Catholic Maker Spotlight: Milagros Coffee Co.

Q. How did you first discover your passion for coffee, and

what inspired you to start your business?

Our coffee concept and company has been in the works since 2011. I was living

in Santa Monica and teaching in South Central at the time, while volunteering on

the Confirmation, Youth Ministry and Vespers team at my parish Saint Monica’s.

In both communities of education and Catholic faith, they seemed to go hand in

hand over time. Connecting with the homeless too as part of my ministry life

opened my eyes toward creating a classroom for the world in some way. As a

teacher I planned a lot of my lessons in coffee shops, and as I was spending

more time in these spaces where I witnessed and received firsthand how coffee

brings people of all kinds together. Through prayer, I felt the calling to move to

the East Coast to be near my brother’s family. While living there, a coffee

roastery opened up and in its early stages, I began to work for them while

teaching. I eventually left the classroom as a teacher and joined full time working

for this small micro-roastery. I gained experience in the specialty coffee industry,

traveled to other countries to source the coffee and meet the hands behind the

labor on the coffee farms. Finally, with the full picture of how coffee is cultivated,

to how social justice is affected by the connection and purchase of coffee, and

bringing it back to the states in order to connect with community and bring people

together – I finally saw that we could create a concept like this where we bring

the secular and the faithful together under one roof. With the pop-up concept, we

are able to enter various community spaces, meaning we are able to invite the

community at large and share God’s love through who we are as a company. We

tailored our menu and drink experience as well so that people are invited to pray,

submit intentions, receive prayer, ask questions, or just be curious about our

Catholic faith. Through Our Lady of Guadalupe as our logo and the bottom

portion of the logo representing the roots of the coffee plant and the labor that

goes into growing the coffee, we are able to reach people with diverse

backgrounds or people who have fallen away or looking to return to the faith.

“Milagros” means Miracles, which we also chose specifically as it is inviting to

people of all generations and backgrounds. Many times, this is the most

common ground for a conversation over coffee about faith to begin.

Q. Can you share a memorable experience that shaped your journey and influenced your work?

When I was working in the specialty coffee industry, I had the chance to travel to

Colombia and stay on a farm, learning the operations and traveling the nearby

areas to understand how specialty coffee gives back to these rural areas and

their communities. While on this trip, we stayed in a village where St. Laura

Montoya is from in Colombia. I asked my crew to wait for me while I went into

the basilica dedicated to her and prayed for the future of this concept to come to

life one day. I also prayed for the company I worked for and the owners of the

company who are now our close friends and have supported us in this coffee

journey as coffee partners. Throughout this trip, Mary was everywhere. She was

in every front yard of the little shacks and shanties in the villages, she was on top

of buildings as a statue or above signs when you’d turn a corner while traveling.

Being of Mexican decent, and having a personal relationship with Mary, I

immediately saw how Mary would be at the center of helping me role out this

idea one day. We took many years to discern the details of this company, the

name and spent every second in prayer, asking for the intercession of various

Saints, Our Lady of Guadalupe being one of them. In our prayers, we felt God

highlighting this specific trip to Colombia and the impact it made on my faith, this

coffee journey and my Catholic life as a wife and active parishioner. Through

these moments, God was planting the seeds for Milagros.

Q. What unique qualities or values do you think set you do apart

in the Catholic community?

We have a unique product to begin with, meaning, because we are serving

coffee, we have access to intentionally build, grow, facilitate and encourage

fellowship, hospitality and the overall understanding of serving others and

connecting with others in an authentic way. We use our model of hospitality as a

way to demonstrate how to enter into vulnerable conversations with people of all

backgrounds, through coffee and about faith. Moreover, we have set up our

operations so that we can one day train and mentor the youth in our Catholic

community. We are in the beginning of our operations, but while working in the

specialty coffee industry, I trained over 100 baristas throughout the whole DC

area. Through this type of training, and my background in teaching, we created a

coffee curriculum and a foundation for authentic hospitality. We will be

implementing the same methods here in our company for our future staff and in

collaboration with Youth Ministry in the future at various parishes.

Additionally, when we pop-up after mass at a parish, we donate back a portion of

our proceeds to the ministry we collaborate with or the parish itself. This is to

help ministries recruit volunteers and connect with the community more. We

serve amazing drinks and products, but in full circle fashion, our service helps

people stay and commune, discern, question, get involved, and most of all,

connect.

Q. How do you incorporate your faith into your creative process or business

practices?

Our faith is greatly demonstrated in our intention to create fellowship, our

hospitality methods, and our coffee system. In terms of our coffee system, we

have a built in “Saint Ordering System”, which means when you receive your

order card, you receive a Saint Name with the Saint prayer on it. You are

encouraged to “pray while you wait.” Many times this alone creates conversation

and rapport between us and the customer or amongst the customers waiting.

