Important note: This story includes themes of alcohol, substance abuse, and self harm. Reader discretion is advised.
“I feel like that lost sheep that He goes and looks for. He's like...are you coming home with me?"
Jacqueline Marie | Jan.18, 2024
In 2021, Salvador returned to his childhood home in Chicago, a broken man. His partner and the mother of his children had kicked him out of their home in Las Vegas. Addiction and a life of fast living had brought his world crashing down on him.
In 2021, Salvador returned to his childhood home in Chicago, a broken man. His partner and the mother of his children had kicked him out of their home in Las Vegas. Addiction and a life of fast living had brought his world crashing down on him.
As a child, Sal had felt a strong connection to God. A cradle Catholic, he was involved in youth retreats at his parish and felt drawn to the Bible. But as a teen, he was afraid to be known in school as the one who chose God fully: “here in Chicago, I mean growing up, it was not easy… it was kind of rough.” At that time, the priests in the parish were Missionary Servants of the Word from Mexico. “All these teachings were with the Bible… I was in love with that.” But it caused a tension within him – it didn’t fit with the persona he wore with his friends. His Pastor challenged him: “either you’re hot or you’re cold, you cannot be in between.”
As a child, Sal had felt a strong connection to God. A cradle Catholic, he was involved in youth retreats at his parish and felt drawn to the Bible. But as a teen, he was afraid to be known in school as the one who chose God fully: “here in Chicago, I mean growing up, it was not easy… it was kind of rough.” At that time, the priests in the parish were Missionary Servants of the word from Mexico. “All these teachings were with the Bible… I was in love with that.” But it caused a tension within him – it didn’t fit with the persona he wore with his friends. His Pastor challenged him: “either you’re hot or you’re cold, you cannot be in betweeen.
“You cannot be a priest without being a missionary." There are times “to leave the 99 sheep and go and look for the lost one.”
“You cannot be a priest without being a missionary." There are times “to leave the 99 sheep and go and look for the lost one.”
So, as a teen, in his rebellion, in his pain, in searching for his identity and worth, he decided “I’ll be cold.” By the time he was 17 he was far from the Church and moved to Sin City. “I felt like the lost sheep.”
He recounts a decade filled with destruction where he consumed alcohol and drugs daily. “I was close to a lot of stuff in Vegas. I could have either gotten killed, gotten arrested.” Yet even in that season when he ran from the Church, he sees the hand of God. “The way I look at it, He always was there for me. He was always protecting me.”
About the Parish
Mary, Our Mother of Mercy Parish is a thriving bilingual parish in Chicago pastored by Father Jose Murcia Abellan. Father Jose has been coached by Divine Renovation since 2018. “When brother priests ask me what Divine Renovation is bringing into my parish the first thing is the vision…to bring everybody and help everybody find their place in this gameplan, finding themselves part of this vision…living their own charisms as part of a whole body.”
While he knew his goal was to be a missional parish, “I felt like I couldn’t control everything, and I felt like I had to be everywhere, and it was too much.”
“Passing from an ecclesiology in which the priest has to think everything, create everything, do everything to having a team with which you can pray, argue, discern, reconcile, have fun and work together and we all share this desire for evangelization,” has been a game changer.
Now leading from a team, He has not wavered in his focus on the primacy of evangelization: “you cannot be a priest without being a missionary.” There are times “to leave the 99 sheep and go and look for the lost one.”
“It was something that inside of me was telling me go back…I was an alcoholic, a drug addict… Inside of me, it was like ‘stop doing it’ like ‘go back.’ Like something inside of me was saying ‘go back to Chicago.’”
He continues, “I feel like that lost sheep that He goes and looks for. He’s like, OK, that’s enough. Yeah. Are you coming home with me? … even though I was not ready.”
When he did come back home, his parents encouraged him: “go speak with Father.” So, he ended up back at his childhood parish – Mary, Mother of Mercy – sitting across from Father Jose Murcia Abellan. Once again, a pastor would issue a challenge for his life. Father Jose said, “stay here, since Vegas is destroying your life, there is nothing to go back to.” Father Jose then invited him to an upcoming Alpha at the parish: “just go to this and listen.”
“It was something that inside of me was telling me go back…I was an alcoholic, a drug addict… Inside of me, it was like ‘stop doing it’ like ‘go back.’ Like something inside of me was saying ‘go back to Chicago.’”
