Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Miami priests turn to social media to reach and uplift parishioners
One plays the guitar, the other sings.
And together they delight their parishioners in difficult times in Miami, the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in South Florida.
Cuban priest José Alvarez, the parish priest of Epiphany Catholic Church in Miami, and his assistant Alex Rivera, have become social media sensations in their ecclesiastical world.
Such is the joy that both have brought with their first “musical single” — the video on Instagram exceeds 5,000 views, and has many other views on YouTube and even momre on the YouTube page of the Archdiocese of Miami —- that their parishioners and even people from other places have asked them for one song per week.
“We’ll do everything we can. We don’t promise, but we’ll do our best,” Alvarez told El Sentinel, the Spanish-language publication of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
They started with The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” and have just posted their second installment, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
“I don’t even know where we came up with this. Actually, I play guitar and Alex sings very well. When this whole quarantine thing started and we started looking for our way to reach people, we realized that we are in the Easter season, a time to be quite creative and reach the hearts of parishioners,” Alvarez says. “Then I came up with a song that is appropriate, that carries a message consistent with Easter time.
“We came up with the Beatles song ‘Here Comes The Sun’ that carries a message of hope. And we thought that the ‘Sun’ very much resembled the word ‘Son,’” he says, “And this is what Easter is, Jesus Christ who comes at Easter to fill us with new life.”
In the midst of the pandemic, both priests seek to bring some joy among their parishioners and whoever hears them make their music.
“I think this quarantine thing is bringing out the best in human beings. In the midst of the difficulties, it is making a lot of people get the best out of themselves,” Alvarez says.
The parish priest, for his part, says his forte is to play the guitar.
“In singing I merely defend myself, but if I have to sing to live, I would starve. Alex could sing professionally,” says the 59-year-old prelate.
“I sang in the parish choir, but on my dad’s family side, my paternal grandfather sang in clubs and other places in Puerto Rico,” Rivera, 32, said. “It was a surprise that parishioners react so well.”
“I think this quarantine thing is bringing out the best in human beings.”
José Alvarez, parish Cuban priest of Epiphany Catholic Church in Miami