People often have a God moment, as the Saint they received is exactly the Saint

they have a connection with or affirmation about something they have been

enduring. While we serve, we connect and engage in conversation about these

God moments. Often, we share our own testimonies as well about our faith to

help the customer open up more and profess their faith. Furthermore, while you

wait or when you pick up your drink, we call out your order by your “Saint Name.”

This is important, as it takes the focus off of ourselves and instead, we hear

ourselves be called in the way God may call us. So in a sense, we are forced to

see ourselves through God’s eyes and not our own. Finally, when you get your

drink or while you are waiting, you can visit our Condiments station which has an

Intentions & Scripture Station built in. Like in my former teacher days, stations

are great ways to get people to engage and participate. In this station, you can

submit an intention in our Intentions bucket, which then gets prayed over by a

priest, deacon, the parish or a local prayer group that week. We as a company

also pray a daily rosary over the intentions. The scripture in this station is taken

directly from the readings from that day’s mass. We as a company read all the

readings and responsorial Psalm before the event. We ask God to highlight

which 2 verses the community needs when we pop-up. Through about 30

minutes of prayer and listening to God, He shows up every time and reveals

which 2 verses the people will need. We cut out the verses and people can pick

them up while they get their lid and condiments. EVERY TIME, we have

witnessed people receiving their scripture and it having a huge impact on them in

that moment. We love hearing their testimonies afterward and it has increased

our faith as well!

Q. What advice would you give to someone looking to turn their passion for

faith-based products or art into a career?

We believe any idea God is giving you, grows with time and does not need to be

rashly put into action. He shows you how your gifts, talents and passion come

together in a faith-based way through the experiences you say Yes to and the

brave decisions in your life. For us, God planted this coffee concept as a seed in

2011, which led to the first basic steps of learning about coffee and gaining

experience working in communities of all kinds. From this thorough experience,

then God made it more obvious that it was coming to life, but He stressed how

our marriage and family are more important than anything. We leaned on prayer,

the sacraments, and serving our parish to patiently allow all of the remaining

steps to fall into place according to God’s timing. I would say, “The minute you

start getting too excited and overwhelmed with your concept, go to Adoration.”

Though I know the work and courage and self-development that has gone into

the preparation of this company, we never tried to rush the process or force it to

be ready for the community. If it’s something God wants in the world, He will

make it happen and He will open the doors for you – all you have to do is walk

through and trust that He is with you. Then immerse yourself in daily prayer,

service, adoration and daily mass to continue to be aligned with His love and His

plan.

Q. Can you describe a time when your work made a significant impact on

someone’s spiritual life or faith journey? How did that experience affect

you?

There have been many stories related to this, but the one that sticks out the most

at this moment in time is the fact that many of our childhood friends and family

are not practicing Catholic or grew up Catholic and yet are curious about God.

Ever since we launched this company, all of these people who we love dearly

have come out to support us and enter into the faith with no fear for the first time.

They are more open to the idea of God’s love than ever and we know that if we

just keep popping up, more people’s faith will be affected in this way. Inside and

outside of the church, we see this impact happening.

Q. What is the most challenging aspect of your work, and how do you stay

motivated and inspired?

The most challenging aspect is that this line of work is labor intensive. We have

learned so much about how to pack up our equipment properly, gage the power

for the coffee equipment, let people help us even though they are not trained in

coffee (as in when our friends want to help us pack up or set up), and pack our

truck properly so that nothing falls off on the freeway =) I have a lot of

experience with all of this in the past working with the company I worked for, but

we were all trained and under the same umbrella of coffee knowledge. In the

faith-based version of this format, I do not expect others to understand what goes

into specialty coffee and the nature of working with coffee equipment, but at

times we have to be very specific when accepting help from others so that we

can protect our product and the life of our equipment. It’s a balance of surrender,

patience and teaching when needed, where you let the Holy Spirit speak for you

in the most chaotic moments.

Q. What would being a part of the Catholic Maker community be important and

influential for  your personal growth or faith journey?

We are excited to meet people from all over, meaning so far we’ve mostly been

popping up in Orange County and the OC diocese. We are looking forward to

serving the LA community and the diversity that it brings forth. Right now in our

faith journey, we have endured various judgement and scrutiny as a Mexican and

African American Catholic couple. Part of our message is to reveal to the

community who we are as Catholics and how God’s love is needed greatly in our

diverse communities who have been outcasted or criticized for whatever reason.

We are looking forward to bringing God’s love to all communities, the way Jesus

sat with every kind of person without judgement. It is our deepest craving to

serve the way Jesus did.

Q. What do you hope people experience or feel when they use or engage with

your Milagros Coffee?

We hope people see the truth about God’s love in our serving and sacrifice for

them. We hope they see what patience is, what listening is, what respecting

each other is – all through coffee and backed by faith. As people watch us

interact with our customers, we see how shocked they are that we can serve and

connect all at the same time. We want people to know the love and intention that

goes into each drink, and feel the Saint connection as they receive the

intercession of their Saint right before our eyes. We hope people choose to

engage with the prayer and scripture, then go out and tell others the God

Moments they had while visiting our pop-up. In this way, we pray that God’s love

is being made accessible in a very common and authentic way, so that people

within the faith will be more open to conversing with people of all backgrounds

and not be afraid to invite them into a relationship with God.

