Catalina Figueroa-Garibay

Parish: St. Augustine-St. Monica, Detroit

What does it mean to live out the Gospel?: Trying to emulate Jesus Christ and follow Him. To be like Solanus, a simple friar, who all he wanted to do is pray. He didn’t want to be anyone other than a person prayer who had a simple job, to be the doorkeeper.

DETROIT — Catalina Figueroa-Garibay is the doorkeeper to the doorkeeper.

Sitting behind the reception desk of the Solanus Casey Center, Catalina (known as “Cathy” on her name badge), greets people with a friendly smile and a comforting voice.

“This has been the most wonderful eight years in my adult life,” Figueroa-Garibay said. “Just meeting the people who walk in here that have never been here before.”

Figueroa-Garibay said the people who walk into the center are looking for answers, they just don’t know what the question is yet. “What I do daily is I tell myself, ‘Jesus, I trust you,’” Figueroa-Garibay said. “Some people who call the center are suicidal, or dying from diseases or cancer and just want to hear a voice on the other side of the phone.”

“I encourage the people who call looking for answers to know they’ve never been left, that Jesus Christ has always been with them.”