Salesian cooperator Carles Rubio is ordained deacon

Diaconal Ordination – Carles Rubio García – May 25, 2025

Dear brothers, I am Carles Rubio and I am fifty-five years old. I have dedicated my entire professional life to the world of education, both at school and university. I have been happily married to Ana Arbona for almost thirty years and we are parents of three fantastic young people: Pau, David and Jordi. Both Ana and I have been very closely linked to the Salesian family since childhood.

I want to share with all of you that, God willing, next Saturday, May 25, the Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona will confer on me the order of the Permanent Diaconate. You may wonder how this process began and what motivated me to start this path towards the diaconate.

I explain to you. For many years now, Ana and I have been members of the Association of Salesian Cooperators. In these years my pastoral and professional activity has always been closely linked to my apostolic commitment to youth ministry. The path taken has allowed me to grow as a Christian, directing my life project in response to the call that God makes to me, now and at all times. At the end of my long professional period as director of the Salesian engineering school, the EUSS, a good friend and priest told me about the vocation to the permanent diaconate. It is true that it was quite a revelation. The more I learned about this vocation, the more I was attracted to being able to serve in the Church through this ordained ministry.

Little by little, I began to feel that the Lord was asking me for more commitment. For this reason, I began studying a degree in religious sciences at the ISCR-DB in Martí-Codolar and, shortly after, divine providence favored Ana and I to have a personal meeting with the beloved, and now deceased, Bishop Toni Vadell. From that moment on, the call became much stronger and clearer and I began the path as an aspirant to the Permanent Diaconate by participating in the first meeting on September 14, 2019.

The path of specific preparation for the Diaconate has allowed me to enjoy three great treasures. On the one hand, the studies of the degree in religious sciences that have allowed me to acquire an organic vision of the Christian Mystery, grouped around the five nuclei that make up the structure of this university degree: a humanistic-philosophical base, the Mystery of Christ, the mystery of the Church, the mystery of the person and pastoral action. On the other hand, this period of preparation has made me live an experience of an ecclesial community with some fantastic people: the aspirants and candidates of the bishoprics of Barcelona, Terrassa and Sant Feliu and their wives. Together we have been able to enjoy the training proposals in pastoral, ecclesiastical and human matters that this ministry requests. Finally, the orientation of the members of the commission for the formation of aspirants and candidates to the Diaconate during these five years, which is what this period has lasted.

In this process, lived intensely together with Ana, I have been accompanied by the formation director, my deacon-tutor and my spiritual director who have helped me on the path of reaching the bottom of my heart to see what moves me and to free myself from human desires and place God there. They have guided me through discernment, deliberation and choice. Our meetings have been occasions for personal review and to move me to achieve greater Christian maturity by living the marital and diaconal vocation in balance, centering my Christian life in Christ, through Christ and with Christ.

I trust that I am worthy of God’s call and let the spirit work in me. He is the one who can make me a servant of the people of God through the word, the liturgy and charity. I am convinced that the strength of the Spirit received through the laying on of the hands of Mr. Cardinal will also be a grace granted to my family and my environment.

I encourage you to learn more and better about this precious vocation. For all those who consider starting this path, I advise you to open your heart to the action of God. And if you have the immense fortune to enjoy the joys of marriage, share the process with your wife and family. If he calls you, you will find the strength and time to prepare. And, above all, he cares for prayer and ecclesial communion. And he remembers that only grafted into Christ can we bear fruit.

Carles Rubio
Badalona, May 2024