Jose Alvarez

Fr. José Alvarez is happiest with people around him. Over more than two decades as a priest he has served in a lot of places and never picked a favorite. They are all good, he likes to say, as long as there are people in them. He believes a priest should be, in his own words, a regular guy, and that what gives the faith its credibility is not what you do but how you relate to people. His whole spirituality he sums up in a single phrase: finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.

He came to the priesthood the long way around. Born in Havana, he arrived in Miami as a young boy in 1967 with his parents and his older sister, and he grew up there. Before the collar, he lived a couple of other lives. He spent about a decade as an actor and director on stage, in commercials, and in film, the blink-and-you'll-miss-me kind of roles, as he puts it, and then fifteen years teaching and coaching at the Catholic schools he had once attended. He entered the seminary at thirty-six and was ordained in 2003. He did not become a priest because he was unhappy in either life. He loved teaching and coaching. He simply felt called, and felt he needed to be freer to give himself fully to the work.

Away from the parish, he is a devoted Marlins fan. On a day off, if they are playing, there is a good chance he is at the ballpark, and he is not shy about it. He plays a twelve-string guitar, and during the pandemic he and a fellow priest recorded a gentle version of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" that unexpectedly went viral, much to the amusement of a man who happily admits he is lucky he knows how to use a cell phone. His taste in music surprises people, too: by his own description, he is probably the only Cuban who listens to American folk and bluegrass. For years he has quietly helped build bridges between Cuban Catholics on the island and those in exile, work he describes as helping the two communities understand one another and heal old wounds. For all the places he has stood and the different lives he has lived, it comes back to something simple. He just likes being around people.