Father Philip Patrick Stephen Mulryne was born on the 1st of January 1978 in Belfast,
Northern Ireland. He started his career with Manchester United and made 27 appearances for
the northern Irish national team but turned his back on professional soccer in 2009 and entered
the seminary to train as a catholic priest. Father Mulryne was spotted by a Manchester United scout
playing for his parish team in Belfast as a 14 year old and was invited to the club for a trial.
He went on to sign a two-year school by contract at old Trafford before signing a four-year
contract as a professional in 1994. At one time he earned six hundred thousand pounds a year as
a professional footballer. Father Mulryne played five times for the Manchester United first team
sharing the field once with David Beckham and continued his playing career at clubs including
Norwich city, Cardiff city and Layton orient. He also played 27 times for Northern Ireland
but in the midst of a successful football career he became dissatisfied with the lifestyle.
"We have a wonderful life as a footballer and I was very privileged
but I found with all the surrounding stuff that eventually there was a kind of emptiness with it.
I was quite shocked! Why am I not happy when I have everything that young men want?"
His sister was a devout catholic and she often kept in touch with him and sent him books on the
catholic faith. He never found any interest in it but as he began to feel emptiness in his life
he began to pick up these books and read them. He began to see that there was something powerful in
the words he had read that affected a change in him. In one of the books he read he was touched
by a simple message: "God has created you for a purpose. Your identity is not sought only in
what you do but who you are" As time went by he began to fall in love with his faith, reading
more on the church fathers and the lives of the saints. He began to explore his faith more and
this is where he came up with a radical decision to return back to Ireland in 2008 to take a year
off from football not knowing that this trip would prove to be the decisive turn in his life.
"It started me on a journey towards exploring my faith again, the faith that I had as a young man.
I took a decision to come home for a year and it was really during that year that everything turned
upside down." It was then that he discovered his vocation. He started attending mass, started
praying the rosary daily and joined the Legion of Mary working for alcoholic men in Belfast
"I found the practice in my faith and working in the homeless center left me going home at
night so content with a sense of peace. I had a real sense of fulfillment for the first time,
that I wasn't just a footballer. There was more to life" His faith became a central point again.
This is where he made the decision not to return back to football as he felt the stirrings of a
religious vocation. When he retired from football in 2009 he entered the seminary at Saint Malachy's
in Belfast. He spent two years studying philosophy at Queen's University in Belfast and the Maryvale
institute before going to the Pontifical Irish college in Rome to study theology for one year at
the Gregorian University. He entered the Dominican novitiate house in Cork in 2012 and on the 8th of
July 2017 he was ordained a Dominican priest at Saint Xavier's priory in Dublin, Ireland. Now
Father Mulryne goes on to remind us that we like to look at celebrities as the stars of the world,
people who we should look up to and this is what the world likes to teach us,
but what our faith reminds us is that Jesus Christ is the only real star of the world.
Every talent gifted to us by God are meant to be used not to bring others to ourselves
but to God. Father Mulryne goes on to say: "And he is the real star for all of us and us
as Christians in the sporting world as athletes remember that and constantly need to remember
that the gifts that he have given us are for our use to use for his greater glory
to bring other people not to ourselves but to him who is the real star and light of the world"
Amada Rosa Perez was born in the town of Caroza, Colombia on August 2, 1977. She was
a girl like any other who grew up happily and studied at school until she began to seek her
place in the world. Amada was only 18 years old when a talent scout saw her in a gym in Bogota
and he immediately promised her that he would make her a star. Her resemblance to the model
Claudia Schiffer made her the most desired model by photographers and agencies. There was no beauty
contest that could resist her and her contracts ran down on her from different fashion firms.
She began to travel through different countries where she discovered what the brand new catwalks
and the dazzling spotlights that illuminated them hid. Behind the glamour she found sex,
drugs, and alcohol where the important thing was the appearance and the achievement of success at
any price, and it didn't take long for the young attractive woman to debut on national television.