He continues, “I feel like that lost sheep that He goes and looks for. He’s like, OK, that’s enough. Yeah. Are you coming home with me? … even though I was not ready.”
When he did come back home, his parents encouraged him: “go speak with Father.” So, he ended up back at his childhood parish – Mary, Mother of Mercy – sitting across from Father Jose Murcia Abellan. Once again, a pastor would issue a challenge for his life. Father Jose said, “stay here, since Vegas is destroying your life, there is nothing to go back to.” Father Jose then invited him to an upcoming Alpha at the parish: “just go to this and listen.”
“It was something that inside of me was telling me go back…I was an alcoholic, a drug addict… Inside of me, it was like ‘stop doing it’ like ‘go back.’ Like something inside of me was saying ‘go back to Chicago.’”
He continues, “I feel like that lost sheep that He goes and looks for. He’s like, OK, that’s enough. Yeah. Are you coming home with me? … even though I was not ready.”
When he did come back home, his parents encouraged him: “go speak with Father.” So, he ended up back at his childhood parish – Mary, Mother of Mercy – sitting across from Father Jose Murcia Abellan. Once again, a pastor would issue a challenge for his life. Father Jose said, “stay here, since Vegas is destroying your life, there is nothing to go back to.” Father Jose then invited him to an upcoming Alpha at the parish: “just go to this and listen.”
By this point, his partner had also returned to Chicago with their family. She signed both him and her up for Alpha at the parish. Sal remembers his response: “Why are you doing this? I don’t want to go!” During the first couple of weeks in Alpha, he was on the fence: “I did so much stuff bad [sic] I didn’t feel worthy to be there.” But by the third week, the testimony hit him – he saw himself in the story.
At the Alpha Holy Spirit retreat weekend, Sal says: “that day I felt everything – everything came back to me…I felt something warm inside of me.” He experienced God in a powerful way, and it changed his heart. The weekend event was at the exact same location that as a youth he had gone to for retreats. “It was like God telling me, you belong here. You don’t belong over there. This is your place… every single time I used to go to church. It was just coming back to me.”
But addictions were still keeping him captive. Two months after Alpha ended, he was praying in a chapel, strung-out, begging God “Take this away from me. Take this addiction from me or take my life. I don’t wanna live no more…I don’t know my purpose in life. If I can’t do nothing else but this, I don’t feel worthy. Just take me out.”
The next day his older brother, who Sal describes as his “rock”, came and said, “your addiction is a sickness. You’re sick.” He helped him get into rehab and Alcoholics Anonymous.
This winter marks Sal’s two-year anniversary of sobriety.
He also celebrated something else this past year – through the help of Father Jose, the parish, and his family – he got married to his partner.
Sal recalls a critical moment when an old acquaintance from his former life showed up at the wedding. The man pushed a gift – a rosary – in one of Sal’s hands and then drugs in the other. The depth of the unintended metaphor was clear to Sal – he could only choose one of the gifts and still have life. He fled from the temptation offered him and turned to the rosary.
Turning back to the Church has led him to restoration with his wife and family, and a life with purpose and healing.
Sal now volunteers at Mary, Our Mother of Mercy Parish, helping youth at that same critical point he encountered in his teenage years. “My hope is to try to get more youth to not to be scared like I was,” to be not afraid to fully follow God and trust him with their lives.
“I want God to use me as an instrument for the youth.”
About the Parish
Mary, Our Mother of Mercy Parish is a thriving bilingual parish in Chicago pastored by Father Jose Murcia Abellan. Father Jose has been coached by Divine Renovation since 2018. “When brother priests ask me what Divine Renovation is bringing into my parish the first thing is the vision…to bring everybody and help everybody find their place in this gameplan, finding themselves part of this vision…living their own charisms as part of a whole body.”
While he knew his goal was to be a missional parish, “I felt like I couldn’t control everything, and I felt like I had to be everywhere, and it was too much.”
“Passing from an ecclesiology in which the priest has to think everything, create everything, do everything to having a team with which you can pray, argue, discern, reconcile, have fun and work together and we all share this desire for evangelization,” has been a game changer.
Now leading from a team, He has not wavered in his focus on the primacy of evangelization: “you cannot be a priest without being a missionary.’ There are times “to leave the 99 sheep and go and look for the lost one.”
