Panamanian doctor was ordered priest in the Basilica of Guadalupe

The Panamanian doctor Josamir Ulises Barrera Martínez was ordained a priest on August 22, 2024 in the Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe in Mexico City, a place full of symbolism for his life because there, more than two decades ago, he felt the call that transformed his destiny.

In an interview with ACI Press, he said that his vocation was born on July 31, 2002, when he was just 14 years old and watched on television, at his grandparents’ house, the canonization of the Indian Juan Diego in the Basilica of Guadalupe, which Pope San Juan Paul II presided over.

In addition to the ceremony, he points out that he caught his attention that, despite the age and obvious diseases of the Pope, “people were very moved and even crying when I saw it.” He admitted that he wondered “What does that man have so much shock to people?”

He assured that that day, more than the 3,000 kilometers between the Panamanian province of Colón and Mexico City, he received an answer along with a call. “The answer was that in Him (Saint John Paul) was the presence of God. It was Jesus radiating through Him and that is why it caused so much shock. And at the same time I felt that God was calling me the priesthood at that time.”

An inner battle

Fr. Josamir Ulises recalls that his initial reaction “was a resounding”, because since childhood he had dreamed of being a doctor, forming a family and building a stable future. However, the seed of curiosity for priestly life had been sown. I felt that “God at that time was ruining my plans, as I was grabbing my resume and throwing it into a basket (garbage).”

Faithful to his initial plan, applied to a scholarship and moved to Venezuela to study Community Integral Medicinecareer that studied for seven years. I was convinced that, over time, the call would go out. But he said that “God continued to play the door.”

In 2011, after participating in the World Youth Day in Madrid (Spain), the documentary saw Mother Teresa: The legacy (2007). According to the words and the testimony of the Holy of Calcutta, especially “the motivation of satisfying the thirst of Jesus in the poor” that she demonstrated.

He contacted the missionary parents of charity, who recommended to finish his studies first.

The beginning of its path

In 2013 he graduated as a doctor, and although Fr. Josamir Ulises recalled that “he was super happy because it was something I wanted and that he wanted to do,” the feeling invaded him that “I am missing something.” He acknowledged that at that time he said: “Lord, now I’m going to give you the opportunity.” Shortly after he traveled to Guadalajara (Mexico) to live an experience with the missionaries of charity.

As of 2015, it began their training in the houses that missionaries have in Mexico, Kenya and Italy. Finally, on August 22, 2024, priest was ordered in the Basilica of Guadalupe, at the foot of the Virgin who had been present since the beginning of his vocation.

Doctor and priest

Fr. Josamir Ulises said that his vocational path was not free of challenges. “It has been a difficult path and tests and everything (however) has been a way of much joy,” he said.

He explained that at the beginning he rejected the call because he had his life perfectly planned, but over time he understood that by letting the Lord discover “true happiness and joy and peace. Then, God does not take away anything, but gives us everything, gives us meaning to our real life.”

That is why he invited others to discover “that vocation and that mission, we discovered our peace and (that) there is a deep joy (in) being doing what we were created to do.”

He currently combines his priestly ministry with his medical training, areas that, he said, have coincidences: “He who is a particular call to people with great love and dedication. And also to being very close to human suffering.” For their part, the priests are also called “to see the suffering of the brother, but also to live it and to comfort him.”

“We see the face of Christ in the poorest of the poor. We try to cover the face of Christ in the poorest of the poor and serve it,” he added.

At the feet of Guadalupe

After his ordination, he spent a few days in Panama before leaving for his new mission in Guatemala. He did not hide his emotion by remembering that he was ordered in the Guadalupano sanctuary, a moment that described as “a completely undeserved gift and more because I believe that it all started by Maria and continued to be his fault.”

If it all started on July 31, 2002, when a teenager contemplated the canonization of San Juan Diego, the seer of the Virgin of Guadalupe who took the Guadalupano message to the world in 1531, today Fr. Josamir Ulises acknowledges that everything “began by her and that my priesthood also starts with her and I also hope that she helps me to finish it.”