Prayers led Deacon Carvajal to priesthood

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

“José, we’re praying for your vocation,” the religious sisters told their high school principal.
“That’s nice,” responded the young man. “You mean my vocation as a teacher? I love what I’m doing. I also feel I’m serving the Lord.”
In addition to being principal, he taught.
“We’re praying for your vocation to the priesthood,” insisted the Religious of Jesus and Mary.
He was impressed; he hadn’t told them of his previous interest in priesthood. But he told the sisters, “Don’t waste your time; I discerned that already.”
Undeterred, the sisters said they would keep praying for his vocation – to the priesthood.
“That’s why I tell people God has a sense of humor,” that young man, Deacon José Fernando Carvajal Castrillón, told The Catholic Free Press. Tomorrow Bishop McManus is to ordain him a priest for the Diocese of Worcester at Mass at St. Paul Cathedral.
This is his story.
He was born on July 29, 1989, in Medellín, Colombia, the son of Luis Fernando Carvajal Arenas and Diana Lucia Castrillón Cardona.
His parents divorced and he and his siblings, Juliana Carvajal Castrillón and Jorge Dario Carvajal Castrillón, lived with their mother and grandmother.
“I grew up in a Catholic family,” attending Catholic school, Deacon Carvajal said. He went to Colegio San Buenaventura in Bello for elementary school, middle school and high school, graduating in 2005.
In ninth grade, he got involved with youth ministry at his parish, St. Leopold Mandić in Bello.
“I was always very impressed by his life,” he said of St. Leopold, a Capuchin known for his charism of hearing confessions.
Deacon Carvajal became a catechist, and also got involved with the diocesan youth ministry.
The youth, who hadn’t thought of being a priest earlier, began discerning a priestly vocation. In January 2006 he began formal discernment with the Archdiocese of Medellín. He was 16.
“I decided that I was still too young,” he said. “I said, ‘I want to go to college and try out something else.’”
At Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana he got his bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish in 2011 and his certification in teaching Spanish as a second language in 2012. In 2014, he started his master of arts in education.
While in college Deacon Carvajal taught ESL – from 2008-2011 – at the school he’d attended as a youngster. In 2012 he started teaching at Colegio Jesús María in Medellín, run by the Religious of Jesus and Mary, “a French community … very well known for high quality education.” The next year, the head mistress asked him to be principal.
“I’m too young and I don’t have a lot of experience,” he responded. “Let me think about it.”
She gave him the weekend to think, then said he was good with the students’ parents and the experience would be good for him. He accepted.
He stayed on as principal through 2015. From 2013-2015 he was also adjunct ESL professor at CESDE, part of the community college system, and adjunct professor of Spanish as a second language at the pontifical university, both in Medellín.
In “December 2014 I came to the U.S. with my brother,” Deacon Carvajal said. After his brother left, Deacon Carvajal visited Fathers Edwin Montaña and Juan G. Herrera, men he’d known in Colombia who’d become priests for the Worcester Diocese. He also saw others he knew, including Father Hugo A. Cano, who’d taught him in college, and Father Nelson J. Rivera, who’d taught with him at San Buenaventura.
Deacon Carvajal saw the good work the Colombian priests were doing here and learned about the priest shortage.
“I started to think about being a priest again,” he said. “In May 2015 I started conversations with Father Mazzone through Father Edwin Montaña.” Father James S. Mazzone was then director of the Worcester Diocese’s Office for Vocations.   
How did Deacon Carvajal discern God’s call for him?
“It was the fruit of prayer,” he said. “A lot of thinking as well.”
He said God knew that he wouldn’t leave his grandmother, whom he took care of after she broke her hip in March 2014. She died in May that year.
The next May, Deacon Carvajal said, Father Mazzone told him he was eligible for the Worcester Diocese’s program; although he hadn’t taken philosophy, he could communicate in English.
Given that knowledge of the language, “I said, ‘Why not the U.S.; why not the Worcester Diocese?’”
In August 2015 Deacon Carvajal came to the diocese. He studied English briefly, then went to St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, from which he graduated May 6. Last June he was ordained a transitional deacon, the step before priesthood.
His mother, sister, an aunt and a cousin are to attend his priestly ordination tomorrow. His Mass of Thanksgiving is at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow at St. Mary Parish in Shrewsbury, one of the parishes where he served.

Five ordination liturgies for the Diocese of Worcester are scheduled
in St. Paul Cathedral.
COVID restrictions limit in-person attendance but anyone
can watch via Livestream at
worcesterdiocese.org.
Those in Worcester can view live on cable WCCA, Spectrum Ch 194.

May 15 at 10 a.m.
Ordination to the priesthood
• Deacon Carlos F. Ardila
• Deacon Jose F. Carvajal

May 29 at 10 a.m.
Ordination to the transitional    
diaconate
• James Boulette
• Thiago Ibiapina
• Derek Mobilio

May 29 at 2 p.m.
Ordination to the transitional diaconate
• Cleber de Paula
• Julio Granados
• Juan Parra

June 5 at 10 a.m.
Ordination to the permanent diaconate
• Scott Camilleri
• John Ladroga
• Donald Pegg

June 19 at 10 a.m.
Ordination to the priesthood
• Deacon Lucas M. LaRoche
• Deacon John L. Larochelle