Few people have spread God’s word in Mexico with the same vigor and daring as Blessed Miguel Pro. In the face of violence, killings, and anti-Catholicism, Pro would often dress in layman’s clothing to elude detection as a priest among those who would have killed him for his faith. Despite repeated warnings that he would be executed, “Miguelito,” as his family called him, continued to travel about Mexico spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

His killers finally caught up to him, and on November 23, 1927, he was executed by a firing squad for preaching the faith.

Before he was shot, Pro forgave his persecutors, shouting, “Viva Cristo Rey!” Long live Christ the King!

“I want to be like him,” said Miguel Romero, a deacon at Holy Redeemer Church in Odessa since July 2015.

While prepared to show the same courage in preaching the gospel wherever he may be sent, Romero, who will be ordained a priest at Holy Redeemer on April 15, says he has always been a missionary at heart.

Romero is a member of the Missionary Servants of the Word community, a relatively new religious community founded in Mexico by Fr. Luís Butera Vullo. Established in 1983, the community currently has 101 members, and will ordain four more this spring — two in Brazil, one in Spain, and Romero in Odessa.

The community’s mission is to spread the word of Jesus with Bible in hand.

“Our mission is to evangelize people,” Deacon Romero said. “In Matthew 28, Jesus, before he ascends, tells his disciples to go out and preach the gospel to all nations.”

Romero said the Missionary Servants of the Word — or MSP (the ‘P’ being an abbreviation for palabra, Spanish for ‘word’) — could not achieve their mission to evangelize if not for their use of the Bible.

“We work with the Bible in our hands,” he said. “We want to see what God wants from us. The Word of the Lord is the purpose of our community.”

Bishop Michael J. Sis invited the Missionary Servants of the Word to serve in the San Angelo Diocese.

“Many years ago, I became familiar with the evangelization work of Father Luís Butera,” Bishop Sis said. “He has developed an extensive program for training Catholics to better understand the faith and to share it more effectively. When I became bishop of San Angelo, I approached their community and asked if they would be able to send us one or more priests to assist in parish ministry in our diocese. Their superiors came to visit us, and we came to the agreement that they would send us a priest, Fr. Fernando Bonilla, and a transitional deacon, Deacon Romero.

Romero, 32, a native of Tlaxcala, Mexico, also lived in Vera Cruz, Mexico, and attended high school in San Diego, Calif. In addition to Blessed Miguel Pro, Romero considers Fr. Butera as someone who has helped form him.

“Every time Fr. Butera would preach to us at the seminary, he would tell us we need to be saints. The world doesn’t need good people, he said, it needs saintly people.”

Nor did Fr. Butera’s words about being a priest in violent countries of the world intimidate Deacon Romero.

“He told us that one of the most dangerous professions in Mexico is to be a priest,” Romero said. “Even today they are killing priests in Mexico. You do not see it in newspapers or on TV, but there are a lot of priests killed in my home country.”

Fr. Butera’s message did not dissuade Romero, whose April 15 ordination will take him one step closer to being able to assimilate the life of one of his spiritual heroes, Blessed Pro.

“He was always trying to take God to the people,” Deacon Romero said. “It will be fun doing the will of God. And he will help me. If this is his will, he will support me and he will be with me.”

The MSP community considers all people they serve at their home parish to be family members. As a result, Deacon Romero’s ordination at Holy Redeemer this month is considered a gift to those parishioners.