From Mexico to the US: Deacon Adrian finally found his place

Sometimes a person can have a clear vocational calling, but finding the right place to follow it may not be so easy. Deacon Adrián Meneses Duarte is originally from a small town called San Lorenzo Axocomanitla, in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. And this is his story of discernment and his experience as a missionary.

“When I was 16,” he says, “I began to feel interest in a vocation to the priesthood, especially after a retreat in Tlaxcala with a diocesan movement called Ecos, and I really enjoyed serving with them. At 17, I began to discern with my diocese of Tlaxcala, but I imagined myself going elsewhere.”

He met the Missionaries of Africa, nicknamed the White Fathers. “I joined them in 2005; I was in Querétaro (Mexico) doing a year of community experience and visiting the prisoners in the San José el Alto prison three times a week.”

But his arrival in Africa would take a few more years.

He began studying English, history, and African geography. He spent a few months in the United States, then in 2006 he was sent to Guadalajara. There, he studied basic ecclesiastical philosophy for two and a half years. When he finished, he spent a few months in Canada studying French.

“In 2009, I was sent to Burkina Faso to live a year of spirituality with an apostolic society. Everything was different for me in that country: the language, the food, the people, the climate ... everything! It was a culture shock. I was 22 years old.”

“I got malaria four times while in Africa, and after discerning, I felt that I should leave this institute for a while but with the possibility of returning, because I felt that I wanted to do everything: be a missionary, but also work, study, have a girlfriend, and discover if my path was to start a family.”

He asked for permission and returned to Mexico, living in Guadalajara for seven years. During that time, he studied for a bachelor's and master's degree in philosophy and worked at the University of Guadalajara.

“In 2016, I went to France for a year to continue my master's degree, and that's when my vocational restlessness resurfaced, although in reality it never went away. In France, I was involved in the university parish and also in the Taizé movement. I had a girlfriend but broke up with her; I asked myself, ‘What does God want from me?’”

“When I returned to Mexico, I began discernment again with the White Fathers until they told me that I possibly had a vocation, but not with them. ‘Maybe Africa is not for you,’ they said. And I think they were right.“

”Through God's providence, I met the Consolata Missionaries in Guadalajara, and I joined them in 2017. In 2019, they sent me to live in Argentina for my novitiate. I made my first vows as a religious on December 29, 2019, and from there they sent me to study theology in Africa, in Kenya."

"I had only been in Kenya for a week when I got COVID. I was hospitalized for a month, on oxygen, so I spent Holy Week 2020 in the hospital. It was a very enriching experience of faith. There were quite a few of us in the clinic, and there were Muslims, Catholics, and Protestants, but we all gathered to pray at night during Holy Week. During the moments of prayer, they sang a traditional song that everyone there knows, regardless of religion, which says, ‘There is no God greater than ours.’“

”I began to feel that God was calling me to something else. I had met some priests in the Diocese of Tulsa many years earlier, and they’d invited me to join them."

Adrian called Father Juan Grajeda, who was part of the Tulsa vocations team, and explained that he needed to talk to someone about his desire to continue as a missionary but a little closer to his family in Mexico. “After listening to me, he told me that he believed my discernment was correct,” Adrian says.

Adrián and Father Juan kept in touch for a year, until the missionary was accepted into the diocese. He traveled from Kenya to Oklahoma and arrived at his new diocese in July 2022.

“I did a year of pastoral work, and since the Diocese of Tulsa doesn’t have its own seminary, they sent me to finish my theological studies at Saint Meinrad Seminary in Indiana, which is run by Benedictine monks. It was a very good experience.”

Finally, Adrián was ordained a deacon on May 23, 2025.

“I was assigned to serve in a parish where most of the community is Anglo-American, and I haven’t felt rejected; on the contrary, I’ve felt great affection. They value you because you want to share your faith. For them, I’m a missionary, and I feel like a missionary, because I made the sacrifice of being far from my family and culture, although with globalization it is not so difficult now.”

If God wills it, Deacon Adrian could receive the sacrament of Holy Orders as a priest next January, perhaps on the feast of St. Adrian of Canterbury.

Adrian concludes: “When I die, I want to be buried here, because this is my diocese, this is my family, and I’m consecrated to this diocese.”