Juan Armando Méndez Sosa is a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Puebla in Mexico. He is 25 years old and has been studying theology at the Bidasoa International Seminary for four years. "I am living a wonderful experience," he says.
In this interview he talks about his family, his vocation and the challenges of evangelization in Mexico, a young country but with less and less baptized. Although the Virgin of Guadalupe continues to work miracles. As a future priest, I also want to commit myself to collaborate in the improvement of people and society through my vocation.I am a person of great value, recovering the great values that we are losing and above all accompanying the people that God entrusts to me to guide them to heaven.
What has your family meant in the process of your vocation?
My family has been a very important instrument of the Lord for me to discover God's plan for me. I am the fruit of God's love and of my parents' love.
In my first months of life there is an interesting event: my mother suffered from preeclampsia when she was pregnant with me. and he was in a serious situation, so the doctors asked my father and grandparents to decide whether to save my life or my mother's.The answer was that the doctor would do his best to try to save both of us. My father at that time went to the hospital oratory and offered me to God.
His prayer was answered and my mother and I turned out well. I was born on December 27th, the feast day of St. John the Apostle, with whom I have always identified very much and whose name I carry. I was so small at birth, only 7 months old, that a grandmother said I might die, so I was baptized 20 days after I was born. My birth was early for this life and also for the life of grace.
Your father offered you to God and the Lord called you to the priesthood.....
Every vocation is a declaration of love. God, who loves me so much, tells me: "I tell you where I want to take you". There is a concrete moment of which I remember the day, the placethe hour in which I experienced that the Lord was calling me and invited me to follow him in the priestly vocation.
It was a declaration of love that made use of certain concrete circumstances: a family, a community, a youth group and a vocational testimony of another seminarian whose eyes were shining and whose face expressed immense happiness when he told of his vocation. This call is also a story of salvation. For others it may seem silly, but not for me, because it is the passage of God in my life.
My vocation has two moments. The first is when, as a child, I used to tell my mother that I wanted to be a "little father" when I grew up and played at celebrating Holy Mass. My family has always participated actively in the Church, especially and without fail in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration. That is probably why, when I saw the priest, I used to say that I wanted to be like him.
The second moment when I perceived God's call in a more concrete way was when, as coordinator of a youth group of the "Christian Family Movement", my parish priest invited a seminarian to accompany us as spiritual advisor.
In a meeting with us, I asked him why he had entered the seminary, to which he responded by recounting in detail his vocation. As he spoke, I noticed a detail that did not go unnoticed.His great enthusiasm was evident in the gleam of happiness in his eyes. It was at that moment, through his vocational testimony, that the Lord made me restless, leading me to ask myself about my vocation and to deepen my understanding of it through spiritual accompaniment.
And now you've been in Bidasoa for four years...
Yes, I have four years living a wonderful experience at Bidasoa. The seminary is like the time the apostles spent with Jesus to get to know Him, to know Him, to learn from Him, to live in intimacy with Him and then to be sent out.
This first stage of formation, which I have a few months left to finish, has been a great experience of God, to know Him as much as possible, to know myself as well and to see what I need or what I need to try to be as similar to Him as possible, since what is expected of a priest is that, to be Christ on earth, for which it takes a daily struggle that is strengthened mainly with the grace of God, prayer, both mine and that of the whole Church.
Juan Armando with other Mexican seminarians from Bidasoa
Juan Armando Méndez Sosa is a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Puebla in Mexico. He is 25 years old and has been studying theology at the Bidasoa International Seminary for four years.
"In Mexico there was a time when faith could be "transmitted" and "drunk" in the family and in the "religious environment". Now, to a different extent, it seems that some are becoming spaces of de-Christianization, of "contamination of worldliness", of secularization", he affirms.
For this reason, his desire is to contribute to the recovery of Mexico's values: "We want to contribute to the recovery of Mexico's values.As a future priest, I also want to commit myself to collaborate in the improvement of people and society through my vocation.I am a person of great value, recovering the great values that we are losing and above all accompanying the people that God entrusts to me to guide them to heaven.
Mexico is (or was) the most Catholic country in Latin America. However, many young people are currently abandoning the Catholic faith for other Protestant denominations and even esoteric practices.
I would like to allude to an inaugural speech given in 2021 by the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, Franco Coppola, at the plenary assembly of the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM).
Among the data he mentions, I underline the following: according to the last census conducted in Mexico by INEGI, Catholics currently make up 77.8 % of the population. However, in the last ten years, the number of Catholics has decreased and the number of atheists has increased, more than Protestants.
Half of all Mexicans are currently under 30 years old. This means that we are a young country, but we cannot say that half of those who participate in liturgical celebrations are young people under 30 years old. Another aspect to consider is that the number of baptized has decreased and the number of religious marriages has fallen drastically.. There is also a crisis of vocations to the priestly and religious life.
Faced with this situation, there is a responsibility that we cannot avoid. Coppola says: "these data are a wake-up call for all of us when we stand before Him, the Lord of the harvest will ask us to give an account of the talents, many, that He has entrusted to us: a Catholic people, faithful and devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe".
As a future priest, what are the most important challenges in the evangelization of Mexico?
