The Official Newspaper of the Diocese of Little Rock
Alejandro Puello took a leap of faith when he moved to the United States in May 2004 and Catholics in Arkansas are going to benefit from that decision.
Puello, 28, is a native of the Dominican Republic who was not connected to the Catholic Church as a child or teenager. He lived alone with his mother and dreamed of pursuing a career in business. He and his mother owned an embroidery business together.
"I was going to the university full time and working full time," he said. "The economic situation back home got really ugly. Things at home were not good."
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One of the biggest challenges for Puello was his new family attended Mass every Sunday and were faithful Catholics.
"Back in the Dominican I didn't practice my faith. My mom was not a church-going person back then. We didn't go to church. We didn't pray. It was not part of how I was raised."
Ricardo Puello required his son to attend Mass with him, his stepmother and half sisters.
"My dad said, 'You are not in good shape spiritually," he said. "I was struggling a lot to find meaning in my life. … I tried to answer that any way except for religion. … I was confronted with the reality that my dad and stepmom somehow they are happy and have a sense of completeness and wholeness. It really, really angered me. Here I am struggling. It irked me until one day … I asked 'What are they doing that I am not doing?"
With the example set by his family, Puello began to pray on his own for 30 minutes each day and noticed that he was no longer depressed and anxious.
"Little by little things started changing," he said. "A lot of my anxiety was eased, my immaturity. I was able to deal with a lot of behavioral issues. With that came improvements with my family. ... I was desperate. This has to work."
Even with a perfect grade point average and the opportunity of getting a college degree, Puello continued to search.
"There is nothing as sad as a meaningless life," he said.
He began to go to Eucharistic adoration each Wednesday.
"It changed things because then I felt the freedom to ask God, 'Tell me what to do.' … I started finding joy in prayer. That was my first hint that things were happening."
While praying about his purpose in life, an image popped into Puello's mind: celebrating Mass as a Catholic priest.
Other Catholic images began to recur. Then the former chaplain at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro, Father Quentin Kathol, OSB, pointedly asked Puello, "Have you ever thought about entering the seminary?"
For the next 21 days he got additional signs that he should discern a call to the priesthood. Puello did not want to consider this calling and remained stubborn.
"I decided I was going to ignore these thoughts and do whatever," he said. "At the same time I was struggling. I want to be a good man and do what God wants me to do. I want to live my life with a purpose … I was not going to pick this on my own. I knew I didn't have it in me to accept it. I went to prayer and talked to God, 'Look, if you want me to do this then you are going to have to make me want to do this.'"
The next day he felt different.
"In my heart, I knew already what it was. Dang it, why do you have to answer prayers?"
By late 2005 and early 2006 Puello was meeting with the diocese's vocations director, Msgr. Scott Friend, to discern this calling.
"As soon as I gave up, I felt the most peace I have ever felt with anything in my entire life," he said.
Puello entered St. Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana in the fall of 2006. Initially, his mother, Yngrid Blonda, who later moved to Florida, was not pleased her son was entering the seminary. Today Puello said she is an active Catholic and supportive of the decision.
"I am just in awe because God doesn't need me," he said "I feel grateful that he allows me to serve him and serve his people. He could have called anybody else, people more intellectual, people more eloquent, more talented. But somehow in his crazy providential way, he has asked me to be a priest."
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