Angelus News | June 3, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 11

JUAN CESAR
MARTINEZ
Age: 36
Hometown: Colima, Mexico
Home parish: St. Finbar Church, Burbank
Parish assignment: St. Mariana de Paredes
Church, Pico Rivera
The road to the priesthood has been a circuitous one
for Juan Cesar Carrasco Martinez, one he has traveled
between two countries, in and around certainty
and doubt, questions and answers, until landing him with a
commitment born of, he said, “the strength that you need
to be the instrument God wants you to be.”
Raised with a younger brother by grandparents who
“taught me to love Jesus and his Church,” he went to Mass
every Sunday and took notice of all the parish priest did.
“My grandparents didn’t know how to read or write; they
just had this beautiful faith,” he recalled. “And I used this
beautiful testimonial from them [to] fall in love with the
saints, with the Blessed Mother, with the Church.”
When he was 8, Martinez’s pastor asked him to be an
altar server, something he would do until he graduated
from high school at 18. “This caught my attention, all the
service the priest offered to the community,” the 36-yearold
said. “I think this is where my vocation began.”
At graduation, the pastor told him about the priesthood,
but Martinez wasn’t sure that was the life for him. He
attended seminary, but found himself drawn to study computer
science in college.
“I decided to take a break [from the seminary],” he said. “I
made this prayer before the Blessed Sacrament: I promised
I would be back.”
But after earning his bachelor’s degree, he decided to take
a position as an elementary school teacher.
“I remembered the promise I made to Jesus, but I was in
a good balance, living on my own, it was a good life. It was
too hard for me to leave all that and go back to formation.”
But after two years of teaching, he said he suddenly felt
“an emptiness in my life,” and began to question whether
teaching was fulfilling his life. He approached a priest in
search of spiritual direction and, after about a year, the
priest said he believed that God was calling him again to
the priesthood.
“He recommended that I pray a lot about it,” he said.
“And so I did pray before the Blessed Sacrament and I
discovered again this calling that God had made to me.”
Though he had made the decision to follow God’s calling,
things did not get any simpler or easier. In 2016, he moved
to Los Angeles to study English at Cal State LA and attend
St. John’s Seminary. He described those early days as “painful,”
as he struggled to understand readings and homework
in a language he was still learning.
Martinez with students during his time as an elementary school teacher.
18 • ANGELUS • June 3, 2022