The rector of the Jesuit community of Tampa and a teacher at Jesuit High School of Tampa, Fr. Ángel M. Rivera-Fals, SJ, this year celebrates 25 years in the Society of Jesus. He has been at Jesuit Tampa since 2017, teaching theology and serving as the director of liturgy and board member.
“At the origin of my Jesuit and priestly vocation, there may not be a ‘miraculous catch’ or some extraordinary event,” he said. “But in some way, there has been and continues to be a feeling of admiration and wonder for Christ, and the conviction that it is worth leaving everything and following him, to collaborate with him in the salvation of the world.”
Father Rivera-Fals was born November 9, 1977, in Frankfurt, Germany, where his father served in the U.S. Army. His mother, a Cuban immigrant, and his father, who was Puerto Rican, raised Fr. Rivera-Fals and brother and sister in Puerto Rico’s Cuban expatriate community.
After feeling called to a vocation to religious life and the priesthood during high school, he lived in a small Jesuit community to continue his discernment during college. He entered the Noviciado San Estanislao de Kostka in the Dominican Republic in 1999 after completing a bachelor’s degree in education.
Following the novitiate, Fr. Rivera-Fals completed his philosophy studies at Fordham and completed his regency at the Academia San Ignacio in San Juan, Puerto Rico, teaching religion and Spanish to fourth graders. He studied theology at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, where he was ordained a deacon in 2009, and holds a licentiate in sacred theology.
Father Rivera-Fals was ordained to the priesthood in 2010 at the Parroquia San Ignacio de Loyola in San Juan, Puerto Rico, after which he spent a pastoral year working on the island. In 2011, Fr. Rivera-Fals completed a licentiate in sacred liturgy from the Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo in Rome. Returning to Puerto Rico in 2014, Fr. Rivera-Fals served as a parochial vicar and later as a pastor at El Buen Pastor Parish in Mayagüez, from 2014 to 2016.
He pronounced his final vows on August 15, 2019, in the Chapel of the Holy Cross at Jesuit Tampa and was appointed rector of the community in 2021.
Father Rivera-Fals reflected on his 25 years as Jesuit during his homily at Jesuit High School of Tampa on September 5, 2024:
When I was young, my desire was to become a missionary and go to distant lands to proclaim the gospel, but the Lord had other paths prepared for me. I soon learned that it is useless to give God what I want if I do not give him what he asks of me.
The Lord has accompanied me at all times, making himself present in many ways, forgiving me, strengthening me, consoling me, blessing me. Today I can only thank him for everything I have experienced so far.
I especially thank God for all the good people he has put in my path, who with their friendship are an encouragement in my journey. I ask him to send his blessings upon each one of them, upon each one of you.
I conclude by referring to the Latin phrase that I have chosen as the motto for this celebration: Ave Crux spes unica, “Hail to the Cross, our only hope,” words engraved in the stone above the main doors of this very Chapel of the Holy Cross. These words summarize what these twenty-five years of religious life in the Society of Jesus have meant to me and also express my desire, looking to the future, to place all my hope only in the Cross of the Lord.
