"I am Iván Bravo Calvimontes, I am a 37 year old Diocesan priest from La Paz - Bolivia.

I thank God for being a Christian and above all for knowing the faith that has been transmitted to me in a simple way in my family. I come from indigenous roots, my parents are of Quechua descent, my mother from the province between Potosi and Chuquisaca and my father from Sucre. Due to the family situation my parents had to migrate from the countryside to the city and it was there where they met their trades of both were simple because they could not study in school at all. 

My father learned the tailor's trade and my mother worked as a maid. We are four siblings and I am the youngest. The economic situation and also within the family life was not easy, to date my family has no house of their own my older brothers studied and formed their families, my father died two years ago.

Within the family we have lived the faith in a simple way and it was so we attended Sunday mass, when I was 13 years old I took the initiative to prepare for my first communion that having sought the catechism helped me to discover more of the Lord, so I approached the church where we went to mass in the center of the city, in the ads invited to a space called oratory to help in free time, also considered that it was a space for personal and community recreation.

After two years I left because of the demands at home, but I felt a great emptiness and organizing my time I went to the parish of the neighborhood, the priest received me well and made me catechist of first communion children and collaborator of altar boys. It was a nice youthful stage, although I had to organize my time well, and even before finishing school I had to leave because of the demands of high school, at home and in the pre-military service. 

I sincerely thought about various university careers in the social field as a field of support and service to humanity and society. My parents encouraged me to be a professional looking to get out of poverty and overcoming my abilities gave me to see a social career, but something was in me and was curious to enter a formation house to be a priest. Well, I asked and found out and they put me on the way with the vocational ministry, in time to enter and face the call at home everyone was speechless because they did not expect me to enter a seminary. What I did was something free and conscious, I can not deny that I was sorry to leave my family and my personal plans, but something greater than my strength gave me the courage to do it. The day I left home they knew it was a very mature step on my part and they accepted it because they realized that sons must be happy in vocational discernment for life.

In my priestly formation I met priests of Opus Dei who heard my confessions, encouraged me and accompanied me. After I was ordained as a deacon I was invited to circles for priests where I felt very good, and that's how I met St. Josemaría, to whom I entrusted myself by several happy coincidences.

I was ordained a priest on May 12, 2011 I was made pastor in 2017 and I continued to attend the retreats for diocesan priests offered by the Work and so it was that in 2021 after ten years of my service in a parish of indigenous Aymara and peripheral it became possible for me to think about a higher education. Since this possibility was open, I put everything under God's will because my diocese is in difficult economic times since long before the Pandemic, so many priests of the jurisdiction could not have that opportunity, one difficulty is the money, the variation of national currency with foreign currency, then the socio-political situation in Bolivia, the Church still faces persecution, the reduction of vocations.

The new archbishop bets on the qualification of the clergy and having this possibility from the University of the Holy Cross he accepted despite the complex situation that our local Church is going through.

Since then everything has been new to me, but I don't hesitate to thank our Lord for the gift of studying at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. I only know that Father St. Josemaría has allowed me to be here. I am giving the best of myself to what I have to live in this beautiful experience of faith and life. At the university we realize that our Lord is in our midst because Catholicism is palpable: we are from America, Europe, India, Australia, Africa. We speak of God, we live for him and we celebrate in communion, configuring ourselves to Jesus in Good Shepherd, to sanctify daily life. Thanks be to God and to those who make it possible for us to be formed and to return to our countries with the joy of the Gospel, being sent as disciples and missionaries".