No one could have predicted the path taken by Fr. Luis Aponte-Merced, OFM, who was born in Puerto Rico in 1946, raised by a military father and a Spanish-teaching mother, earned graduate degrees in science and medicine, taught dentistry and public health and established his own practice in Birmingham, Ala. By the age of 50 he was accomplished, successful – and yearned for something more. That’s when Luis left his comfortable career to follow the way of St. Francis, entering the Franciscan Order. His first assignment after ordination in 2003 was as associate pastor at St. Mary of the Angels in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He was there when Hurricane Katrina roared ashore in August of 2005. Luis and his fellow friars refused to leave their neighbors, opening the doors of their three-story school building to the community, watching as flood waters swallowed the streets. Evacuated by helicopter after four frightening days, “All we had with us was what we had on,” says Luis, who saw this as “an opportunity to begin again.” Today, he is Associate Pastor of Sacred Heart and St. Joseph parishes in Peoria, Ill., where he directs the RCIA process, works with the Spanish Cursillo movement and ministers to a Secular Franciscan Fraternity.