Studying at a Chilean naval academy for two years when he was a teen-ager did not inspire Benjamin Garcia to pursue a military career, but he did start thinking about the priesthood and religious life then.

At the academy, he joined a group of guys who prayed the rosary together every evening, and he began going to Mass every day.

“(It became) clear it was not the Navy that moved me the most, but spending time with God,” he said.

On June 17, Deacon Garcia will be among four new priests ordained for the Archdiocese of Washington by Cardinal Wuerl in a 10 a.m. Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He and Deacon Robert Kilner and Deacon Andrew Wakefield will become the first three students from the archdiocese’s Saint John Paul II Seminary to be ordained as priests.

The day will be a joyful one for Deacon Garcia and his family, as his parents Rodrigo and Maria Regina and four of his siblings join him from Chile, and another sibling is coming from Barcelona, Spain. It will be “a big family reunion,” he said.

His Catholic faith was part of the fabric of his life growing up. His parents brought their children to Mass, and they said prayers to Mary as a family in October. Describing his family, he said, “Our table was always an open table for discussions… We talked about everything.”

His father had a priest friend, Father Jaime Manriquez, who often visited the family’s home, and inspired young Ben by his faithfulness and goodness and by the natural way he interacted with them.  When asked how he would like to emulate that priest, Deacon Garcia said, “(by) devotion to Mass and Confession, and living your priesthood every day of your life.”

Reflecting on his family, the future priest noted that his father is a businessman, who over the years helped manage investment firms and run family businesses that included farms with grain, fruits and vegetables, dairy and poultry; and trucking, furniture and construction companies. Deacon Garcia noted that his mother was a homemaker who helped take care of the farm where the family lived outside of Santiago.

As a youngster, Deacon Garcia helped with some of the farm work, and he grew to admire the farm workers for their hard work, their natural wisdom and their ability to know the land and understand the weather. “That’s where farmers’ faith comes out – they have to rely on God,” he said.

As a student at the naval academy, Deacon Garcia developed a devotion to Padre Pio – St. Pio of Pietrelcina. “The funny thing was, I couldn’t grow a beard, so I couldn’t be a Capuchin,” he joked, but added what he learned from that saint’s example was “you are called to live a life of holiness and unity with God.”

After studying engineering at a Catholic university in Chile for a year, Deacon Garcia entered religious life in the Fraternity of St. Joseph the Guardian, and studied with that community for about six years. He began studying in Rome in 2005, the year Pope John Paul II died, and was able to attend many of the first Masses celebrated by the next pope, Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, then the archbishop of Washington, invited the community to come to Washington. After living and studying in this area for several years, Deacon Garcia said he was gradually drawn to the diocesan priesthood and the opportunity to do pastoral work at parishes. He applied to become a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Washington, and became one of the 20 pioneer students at the archdiocese’s new Blessed John Paul II Seminary when it opened in 2011.

Msgr. Robert Amey, the pastor of St. Mary Parish in Rockville, became a friend and mentor to Deacon Garcia and will vest him at his ordination and preach at his first Mass, which will be at St. Mary’s on Sunday June 18 at 12:30 p.m. Deacon Garcia praised him as “a good man, (and) a good and faithful priest.”

The new seminary, which changed its name to Saint John Paul II Seminary after that pope was canonized in 2014, “was a great fit for me. The spiritual life in the seminary is amazing,” said Deacon Garcia, who studied there for two years, and has studied at Theological College for the past four years.

He praised the joyful and prayerful spirit of the Saint John Paul II Seminary, and he said the seminarians there formed a brotherhood, often staying after Mass to pray together for five or 10 minutes. The priests there – the rector, Msgr. Robert Panke; the vice-rector, Father Carter Griffin; the director of spiritual formation, Father William Gurnee; and the seminarian’s spiritual director, Father (now Bishop) Mario Dorsonville – exemplified that life of prayer, he said. “It’s a great thing when you see your own formators praying with you.”

His seminary years gave him the opportunity to live in a prayerful community, an aspect of religious life that he loved, and also gave him the chance to do pastoral work at parishes. As a seminarian, he served at St. Catherine Laboure in Wheaton, the Shrine of St. Jude in Rockville, St. Mary in Rockville, Our Lady of Lourdes in Bethesda, St. Gabriel in Washington, Our Lady Star of the Sea in Solomons, and most recently at St. Bartholomew in Bethesda.

A key lesson he learned during his seminary years, he said, is to “be connected to Jesus. You have to be one with Him, and that only happens when you spend time in prayer.”

Deacon Garcia greatly admires his first seminary’s patron saint, saying Saint John Paul II “encompassed all the virtues.” While attending World Youth Day in Kraków, Poland, last summer, he was able to visit and pray in the chapel where the future pope was ordained to the priesthood.

“It’s amazing. God has (always) put me in the right place at the right time,” said Deacon Garcia, describing the many blessings he has encountered on his journey to priesthood. He added, “When you look back, you see God’s always helping (you), and He’s the one leading you through things.”

His goal after ordination, he said, is to “be a priest 24/7. Whatever, whenever, any possible way I can help, (to) try to be there.”

Reflecting on his vocation, he once wrote that prayer helped him find his path and will guide him in the days ahead. “I want to draw as many (people) as I can to Christ,” he said.