juan del Valle. She always welcomed me with open arms.

“When I did more research on how Our Lady has impacted my life, I found out the sacristan who saved the image and the Blessed Sacrament when the shrine burned down was my father’s uncle.”

Garza, who was born in McAllen and grew up in San Juan, often attended Mass at the new shrine. One Sunday something remarkable happened there. 

“I remember exactly where I was … It was really packed, and I was leaning against the wall on the second floor. I just felt something literally tell me, ‘Serve! Serve!’ 

“I found that very weird because I’m a big introvert,” he said. “But it was persistent – that call to serve. So I started serving as a lector, and from there, I just couldn’t get enough of serving. There were times on the weekends when I would serve five Masses, just because I wanted to be there, I wanted to help. 

“And eventually that love of serving started changing my mind, and I started seeing myself on the altar as the priest,” he said. “That kind of freaked me out, so I was like, OK, let me back away from serving a little because I didn’t understand what was going on at that time.”

Garza left for San Antonio and higher education. After earning a degree in psychology, he moved to Dallas to study chiropractic medicine. He was away from the Valley for 10 years, even interning in Bogotá, Colombia, where he worked with Olympic athletes. 

Focused on a new goal of working with athletes, Garza eventually returned to the Valley to begin his chiropractic career. He spent three years working in McAllen, living in Edinburg and becoming a parishioner at St. Joseph Church there. 

“I made St. Joseph my home,” he said. “I had a good job. I was living very comfortably. But little by little I was beginning again to start serving. And again, that call from within to continue to serve, it was never extinguished. So I got involved there at St. Joseph. 

“And I just could not get enough of serving. … I must have been in every ministry minus Altar Society and the Rosary Bobbins. Lector, eucharistic minister, Knights of Columbus, choir, Legion of Mary, Divine Mercy ministry, RCIA. My work schedule was adapted so that I could serve. 

“It wasn’t my career primarily; it was service to the Church.”

In 2012, Garza shelved his chiropractic work and entered seminary for the first time. But it was a time of confusion for him. 

“I didn’t know how to discern it. I didn’t know what priesthood was,” he said. “I just felt this calling, and I jumped right into it. And I didn’t even last a month.  

“I really did not discern it well at that time because I had this internal conflict. I had the voices of the world saying, ‘Hey, you’re a doctor of chiropractic. Like, you spent nine years studying. You can make all this money.’

“And then I get this calling. And now I’m sitting here at a seminary with nothing, and I don’t know what I’m doing here. It was just a horrible internal conflict for a month. And when I came back, I was depressed. I was like, ‘What is this, Lord? You called me to this. I answered that call. And then I’m back to square one.”

After this setback, Garza returned to the Valley and resumed chiropractic work. Along the way, the late Father Alfonso Guevara became his spiritual director.

“The thing that I admired most was that … throughout the whole spiritual direction, never once did he say, ‘Hey, what about seminary?’ He never forced that upon me. He was just there, present to me, and what I was going through.”

On the verge of getting his own chiropractic office and with a steady girlfriend, Garza once again came to a fork in the road. He consulted with Father Guevara.

“He asked, ‘Do you still think about going back to the seminary?’ And I said, well, yeah, it comes into my mind here and there.’ And then he said, ‘Well, you need to discern that more.  Because the fact that it’s still there in your mind means you haven’t put it to rest.’  

“He told me to go before the Blessed Sacrament, and really discern what it was that the Lord was calling me to do. He said, ‘Try to imagine yourself in both those vocations – in the married life, and then also as a priest.’ 

“And so as I looked in both those vocations – one, I could see myself married, but it only took me so far. As I looked into the priesthood, I saw myself as an older man further down the line. So the Lord was making it very clear to me where it is that he wanted me.”

Now determined to return to seminary, ending his relationship was difficult, he said. But in the end, she was supportive of his decision, he recalled.

“She told me, ‘I love you and I care about you. The one thing that I’ve always wanted for you is for you to love God more than you love me, and I see that you are doing that at this moment. And as much as I’m hurt, I’m going to support you and pray for your vocation.’

“So if that wasn’t a grace for the moment, I don’t know what is.”

He also had business to conclude.

“I had just signed a contract to open my own (chiropractic) practice with a franchise. Business is business, and I had signed that contract,” Garza said. 

But to his surprise, he was let out of the contract by an understanding partner.

“It was a very lucrative contract,” Garza said. “But he said, ‘I admire that you’re giving all this up to follow something that you feel God calling you.’

Garza was ordained a transitional deacon Aug. 21, 2021 at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville. Three diaconal assignments spanning almost 21/2 years followed, at St. Anthony Parish in Harlingen, San Pedro outside Brownsville, and finally at the cathedral itself.

“It’s been a blessing, definitely a blessing,” Garza said. “To be able to live out my ministry as a deacon … I was able to be in that ministry of service a little longer. And it really was a blessing to be in those two communities. 

“I like to say in my ministry as deacon, one softened my heart, and the other shaped it. And I don’t think that that can be taught at seminary. … I was very blessed that I was able to do those two years here. You can study theology all you like, but when you’re in the field with the people of God that’s really where God’s molding you and shaping your heart. And I’m very grateful for that.”

Father Garza is looking forward to priestly life at home in the Valley.

“Here’s home – the people of God, the people I want to serve. This is where my heart is, this is where the Lord wants me to serve.”

