Deacon Paul Flor

Deacon Paul Flor came to the United States about 35 years ago from Guayaquil, Ecuador, to earn a master’s degree and advance his career. He teaches about HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning), and environmental control technology as an associate professor at Raritan Valley Community College, Branchburg.
 

While the 59-year-old Flor has found acceptance in the United States, he has had to hear “no” sometimes. The Catholic Church, which nurtured him from youth and to which he had even considered becoming a priest, turned him down twice to serve as a permanent deacon.
 

At the end of the Spanish Mass at his parish, St. Philip and St. James, Phillipsburg, a few years ago, parishioner Magnolia Mateo asked Flor about applying to be a deacon.
 

“I told her, ‘They had rejected me twice. I think it is going to be useless.’” Flor said.

Why was Flor snubbed? His wife, Wentsai Wang, a Taiwanese native whom Flor met while the two of them were studying at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, is Buddhist.
 

“One of the things in the diaconate is the wife has to sign a paper in which she commits to come to spiritual formation classes,” Flor said. “She told me, ‘If your God is calling you, go, but why do they have to ask me to join? I don’t have that faith.’”
 

While wives are not obligated to participate in all training sessions for a candidate to become a deacon, they play a “significant role” in responding to their husband’s call to serve, according to the diocesan website. A wife must also give consent for the husband to enter and be ordained.
 

“The last time, the day before I had to return the paper, she signed it,” Flor said, adding his wife has attended several sessions with him.
 

Faith is paramount for Flor, who lives in Stewartsville and has served St. Philip and St. James as a lector and extraordinary minister of holy Communion. He previously had served in the parish choir, on council and wherever else he was needed.
 

The classes in preparing for the diaconate have consumed much of his time more recently, he said.  His time is also taken up with his lay job, being a husband to Wang, and with her parenting their son, Andrei, 27, and daughter Hannah, 23.
 

“It is a big commitment in terms of time that needs to be devoted to study, learning and growing in faith,” he said.
 

But Flor relishes academic challenges, noting they “light up a huge bonfire within. I have enjoyed every minute of it.”
 

As the date of his ordination neared, Flor said he was excited at being a member of the first all-Spanish-speaking diaconate class, whose members  are of Hispanic descent. There are unknowns he said, including where he winds up serving as deacon.
 

“My preference is to be in the trenches, serving the needy…” Flor said. “I look forward to meeting parishioners and, God willing, being able to give help to them.”
 

And whatever happened to Flor becoming a priest?
 

“I didn’t last three months,” he said with a smile. “It was too quiet … too hard.
 

“I thought about religious life in my youth,” he said, “so becoming a deacon is perhaps the next thing.