Everything was going well for the actress but in 2007 she decided to abandon her career as a
model and actress and live public life completely. Years later she reappeared to explain the reason
for what would be the most important decision of her life. The trigger to abandon everything was a
tumor that affected her ear where she lost 40% of her hearing but there was something deeper.
In the midst of all the glitz and glamour she felt lost and confused
in a world that did not satisfy her because despite having everything that society
apparently believes which is success, Amada had not found what she was truly looking for
and that was peace. She became pregnant and everyone convinced her to abort the child.
They pressured her by telling her that the baby would be the end of a career as a professional
and she ended up having an abortion "I wish I had found someone's help to tell me something
positive, something beautiful. Someone who told me that being a mother is not bad.
That being a mother is a blessing not a disgrace as the culture and the world paint it today" Amada
explained of how the consequences of abortion are very serious not only on a physical level
but also and especially on an emotional level. Deep depressions, emotional emptiness. She had
nightmares, she dreamt of babies, she even heard children crying. She shared her anguish with
other women who had been through the same thing and discovered that they had the same feelings.
Suicidal and self-destructive feelings. Now by pure chance she decided to enter a church one day
and was trapped in it. The tranquility and peace that she had felt when she was in the house of God
was more than enough to make sure that this was the path that she should choose.
She began to pray to the Virgin Mary and to Jesus and she realized that she had found her answers
"I understood the infinite mercy of God" It was by praying the rosary that she began to feel the
peace that she had been searching for all her life. Amada explains that she now walks with a
feet on the ground but with her eyes fixed on the sky and she had managed to find her place
in the world. She explained of how it was her devotion to the Blessed Virgin that saved her
"I always sought answers and the world never gave them to me. Before I was always in a hurry,
stressed out, and got upset easily. Now I live in peace the world doesn't appeal to me.
I enjoy every moment the Lord gives me. I go to Mass, I pray the Holy Rosary daily as well as the
Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3 pm. I go to confession frequently. Being a model means being a benchmark,
someone whose beliefs are worthy of being imitated and I grew tired of being a model of
superficiality. I grew tired of a world of lies, appearances, falsity, hypocrisy and deception.
A society full of anti-values that exalts violence, adultery, drugs, alcohol, fighting,
and a world that exalts riches, pleasure, sexual immorality and fraud. I want to be a model that
promotes the true dignity of women and not their being used for commercial purposes. Amada now
works tirelessly with a Marian religious community in Colombia. She currently lives with her husband
and a son and only goes out into the public arena to explain her life experience and a conversion.
Esmeralda Solis Gonzalez was born on April 12, 1997, in Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico,
to a catholic family. Now in 2016, Esmeralda was walking the catwalk in a local beauty pageant
after winning the competition. The Mexican beauty queen took a very different path in her life. She
abandoned her crown and her job as a nutritionist to don the habit of the Poor Claire Missionaries
of the Blessed Sacrament. The 25 year old who was raised catholic first met with the Poor
Claires when she was 14 and the sisters made a big impression on her. Although she won the beauty
title that most girls dream of it, wasn't her heart's desire. She believed God's timing allowed
her to experience the more normal life of a young woman before turning to a religious vocation.
In addition, she pointed out how it was hardly a month after this process of discernment concluded,
when on March of 2017, she gave her first "yes" to her vocation on the feast of the Annunciation.
"God's timing is perfect. During this time of discernment, he allowed me to have some
experiences such as being a beauty queen and other experiences which forever left their
mark and which allowed me to learn a lot for what was to come later" The discovery
of her vocation to which she had been called was always present in her life like a "little thorn"
She mentioned of how she needed to make room in her life in order to find out what it was
that God had planned for her. In the process of discerning her vocation,
there were also the fears and doubts that would fill her mind, but the love that God
showed her in her daily life made her overcome any feeling of discouragement.
Now Esmeralda had a few words for young people and said that in any vocation they will find
difficulties "but if you go and take God's hand, you'll always be able to take the next step."
"A good vocation is simply a firm and constant will to serve God in the way and places Almighty God has called you" - Saint Francis de Sales