A native of Manila who spent his young adulthood in Guam and Los Angeles, Deacon Ryan Pineda recalls his first journey to visit the nation’s capital as a tourist nearly a decade ago. Although he didn’t know anyone yet in Washington, D.C., somehow, he said, it felt like home.
During his trip, while walking from the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land over to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, he began thinking more seriously about becoming a priest, a thought he had put in the back of his mind years earlier.
“It was still there, but just sleeping,” he said of a vocation that awakened that day. He said he then realized Washington, D.C., was where he wanted to live, work and discern God’s call to a priestly vocation.
Nearly 10 years later, the Lord’s plan for Deacon Pineda’s life will be fulfilled as he is ordained on June 25 a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, where he will serve the faithful of his adopted hometown.
“I just want to be a good and holy priest,” Deacon Pineda said.
Deacon Pineda grew up in a strong Catholic family with two brothers and one sister in the Philippines. He heard a vocations talk in high school by a Capuchin brother, inspiring him to think about a vocation to that order. When he was 18 years old, his family moved to Guam. He was thinking seriously about entering the seminary in the Philippines, but decided instead to relocate with his family.
“It was always our dream to live in the United States,” he said. He eventually settled in Los Angeles, where he taught math and science at a Catholic high school for eight years.
In 2008, he moved to Washington, D.C. Prior to entering the seminary, Theological College at the Catholic University of America, he taught math for two years at Elizabeth Seton High School in Bladensburg.
Deacon Pineda said he enjoyed his time teaching in a Catholic school, a career, which he believes, helped prepare him well for the priesthood. “It was a gift, and I was blessed to have the opportunity to be part of their high school life,” he said.
Looking forward to his priesthood, Deacon Pineda said he hopes to use his previous teaching experience and work with Catholic young adult ministry. “They are so eager and really want to learn and love God more,” he said. “They are passionate about their beliefs and faith.”
He said he admires and looks to the example of several archdiocesan priests – Msgr. John Enzler, Msgr. Eddie Tolentino, Msgr. Paul Langsfeld and Father Ronald Potts, all of whom he served with during his seminary pastoral assignments. “They are all great priests,” he said.
Deacon Pineda, who turns 39 on June 29, described his year serving as a transitional deacon as a memorable one in which he presided for the first time as a member of the clergy at sacraments such as Baptism and marriage. “I could not forget these great moments,” he said.
In the weeks leading up to his priestly ordination, Deacon Pineda is in residence at Our Lady Queen of the Americas Parish in Washington, working to improve his Spanish, which he said would especially help him in hospital ministry.
For his first Mass, Deacon Pineda will celebrate a liturgy in English on June 26 at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph Parish on Capitol Hill. Later the same day, he will celebrate another Mass in Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines, at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington.
His father died 13 years ago, but Deacon Pineda’s mother, who lives in Australia, will make her first trip to Washington, D.C., for the ordination Mass.
As Deacon Pineda reflects on his path to the priesthood – a journey that brought him from his native Philippines to Guam to California and finally to Washington, D.C. – he said he has always relied on God’s plan for him. “There have been challenges, moments when I thought ‘Am I called by God?’” he said, adding that the answer was in the Lord’s hands. “God will provide. The providence of God will provide for all of us.”