Cleyver Josué Gómez Jiménez is a seminarian from the Diocese of Punto Fijo, Venezuela, a third year student in the Bachelor of Theology at the University of Navarra.
"Since I was 15 years old, I started attending Church thanks to the invitation of some nuns (Missionaries of Parish Action) who were attending my parish.
Little by little, God was giving me small "assignments" along the way.
I was coordinator of the parochial youth group, repeater of the missionary animation service "Jovenmisión", diocesan coordinator of Youth Pastoral and at that time I graduated as a Social Communicator, for several years I worked in radio and television media carrying religious programs.
In my heart I still felt a restlessness, I understood that God was asking more of me.
After a process of discernment, on May 13, 2014, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, under the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary, I decided to accept this adventure to which God was inviting me, the path to the priesthood!
I entered the San Ignacio de Antioquia Seminary of the Archdiocese of Coro to begin my journey towards the Ministerial Priesthood. When I finished my philosophy studies, God surprised me again through my Bishop, who informed me that he wanted to send me to study in Spain, to the Bidasoa International Seminary.
At that moment I had a mixture of feelings in me, but without a doubt, what filled me the most was the joy of understanding that God was still directing this path of service and dedication.
I confess that never, not even in my wildest dreams, had I thought that I could ever leave my country, much less get on a plane, since my family does not have great economic resources and the situation in my country is not the best.
In spite of everything, God began to open the way to fulfill this desire of my Bishop, which had also become mine.
I was very excited to see videos on the Internet about Bidasoa and to know how it would be this blessed place to which God was inviting me to continue molding me like a potter.
On September 8, 2019, I arrived in Bidasoa, a little sad to leave my family, but God, who does not allow himself to be outdone in generosity, has given me another very large and diverse family in the seminarians and formators. I have strengthened my response to this vocation that the Lord has given me thanks to all that I have been able to experience in formation in Bidasoa.
I will allow myself to tell you an anecdote about someone I love very much and who has undoubtedly been the protagonist of this process, my little mother in heaven, the Virgin Mary. In 2012, two years before I entered the seminary, I came across an article in the newspaper that spoke about a Marian devotion, unknown to me at that time, Our Lady of the Pillar.
I read it with great enthusiasm and from that day on I came across books, reviews, images, paintings... Everything about the Blessed Virgin of the Pilar; I remember that I used to repeat to my friends, as a joke, that the Virgin of the Pilar was chasing me because she appeared to me everywhere.
One day a lady came to the place where I was working and gave me a pin of the Virgin of Pilar that she had bought at the Marian shrine in Spain, I thanked her and I remember telling her that this pin was the closest I would be to that blessed place and she answered me that if the Virgin was following me she would give me the grace to one day visit that place where she appeared to the Apostle Santiago.
Seven years later this long awaited encounter with the Mother of God took place in her sanctuary thanks to an excursion of the Bidasoa Seminary, there I understood that being here is a grace that God has placed on my path, I am more and more sure of my vocation and to express it I like to use the phrase of St. Therese of Lisieux "My vocation is Love".
Thank you for being part of my story".
