Around the age of 18, for various reasons, I began to get to know God. I was in a very distant moment, sin was destroying my life, filling me with confusion and sadness. But the Lord reached out to me, and in a confession, I discovered His great love and mercy. Since then, my life changed: I met the One who is Life.

A short time later, I took a trip to Europe and, since my friends were doing the IFC, I decided to stay a few days at the CILC to be able to live with them. Something was awakened in me. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt a great excitement for Christ. Not long after, I went on missions with Regnum Christi, and that was when I realized that my heart was vibrating with the being for others and the being for God.

For three consecutive years, I tried to go to the candidacy, but it wasn’t my time. I didn’t dare or I left discernment because I was falling in love. In short, I didn’t go. Due to so much uncertainty, my section director recommended I go as a collaborator. I thought this would be the “final blow,” but it wasn’t. I returned home and lived four more years with my family. The call had been forgotten; I had repressed it myself and wanted to forget it.

At 28 years old, everything seemed to be going wonderfully. I had a girlfriend, an extraordinary woman who taught me a lot and whom I was deeply in love with. My work was thriving, allowing me to live the life I had always desired. I was responsible for Reino and had an incredible group of friends. In my family, things were going well, although I was just beginning a healing process that, during the ten years I have been a Legionary, I have recognized as a true gift from God.

Looking back, at those 28 years, I could say that everything was in place… although, deep down, there was something in me, something mysterious, a feeling, a longing for something more. Something was missing.

In the summer of 2014, a friend called me to do the Camino de Santiago with the members of Regnum Christi from Guadalajara Norte. I told him it was very complicated because of my work, but that if more than ten people joined, I would do it. In the end, there were more than ten.

Upon arriving at the Camino, I remember being very impressed by the life and death of Father Álvaro Corcuera. He had passed away days before. I believe his death prepared my heart to receive the gift. I started the Camino with a phrase in my heart: “Your face I seek, Lord.” I didn’t have much knowledge of the Bible or the Psalms, but this ejaculation accompanied me.

On the third day, something happened. I entered into a great consolation. Everything I had experienced years before returned with great strength. And, before the Lord, I discovered His call, a call accompanied by great freedom: “If you want.” What I was missing was completed in those days. I realized that what my heart truly longed for was to be of the Lord. In my deepest desires, I also found my vocation.

Those days were of great consolation. It wasn’t until the last days that I shared this with a consecrated sister, Paulina Lavín, and later with Father Luis Rodrigo Núñez, who accompanied me until my entrance into the seminary.

Returning from the Camino, turbulent days came. I went to pray in Monterrey, at the novitiate, for three days. Then, I went to talk to the woman who would become my wife to tell her that God had other plans. I told my brothers and, finally, I went to my workplace to speak with my entire team. At that time, I was leading about 70 people.

Those were very difficult days. In some of them, God withdrew His consolation from me, perhaps to help me make the decision with total freedom. They were days of suffering and grace. In the end, I remember the day I flew to the novitiate. I arrived a month and a half late, “the Lord calls when He wants.” I remember that, as I boarded the plane, I opened the Bible and read the passage of the precious pearl. I had left everything because I had found EVERYTHING.

Since then, despite the ups and downs of life, despite the winds and furious waves, despite sunny and cloudy days, I am of the Lord in a very special way, and that is my joy. And being of the Lord, I am for others. In my heart, the longing to give hope and comfort to souls resonates. To simply be an instrument of God’s love.