Hispanic Ministry coordinator’s ‘lived testimony is a source of inspiration’

(En Espanol)
 

By Natalie Hoefer

When Alden Budier Hibbert was preparing for the sacrament of confirmation, he had to write a letter to his bishop sharing how he hoped to serve the Church.

“I don’t know in what way specifically to serve,” he recalls writing. “I just want to be that small donkey that the Lord had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem and then Bethlehem to Egypt, and then when he came into Jerusalem. However I’m useful, I just want to serve.”

Budier Hibbert could not have imagined God would take him at his word and send him from his native country of Nicaragua to Indianapolis to serve as archdiocesan coordinator of Hispanic Ministry.

“I can say the Lord has used me for whatever he wants,” he says with a smile of his new position.

Felix Navarrete is grateful for Budier Hibbert’s openness to God’s will.

“Alden is a faithful servant,” says the director of the archdiocesan Office of Intercultural Ministry under which the Hispanic Ministry office falls. “His passion for sharing the faith with others, his love for [Church] tradition, and his own journey in search of the truth make Alden a great asset to the archdiocese.”

That journey had many stops along the way, beginning in his hometown in Nicaragua.

‘Indianapolis is my last option’

Budier Hibbert was born 28 years ago on Holy Thursday in Bluefields, Nicaragua—population less than 60,000—along his country’s east coast.

He grew up in a “very Catholic family with a special devotion to our Blessed Mother, praying the rosary, reading the Scriptures, going to Mass, and most of all being part of the Church in whatever I could help.”

After high school, the “big question popped up: Did I want to be a priest?” he recalls. He decided “the time wasn’t right” and pursued a degree in business administration.

Four years into the five-year program, Budier Hibbert felt called to be a seminarian for the Diocese of Bluefields. After completing his first year of seminary in 2019, he was given permission to complete the last year of college with “the door open” if he wanted to return to the seminary.

“I said yes, not knowing 2020 would be 2020,” he says.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he helped at his parish, especially with live-streaming daily Mass and other faith-building experiences for the parishioners.

After completing his degree, Budier Hibbert decided not to return to the seminary. Instead, after a year of working from home, he joined some relatives in Miami, Fla., in 2023 “for personal growth,” while still placing himself “at God’s service to do whatever he had in store for me.”

But Miami was expensive. He had friends who encouraged him to join them in Indianapolis, but Budier Hibbert hoped to move to a small town, telling them, “Indianapolis is my last option.”

His opinion changed after watching EWTN coverage of the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024.

“I saw big history being made by the great people there working as a Church,” says the member of St. Philip Neri Parish in Indianapolis. “I remember the date I moved here—Sept. 8, 2024, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Mother.”

Budier Hibbert calls her his greatest inspiration.

“She taught me how to be obedient to God with happiness, even though you don’t understand where the Lord wants you to go or what he wants you to do, knowing that he always wants the best for us.”

He modeled that joyful obedience in accepting his new position—one he was hesitant to apply for.

When Budier Hibbert learned about the Hispanic Ministry opening, he recalls praying, “Lord, let the right person fill it.”

He suggested a friend apply, but she encouraged him to apply instead.

“I said, ‘No, I’m not right for it—those boots are too big for me,’ ” says Budier Hibbert. But she kept insisting, so he applied for the position.

“Alden is a young man whose love for the Church is clearly evident in the way he speaks,” says Navarrete. “When we interviewed him for this position, we knew what our department was looking for in a candidate. As he answered our questions, many of the qualities we hoped to find became quite apparent.”

Budier Hibbert started as archdiocesan coordinator of Hispanic Ministry on June 1.

‘I just try to be happy in his service’

In his role, he will work with and foster Hispanic lay leaders in parishes with Latino communities, “guiding them and helping them develop their ministries,” he says. He will help pastors “with challenges like immigration” and with coordinating sacraments for pastors who have no Hispanic lay leaders, abiding by “U.S. Church guidelines while bringing in all of the customs and traditions” from the various native Hispanic cultures.

Budier Hibbert also seeks to nourish faith in families through programs like the ministry’s annual Hispanic Family Camp. And he hopes to increase the participation of Hispanic youths and young adults in the life of the Church.

“I want them to know Christ,” he says. “And I want them to share with the rest of the Church their happiness, their energy.”

What excites Budier Hibbert most about his new role is serving as “a bridge.”

Whatever a person’s vocation or job is, “The Lord always calls you to preach the Gospel in your everyday environment,” he says. “So, what inspires me every day is to be that bridge or fill that gap … in the Hispanic and Latino community so they can come closer to God.”

Many in Catholic Hispanic communities came to the U.S. “looking for a better way to live,” says Budier Hibbert. He wants to remind them to “not forget that you have this very first and principal spiritual aspect of your life.

“I hope to bridge this gap so they can invite God into their lives. And if they did already, so they can know that there is a Church here that needs their service, needs their help and needs their happiness to share the Gospel.”

Budier Hibbert’s hopes to support Navarette’s view of him as “a highly talented disciple.”

“His humility, creativity and extensive experience in the liturgical realm will bring a deeper spirituality to our current programs and efforts,” says Navarrete. “And his lived testimony is a source of inspiration for our community, especially for our Hispanic and Latino young adults. Indeed, they can relate to his experience.”

At the end of the day, Budier Hibbert prefers the quiet life. His “best day” involves walking while praying and meditating on the rosary, reading a history book and watching a movie “while eating a good dessert,” he says with a smile, admitting he “loves sweets.”

He is also still discerning a possible call to the priesthood.

In the meantime, Budier Hibbert still desires to be “the donkey that carried Jesus,” serving where the Lord calls him.

“Sometimes I forget what I wrote” in his letter to the bishop, he says. “But the Lord does not forget. He always has those words [from the letter] in mind, and he uses me.

“Whatever it is, if it’s for the Lord, I just try to be happy in his service.”
 

(For more information on the archdiocesan Hispanic Ministry, go to tinyurl.com/ArchIndyHispanicMinistry or contact Alden Budier Hibbert at 786-400-8454 or abudier@archindy.org.) †