Fr.  José Armando Rivas Jiménez, C.PP.S., 49, died in a hospital in Bogotá, Colombia, on Friday, August , 30 2013, of complications from a bacterial infection. He had been hospitalized for 10 days prior to his death.

Fr. Rivas was born January 1, 1964, in San Pedro Nonualso, La Paz, El Salvador, the fifth of 10 children of Dalila Jiménez and Nicolas Rivas. He was incorporated into the Missionaries of the Precious Blood in 1994 and was ordained on October 23, 1999, in the Parroquia Sangre de Cristo (Church of the Blood of Christ)  in La Labor  Guatemala by Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini, bishop of the Diocese of San Marcos in Guatemala.

After his ordination, Fr. Rivas served with the Missionaries’ mission in Guatemala, at San Miguel parish in Tucuru. In 2007, he was assigned to the Missionaries’ ad experimentum mission in Colombia, where he was the director of the house of formation in Bogotá. In 2011, he was appointed director of that mission, and continued to serve in that position as well as carry out other ministries in Bogotá until his death.

Fr. Rivas was a wonderfully joyful man whose smile could light up a room. He was well-loved wherever he ministered, and particularly so in Colombia, where the people he served could sense his deep commitment to the mission.

As a Missionary, he was “willing to serve where he was needed by the mission,” said Fr. Thomas Hemm, C.PP.S., a member of the provincial council who has traveled often to the C.PP.S. missions in Latin America. “In his most recent assignment he balanced responsibilities as mission director and director of the theologate in Bogotá. Obviously he was respected by the Community, which entrusted him with such responsibility. Father Armando brought lots of life to the Central American mission and to the Colombian Mission. He leaves a legacy in the formation of those younger members of the Latin American missions most recently professed and ordained.”

A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated in Bogota on August 31. May he rest in peace.

Text: Jean Giesige, Cincinnati Province
Photo: Br. Juan Acuña, C.PP.S.