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Newly-ordained, Dominican Republic-born Deacon Ysidro Abreau believes God called him “for years for one reason or another” and finally decided to answer that calling.
“I refused the call for more than 10 years and one day a deacon that I did not know approached me and asked me if I wanted to attend an orientation meeting for a diaconate program in Spanish and I told him to call me, so that gave me the date of that meeting,” he said.
Deacon Abreu, who was one of 15 men ordained to the permanent diaconate for the diocese by Bishop James F. Checchio at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, Metuchen, May 14, was raised in a Catholic family and graduated from a Catholic high school.
“I was born in the [Dominican Republic] countryside, where I had to walk four kilometers to go to Mass and, at the age of 16, I was admitted by the Salesian congregation to go live as a seminarian to discern my vocation to the priesthood, and there I lived for four years until I finished high school,” he said. “I came to the United States at the age of 21 and only my father could come with me.”
After moving to the U.S. in 1978, Deacon Abreu attended college for two years, but did not graduate.
Deacon Abreu is a member of St. Joseph Parish, North Plainfield, where he served as an extraordinary minister of holy Communion and is active in its Society of Saint Vincent de Paul chapter.
He and his wife, Milagros, have two sons, Jamil A. and Wilbert A.
Deacon Abreu, who also has four brothers and three sisters living in the U.S., said his family was “very supportive” of him becoming a deacon.
Professionally, Deacon Abreu spent four years working in restaurants and factories in the U.S. He started his own business in 1982, selling gold jewelry in Perth Amboy. He later opened a small jewelry shop, Abreau Jewelry, on Smith Street in Perth Amboy, which he operated for 20 years.
He said he used to buy and fix bank-owned properties and sell or rent them, adding that he has only kept two of these properties. “In all of this I only see God next to me. [There is] no way I could do any of this without him,” he noted.
When asked what the biggest challenges were for him becoming a deacon, he replied, “Going back to school after decades, to have to do school papers and to have to learn how to use technology in class.”
In 1995, he bought part of Quisqueya Meat Market in Perth Amboy, which he ran until 2009 when he sold it.
In 1998, Deacon Abreau started a real estate business.
Deacon Abreu said what he looks forward to most in exercising his ministry, he noted: “Being able to help my brothers and sisters so we can go together to heaven.”
As for what advice he would give someone considering becoming a priest, deacon or religious, h noted: “Never consider yourself incapable or that you are not smart enough. That was my case, but it got to a point that I told God, ‘This is what I have, I put it in your hands.’”
Paul J. Peyton
