Dcn. Jesus Figueroa

When many Americans hear the word quinceanera, they picture a birthday party for a 15-year-old Latino girl, complete with a princess-like dress and pinatas. While that image is accurate, there is more to the occasion. 

Jesus Figueroa is happy to explain that there is a religious component to the event.

“She makes a solemn promise to the Virgin Mary to stay a virgin until she is married to her husband,” Figueroa said. “She is given a promise ring from her godparents that she wears on her ring finger and she makes a solemn promise that she is the bride of Christ until she chooses her husband on earth. She says this verbally at Mass.” 

As a member of the diocesan Hispanic and Latino Ministry Committee, Figueroa is helping to bring greater understanding of the cultural components necessary to increase sacramental life in the Latino community in Columbus.

His involvement in this ministry began when he, along with his wife of 23 years, Maria, and their three children moved to Columbus seven years ago. 

“Each of the parishes on the west side had different committees that involved the sacraments, social services, non-sacraments like quinceanera, help with marriage counseling and others,” he said. “I spent a lot of time helping at (Columbus) St. Agnes (Church) because it had the largest Latino community, and one of the things that I gained from that was that people wanted to be involved in the parish culturally, but it was not coordinated.”

Figueroa and the committee have worked to organize more activities that have cultural significance to the Latino community, such as the upcoming mananitas event, a Diocesan celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe, on her feast day, Saturday, December 12.

“People can speak the Spanish language, but do they know how the culture works within the parish, what’s important to the parishioners?” Figueroa said. “I could speak French, but do I actually understand what is important to the French people? We hope to build a bridge of understanding between two, three or four different cultures.”

In addition to his volunteer work with the Latino community, Figueroa, who is director of environmental services at Ohio State University, has assisted five parishes in creating a cleaning process during the pandemic. In his role at OSU, Figueroa oversees the cleaning processes at the James Cancer Hospital, two additional hospitals and seven outpatient buildings. As parishes were planning to reopen, he was able to provide guidance on how to do it properly, following Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

Using his professional knowledge to assist the parishes was a natural inclination, built by the faith instilled by his parents and the discipline he learned from four years in the U.S. Marine Corps. As a deacon, he is hoping to help attract more minority Catholics to become ordained deacons by building greater understanding of the faith.

“I want to help young men and women grow their life in Christ, but to also help grow the faith community,” he said. “Many times we do things just because we do them, but we don’t know why. The education piece is important because that’s how you can defend your faith with the scripture, the traditions.”