ROYAL PALM BEACH | Newly ordained Father Brian Junkes, SVD, came home May 30 and 31, 2026, to Our Lady Queen of the Apostles Church in Royal Palm Beach as he celebrated Masses of thanksgiving with many friends and family members, including his parents, Harald and Ann Junkes. After being ordained May 23, in Chicago as a priest of the Society of the Divine Word, Father Junkes returned to the Diocese of Palm Beach and Palm Beach County to honor his beginnings.
The Florida Catholic spoke with Father Junkes in June 2025 before he took perpetual vows in September and was ordained a deacon in October. Born in Coral Springs, he moved to The Acreage, west of West Palm Beach, with his family in 1990. At that point, there were only five houses on their street and the area was mostly undeveloped.
Father Junkes recalled attending religious education classes and going to Mass at Our Lady Queen of the Apostles — he calls it OLQA for short — but it was on a confirmation retreat that he had a faith-affirming experience.
“That was the first time I really felt, ‘Wow, God’s real. God exists.’ I had a very powerful experience,” Father Junkes said. “And so then, when I finished confirmation, I went straight to being in the youth group, or back then it was called the LifeTeen group.”
As a high school student, he helped with confirmation classes while being involved in the parish youth group. Father Junkes said he began thinking about becoming a priest after the parish youth minister asked him about attending a Vocation Awareness Week at St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami. After experiencing that event, he began to seriously consider the seminary. But his mother urged him to delay a decision, get a job and attend college.
“My last year of high school, I got a job working at Pinch-a-Penny selling swimming pool supplies and was there for five and a half years,” Father Junkes said. “Worked my way up to being a supervisor, and then I did go to Palm Beach State College for three semesters.”
It was in 2011 and, he said, “I still felt there was a call.” But the advice he received from family and friends didn’t help him make a decision and just made it more difficult to see his path forward. He remembers praying for a sign from God on whether to pursue the priesthood.
In May 2012, on a pilgrimage to Poland with his OLQA pastor, Father Andy Rudnicki, he got that sign, Father Junkes said. While touring the Church of St. Mary in Krakow, “We were in the main chapel, and when I went to sit down in one of the pews in the back, the tour guide said, ‘Right where Brian’s sitting is where Pope John Paul II used to pray when he would come to visit the church,’ because that’s where he lived back in the day. There is a plaque on the pew, which I did not notice until after he mentioned it, that marked the exact spot he would come to regularly visit and pray. And so, I felt that was the sign.”
After being contacted by the vocation director of the Society of the Divine Word and visiting Divine Word College Seminary in Epworth, Iowa, in October 2012, he entered the formation program. “I was so impressed and amazed with going to a school in the middle of the cornfields in Iowa that is a very multinational, multicultural student body and multicultural, multinational staff as well,” Father Junkes said.
Part of the charism of the Divine Word Missionaries, he said, is the concept of being universal lived out in the members through interculturality. During formation in 2017, Father Junkes experienced the international nature of the Church by studying Spanish in Mexico for two months. And later, he entered the Divine Word Cross-Cultural Training Program.
“That’s our version of a pastoral year, where we do only ministry,” he said. “Normally it’s a year, but in my congregation they encourage us to go to a culture different from our own, and so we would normally go outside of the United States. So, I went to Chad in Africa, and I arrived there Sept. 28, 2021, up to June 28, 2023.”
While in Chad, in north-central Africa, Father Junkes learned French, experienced the local culture and ministered in a parish, traveling to far-reaching villages to bring Communion to the sick, serve at Masses and participate in activities. He started a ministry of sorts, teaching local youth the martial art of karate, which he studied for many years. “The youth that I was teaching English to for a time really liked when I mentioned taekwondo,” he said, “and they were like, ‘Oh, Brother Brian, teach us.’”
Currently, Father Junkes is assigned to the U.S. Southern Province of the Society of the Divine Word, which extends from Texas to Florida. “As of now, I am not assigned to a specific parish because I am finishing up my research MA degree program in systematic theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. I will remain in Palm Beach County with my family until December or January while doing that,” he said.
Looking back at how his faith was nurtured at Our Lady Queen of the Apostles, especially the universal identity of the Church, he recalled the influence of Father Rudnicki, Father Yves Geffrard, Father Eli St. Fort and Father Laurent Assenga, all priests from other countries who have served or are now ministering at OLQA. From them, he learned the importance of living out the faith and inspiring others to carry on the mission to serve.
“With mission, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go to another country like I did, but it’s right here in our parishes,” Father Junkes said. “Whether that is being an usher or proclaiming the word as a lector or helping with the youth group or doing a ministry for the poor and the homeless, or reaching out to those who are marginalized. Right in our own communities, that’s mission, and that mission is instilled in us by God.”
For more information on Our Lady Queen of the Apostles, visit www.olqa.cc and follow on Facebook. To learn about vocations to the priesthood and religious life, contact Father Daniel Daza-Jaller at 561-775-9552 or vocations@diocesepb.com, visit www.palmbeachvocations.com or follow the diocesan Vocations Office on Facebook and Instagram.
