Deacon celebrates 30-year anniversary

By Sylvia L. White
The Catholic Sun

Antonio Chavez was ordained a permanent deacon on Saturday, May 29, 1976. He preached at Sunday Mass at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Tolleson the next day and every Sunday for the next year.

The Blessed Sacrament community celebrated his 30-year anniversary with Mass and a reception on the parish grounds April 29.

“I made Cursillo in 1961, then my life changed completely,” Deacon Tony Chavez said. “I wanted to work for God.”

Deacon Chavez, a parishioner at Blessed Sacrament for 55 years, has seen 17 pastors come and go.

After a two-year ordination process, Chavez continued to learn through hands-on ministry. Typically, it takes five years to prepare for the diaconate.

Serving as a family

As most deacons who must provide for their families, Chavez balanced the demands of a full-time job, ministry in the Church and family until he retired from his job 10 years ago. His late wife Ramona passed away near that time.

After receiving permission from the Vatican,  Deacon Chavez remarried in 2001. Both Chavez and his wife, Vilma Portugal-Chavez, live out the call for deacons to be servants. 

Portugal-Chavez has been busier and more involved in the Church since she married the deacon.

“I was involved before, but not as much as I am now,” she said. 

Being the wife of a deacon has brought more responsibility into her life but also the opportunity to learn and to meet many interesting people. Portugal-Chavez says she enjoys “being married to such a wonderful man.”

As the only deacon at Blessed Sacrament, Deacon Chavez has celebrated more than 4,000 baptisms and now presides over all the wakes and burials.

The deacon has special concern for the elderly, visiting people in the hospital and rest homes, making it a point to stay an hour, not just a few minutes, to listen to their needs. Parishioners help him take Communion to the homebound.

He cares for bereaved families, visiting after the funerals, not just beforehand to make arrangements. 

When asked about vocation awareness programs, Deacon Chavez talked about the many ministries at his parishes. Through his work, he said, parishioners of all ages learn about the life of a deacon from everyday experience of being a deacon.

Currently, Chavez is preparing for a fiesta being held May 19-21 at Blessed Sacrament to raise money to purchase a school building south of the parish school.

Deacon Dan Peterson, director of the Office of Deacons, said Chavez “has been a faithful minister at Blessed Sacrament for over 50 years and is a true shepherd to the Hispanic community, a man who has a spirituality about him that shows a very deep encounter with the Lord.”

“Chavez is a witness not only to his parish but to the whole diocese and the Church,” Peterson added. “I can’t imagine the diaconate or the diocese without him. He is very deeply loved by the new deacons, the senior deacons… everybody loves Tony.”