Faith, vocation firmly rooted in aspiring priest 
BY PAUL BINZ 

Although Reynaldo Guillén only graduated from high school in May, he holds a rich resumé of liturgical experience, having risen from altar server to master of ceremonies at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in just four short years. Now, the cathedral’s loss is the Church’s gain as he embarks on study for the priesthood this fall with the Congregation of Holy Cross in South Bend, Indiana. 

He recalls finding his path and place early in life. 

“From the moment I stepped onto the sanctuary that first Sunday back when I was nine years old, just starting off altar serving, I felt a sense of belonging and a sense of peace, and falling in love with the liturgy and with Our Lord,” Guillén said. “Before that I had always gone to Mass, and I said my prayers and I had faith in God. But being closer to him just brought our relationship closer.” 

His sanctuary service began in 2014. 

“I had just received my sacrament of first Communion, so I was ready to find a ministry to join,” Guillén said, “and I just so happened to find the ministry of the altar servers. 

“And I really didn’t know what I was doing. The first Sunday I was serving, I was kind of nervous, kind of scared. And on top of that, the bishop was there.” 

“One or two times after that, I began to open up, and really fall in love with the service that I was doing, with the ministry, all the people I was meeting, and the people I was serving with – the fellow altar servers, but also the priests and the deacons; of course, the bishops. It kind of went from there.” 

Guillén eventually took on a role at the cathedral typically reserved for a much older person. 

“Just a little bit before 2020, I became the master of ceremonies for the cathedral,” he said. “I had no idea what I was really doing at that time. But I said yes to the rector and to the bishop …” 

What the ‘EmCee’ Does: Directing the Flow of the Mass 

Soon enough, Guillén mastered the role. 

“My job was basically to ensure that the Mass flowed smoothly, that everyone knew their job. And my job was to know everyone else’s job, from the celebrant to the servers,” he recalled. “So I planned the Masses; I scheduled the lectors and the altar servers, made sure we had all the appropriate things we needed; communicated with the celebrants … made sure that their needs were met; and then made sure that the Mass flew smoothly, that everything went according to plan. 

“Of course, not all the time did it go according to plan. But my job was to kind of overcome those obstacles, and to make sure that liturgy was beautiful and prayerful for the people.” 

Guillén’s efforts at the cathedral during the coronavirus pandemic and televised Masses earned special praise from Bishop Daniel E. Flores. 

“He was very generous in the service of the need of the time after COVID … very faithful in making sure that even though we didn’t have a congregation, that everything was ready for the Mass and the people would have the best possible experience of it through the livestream,” Bishop Flores said. “Persevering, because it was difficult at times.” 

Guillén summed up his view of the best practice for the master of ceremonies. 

“As long as the people don’t really notice that I’m there, I think that means that I’m doing my job correctly.” 

His Vocation: Onward and upward 

Guillén’s vocation grew even as he grew up, but not without a few growing pains. 

“There were definitely times, especially in middle school, that I was … distracted,” Guillén said. “I wanted to do other things. I actually wanted to become a lawyer. I was very good at arguing at that time.” 

“In high school, however, that changed. I came back to my vocation,” Guillén said. “I rediscovered it in new ways with new people, and from there it really took off. 

“Every day it got stronger and stronger and stronger. Every morning I’d wake up and I’d say, ‘Lord, let me do your will.’” 

His time at the cathedral also helped him build a network, which soon brought benefits and clarity. 

“Part of my discernment process was experimenting and meeting different people – both diocesan and religious. I went around 
 

and I met so many priests and so many different religious brothers and even sisters from different congregations and different communities – even the diocese here,” Guillén said. 

“But ultimately I came to the conclusion that God was calling me to the Congregation of Holy Cross.” 

Having graduated from Saint Joseph Academy in Brownsville in May, the young collegian is now in his first semester of studies for the priesthood at Holy Cross College. 

“I just recently resigned from the (master of ceremonies) position, ready to embark on this journey towards the priesthood,” Guillén said. 

“I really fell in love with the charism, and really fell in love with the (Holy Cross) community,” he said. “The bond that everyone shared was just something that made me happy and something that I knew I wanted to be a part of, and that God was asking me to do.”

Faith and vocation firmly rooted

“Everyone spends time in different ways with the Lord. … My prayer schedule changes depending on the day’s activities,” Guillén said. “But I always make time in the morning to give praise to the Lord, give him thanks for giving me a new day, giving me the opportunity to serve him; I always ask for his blessing, that nothing will harm me or those that I care about.

“I also ask the Holy Spirit to fill me so that I can go out in the world and say the right things, do the right things. And then of course throughout the day I find time to go to Mass or to place myself in the presence of the Eucharist – something that I’ve always had a strong devotion to.”

Guillén has not forgotten his parents’ support for his vocation and their role in shaping his life.

“They’re really the reason why I have my faith. I would say the reason I have my vocation is because it was their decision to bring me to the church to have me baptized. And they were the ones who drove me to church every Sunday … And to this day, they still go to church with me … .’”

Guillén just turned 19 , but already he can claim a broad range of experience.

“I’ve definitely learned patience, responsibility and leadership skills. But above all, how to put my faith in God and let the Holy Spirit work through me to provide for his people and for their needs for the worship.”

“It’s been one full, full journey with many ups and downs, and very exciting moments,” Guillén said. “It’s been such a blessing, to be part of such an amazing team here at the diocese and there at the cathedral.”

Bishop Flores foresees good things in Guillén’s future.

“Whatever he does, in that spirit of generosity and love for the Church, will be a great gift,” Bishop Flores said. “And love for God’s people, because that was very clear.”

“I think God will open doors for him.”