Vocation Story: My Return to Home

“To St Joseph the Worker”

    The way each vocation starts is very different from one another, but we all feel a great absence in our lives that only God can fulfill. God helped me to sense how much I need Him. It is hard to see precisely where and how I was called by God to the priesthood.  I think it happened gradually and I feel it was a combination of a lot of things.
    When I was a child, my faith in God came through the people around me. My grandmother and mother have always been very devout women. I saw from them the love and respect that I acquired for God; mass every Sunday at mass and daily praying of the Rosary. I always attended catechesis class on Saturdays, and every Sunday I was singing in the children’s choir, without knowing exactly why I liked doing so much.
    Growing up, I continued attending Holy Mass and praying the Rosary daily. However, at one point during my “growing” process, I put God aside. I wanted to do my own will. Christ did not occupy most of my time any longer, and the my friends at the time did not help me to continue in my relationship with God. It was until I was finishing high school that God “knocked at the door” of my heart strongly in the form of an invitation to a youth group retreat. In that retreat, I understood that for some reason my heart was in peace. I began to pray more and more and I became part of the leaders of the youth retreat center. Everything was perfect. God was first in all my plans.
    After working with the youth group for several years, I decided to try a new life in a new land: I came to United States of America. However,  I forgot to bring the most important part of my belongings with me, God. I left him out of my plans, behind at my home parish, with the youth group, and at those devotions that my mother and grandmother taught me. I came to this “new land” with dreams, plans and expectations. None of them came true.
    Several years without having God in my life, my life no longer had any meaning.  The things of the world did not seem to attract me any longer. No hobby, no friends, not even myself were enough to satisfied the hunger of my heart or the empty space within me. I did not know what it was I was missing. I could not find out where my emptiness was coming from. So I walked through life for the next couple of years, like the prodigal son, spending my time and  money on worldly things.
    One day one of my cousins came to me and invited me to a youth group retreat that would last three days. At first I was not interested, but he kept insisting.   It was not until he said “the magic” words, “We are going to have fun”, that I was convinced.  That is the only thing that I remember out of our conversations. I agreed to go. When I arrived to that place, I was not sure if I had made the best decision. I was bored and indifferent to the talks and activities that the speakers in charge of the retreat where doing.
    After the second night of the retreat, things started to change. The speaker told us, the group of retreatants, to make a circle with our chairs. In the center of the circle it was a huge Crucifix, almost the size of a person. I remember that image clearly. Suddenly, the speaker started to cover my eyes, and the eyes of the rest of the group, with bandanas. It was pitch black. I was still and afraid. The speaker started with the Passion narrative of one of the Gospels. While I was hearing how much Jesus gave for me, how much he suffered for me, and how he was “carrying the cross himself” (John 19:17) for me, I opened my eyes. Now I was able to see that Jesus, out of free love, wanted to suffer in order to take my human flesh for my salvation. At that moment I saw “everything clearer”, and my eyes started weeping tears of joy. I cannot remember how long my tears were washing away what was blinding my eyes from seeing his love.
    The next day was Sunday, and we had Holy Mass in the morning, and a dismissal ceremony, in which each of the participants at the retreat spoke some words about their experience. I recall taking the microphone, and with all my heart I said,  “During these days I reacquainted myself with a Man from whom I walked away for several years, and that he never gave up on me.  Now that I ‘saw’ him again, I do never want to be apart from him.”
    After that day, I felt that I knew that I found my vocation in life. I did not know, at that moment, that my direction was towards the priestly vocation, but what I knew was that I wanted to spend my life closer to him. With months of prayer and talking to priest about the willingness that I have about serving God, they recommended me to consider the priesthood. I prayed every day to God and our Blessed Virgin Mary for guidance. A year after the retreat, I entered the seminary, willing to give myself completely to his will. Now I am almost finishing six and a half years of seminary formation. My life has changed completely. God is the guide of my life. I am just his instrument. Am I going to be a priest? If is God’s will, so be it! I will go wherever he wants me to go, because my ways are his ways and my will his will.
   If you are thinking about priesthood or religious life, “Do not be afraid!” You must pray every day to see what God wants for you. What I am sure about is that He wants you closer to His Sacred Heart and to His Blessed Mother Mary.

At Iesum Per Mariam.
To Jesus Through Mary.
A Jesus por Maria.
                                 Your Seminarian in Christ, Marco De Loera