“If you want, you can save me”

A few missions were enough for me to have an experience of true joy. At 20 years old, everything was in my plans… except becoming a priest. My friends called me “Happy”. The experience of joy had always been part of my life and although I have always considered myself a quite cheerful person, at that moment I was going through a great crisis of emptiness, and that’s why I decided to go on missions.

That Holy Week in 2009 I will always remember, because I experienced the joy of simplicity, contentment with the essentials, and knowing how to enjoy life as it comes (including God in your plans). In one of the houses I visited, I met a lady who asked me a question that froze me: “Are you a seminarian?”

Although my answer was a blunt and sincere “no,” it was also true that I had never been asked that question before. “Maybe I could be a priest?” I thought. Nothing was stopping me. The question stayed with me after those missions, along with other signs I began to notice during the following weeks and months.

After those missions, the idea of experiencing all my life with the same joy I had felt during the missions grew stronger and stronger. But I didn’t know where to start responding to that curiosity.

I was blessed to have some close people who were able to sense the signs I was passing through, and they helped me get in touch with a Legionary priest. Thanks to their support, I was able to attend a retreat where I told God I would be willing to do whatever He wanted. All I needed was for Him to show me.

During the retreat, a phrase from the Gospel struck me: “If you want, you can.” It’s a word spoken by a leper to Jesus. That “If you want, you can heal me” helped me understand that ultimately, vocation is a response of love to Someone who stands before your life and has the power to save you.

That same year, after a very quick discernment, I entered the candidate program. It was important for me to know soon what God wanted from me. My experience was that in the seminary I found the true “happy,” the true joy—meaning, the seminarians showed me through their simplicity and authenticity a Gospel-centered way of life that impacted me, and I thought: “If I become a priest, I want to be a holy priest, a Legionary priest.”

I honestly believe it’s difficult to summarize in a few lines all the journey, all the graces, blessings, moments of cross and uncertainty that this response has entailed. I can only say that I found true joy. Not a joy that is a personal achievement, but one that is a fruit, a gift of the Holy Spirit.

From 2009 until now, I have been seeking to live according to that thought that God gave me, and to constantly renew the experience of true joy in giving myself to others as a Legionary of Christ. I ask for your prayers so I can be an instrument, as a Christian and priest, of the joy that God gives to your life.

Biography:

Father Jorge Alberto Mora González was born in Mexicali, B.C., Mexico, on September 28, 1988. He is the eldest of three children. He considers himself a person very close to his family and a cheerful person. He joined the Legion of Christ in 2009. He did his novitiate in Bad Münstereifel, Germany; studied Classical Humanities in Cheshire, Connecticut (USA); completed his philosophy and theology studies in Rome, Italy; lived his period of apostolic practices in youth and vocational pastoral work in Central America; currently resides in the community of Padua, Italy, serving as the director of the youth section and assistant for vocational promotion in the territory.