Q. Looking ahead, what are your hopes and dreams for your business, and

how do you envision it contributing to the Catholic community?

We hope Milagros Coffee Company will one day be a brick and mortar, where

people of all kinds can convene, hold events, host family fun days, be a place

where people can bring their family and friends who might have an inkling toward

the Catholic faith. We hope it is a doorway into entering into a relationship with

God for the first time, or feeling God’s presence and love in a real way that

cannot be denied. We pray that our company attracts outcasts of every kind,

letting them know that God loves them no matter what and they are always

welcome in His home – that everyone has a Home in God.

Q. Can you share a story about a meaningful interaction with a customer or

community member that reaffirmed your mission?

At an event we popped up at in Eagle Rock for Encounter Ministries, a woman ordered

a coffee and then grabbed a scripture verse from our condiments station. About an

hour later, she was prayed over for a physical ailment and received a full physical

healing. She shared in front of the crowd of about 60 people that her faith was

increased when she read the scripture verse she got from our pop-up, that it prepared

her to know that God wanted to heal her that day. The verse was John 1:50 “Jesus

answered and said to him, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the

fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” She was crying in her testimony and

holding up the scripture verse, reading it verbatim to the group. We were filled with

such faith and affirmation from this point on.

Q. What role do prayer and reflection play in your creative or business

process?

Our daily life is a practice of prayer and the Sacraments. We as a married couple pray

together, teach OCIA, volunteer at our parish, listen to the Hallow App, listen to homily

reflections, read scripture and do a Holy Hour each day in prayer. We go to Daily Mass

as much as we can and Adoration frequently, we also receive confession about once a

month. We find that serving the Lord is a huge way that we put our faith into action, and

we each require a lot of time in the week in prayer and study. We both are Cursillistas

and relive our weekend by volunteering in this ministry when we are able to. We also

completed the Encounter Ministries program and love to pray over one another. This

has been a super helpful way to pray as a couple. We both have full time jobs and yet

we have launched this company and it is catching fire. So to say we lean on prayer is

probably an understatement, but we know God is in charge and we trust Him with our

whole heart. Moreover, we hope to start a family whenever God blesses us with

children. Despite it has been 3 years already of waiting, we choose to spend our time

waiting, serving God and trust that He will bless us with a family in His time. So every

time we pop-up we offer up our time and labor for our future children.

Q. What upcoming projects or products are you most excited about, and why?

We are excited for 2025 as we plan to roll out a line of retail as well. Our swag is all

faith-based so we can’t wait for people to rep our logo with Our Lady of Guadalupe and

all our designs that reflect prayer, faith and fellowship. We plan to have t-shirts,

bookmarks, mugs, and more! We think this will be instrumental in evangelization and

attracting the youth.

Q. How do you balance your creative work with other aspects of your life, and

how does your faith help you maintain that balance?

We spend a ton of time in prayer and in adoration. Through prayer, we are able to hear

God tell us how to pivot, what to take out of our schedule, or what to review in case we

are overloaded. Basically, we are in a constant state of discernment. This helps us

navigate as a couple and put our love and relationship first, not losing sight of what is

most important. We are also able to tell if we are extending ourselves in ways that are

not God-led or surrounding ourselves with a community who is encouraging and

accepting of God’s love. Through this constant state of reflection and prayer, we are

able to constantly assess and witness where God moves and why. We surrender to

how He works and we do not resist how He guides us, but the only way to do this is to

constantly have a daily prayer routine and receive the Sacraments often. We also

attend a weekly Bible Study and fellowship throughout the year at our parish (Walking

with Purpose and TMIY), which provides us with the ongoing weekly nourishment and

community we need to get through some of our biggest struggles.

Q. What key lessons have you learned on your journey, and how have they

shaped your vision for the future?

Some key lessons we’ve learned:

• God is in charge

• Don’t force anything

• Surrender when you feel like you are resisting or afraid

• When afraid/confused/overwhelmed go to Adoration & Daily Mass

• Have a morning Prayer routine of at least an hour

• 10 minutes of silence and listening to God daily is 100% needed.

• Shaped us for our future:

• We feel like this whole journey is preparing us to be parents. All the prayer and

• juggling of life and schedules has been bringing us closer and closer as a couple.

• We feel so much love for each other that we feel only God could have shown us

• through this journey together.

• Praying the rosary and listening to the Hallow App as a couple is one of our

favorite ways to pray (aside from going to Mass together and Daily Mass). We

love to discuss what we listen to and we are huge fans of Bishop Barron. All of

this to say, the things we read and listen to in the Catholic faith directly inspire

what we do with Milagros and we feel Him guiding our company into the most

unexpected places and communities. God is SO good!