I would cite two important challenges: training and education in the faith of families, children, adolescents and young adults and the strengthening of marriages
What is the risk for children, adolescents and particularly young Mexicans? The nuncio explains: "The risk for them is that they will not even be able to have contact and, consequently, to know the project of love that God has for each one of them and, therefore, the one of lost behind the ideologies that promise them an illusory happiness and leave them alone and disillusioned, lined up in the artificial paradises of drugs. A fact that speaks for itself in this regard is the increase, every year, of suicides among adolescents and young people throughout the country!
Fewer and fewer married couples are entering into ecclesiastical marriages, and more and more families are breaking up.
"In Mexico there was a time when faith could be "transmitted" and "drunk" in the family and in the "religious environment". Now, to a different extent, it seems that some are becoming spaces of de-Christianization, of "contamination of worldliness", of secularization".
Quoting Pope Francis, the Nuncio repeats: "We can speak of humanism only from the centrality of Jesus, discovering in him the traits of the authentic face of man. It is the contemplation of the face of the dead and risen Jesus that recomposes our humanity, even that which is fragmented by the fatigues of life, or by sin".
The Lord has called me to collaborate as a priest for the salvation of souls, for he wants all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth (cf. 1 Tim 2:4).
It is sad that many people in Mexico are moving away from God and trying to live their lives pushing Him aside, but man is made for God and his heart will not find joy or fulfillment until he rests in Him, as St. Augustine expresses it.
I am moved because I know they are different circumstances by which people turn away from God, but God "dies of love" for them. All people must know God's plan for them, they must know him in order to love him more and more. Jesus came to give us a new life in him, so that we may renounce the old man (Eph 4). This is the horizon of my future priestly mission.
Is religious freedom threatened in Mexico?
In legislative terms, it does not appear to be. However, in practiceI believe that we cannot speak of true religious freedom in our country.This is a very suggestive topic, but extremely broad and complex.
An example of this has been now with the pandemic, in which some of the Mexican state authorities (not all, unfortunately) have shown respect for the right to freedom of worship, limiting themselves to establishing the necessary health security measures, without pretending to decide on the opening or closing of temples or on liturgical celebrations.
In view of this, we cannot forget how in the last century many Mexicans fought and even gave their lives to assert their right to freedom of worship.
Another of Mexico's problems is perhaps insecurity, and with it, the kidnapping and murder of priests.s
It is a reality that great evils lurk in our country, such as delinquency and organized crime. And this causes many communities to live in fear every day.
In the media we constantly hear about the murder of journalists and priests. Violence reaches all sectors of society in general.
The last event that has caused me deep sadness is the event that took place in the soccer stadium in Queretaro where in a confrontation during the game there were about 17 dead and several wounded.
The next day I posted the following status on my social networks: "what happened yesterday at the stadium in Querétaro has to make us question the type of society we are building and how we can contribute to improve it starting with ourselves, our families (children's education) and our own community. We cannot normalize evil because sooner or later it is our destruction".
As a future priest, I also want to commit myself to collaborate in the improvement of people and society through my vocation.I am a person of great value, recovering the great values that we are losing and above all accompanying the people that God entrusts to me to guide them to heaven.
"The benefactors, whom we seminarians and priests keep very present all the time in our prayers, we owe them all our gratitude. They should know that with their help, both spiritual and material, they are collaborating directly in the work of salvation."
The great devotion of Mexicans is the Virgin of Guadalupe. Does the Virgin continue to perform miracles?
A mother in the family is always a strong and indispensable pillar, many times when she is missing, the family loses a little of its unity and coexistence, because she always gathers her children. Saint Mary of Guadalupe is the mother of the Mexicans, of all America and of all those who come to her.
Her desire when she appeared to the Indian Juan Diego was the following: "Know this, be certain, my son, the smallest one, that I am truly the perfect ever-Virgin Mary, that I have the honor and joy of being the Mother of the very true God for whom one lives, the creator of people, the owner of closeness and immediacy, the owner of heaven, the owner of the earth. I want very much, I desire very much, that here they raise my sacred little house where I will show Him, I will exalt Him by making Him manifest, I will give Him to people in all my personal love, to Him who is my compassionate gaze, to Him who is my help, to Him who is my salvation. For, in truth, I am honored to be your compassionate mother, yours and of all men who live together on this earth, and also of all the other various races of men, those who love me; those who call me, those who seek me, those who trust in me. For there, in truth, I will listen to their cry, their sadness, to remedy, to cure all their different sorrows, their miseries, their pains".
In spite of everything, it seems to me that Mexicans, for the most part, continue to be fervent devotees of Santa Maria de GuadalupeShe is our mother, who gathers her children around her regardless of their condition, because we all know that she is our mother, a bond of unity for Mexicans.
It is said that is the most visited Marian site in the worldThe church, with between 17 and 20 million visitors a year, is second only to St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. She wanted her sacred little house there to console her little children and show them the God for whom they live. This data of pilgrims or visitors shows that many people come to implore her intercession, the miracles attributed to her intercession are countless.
How can we encourage our brother benefactors to help seminarians so that no vocation is lost?
The benefactorsWe seminarians and priests keep him in our prayers at all times, we owe them all our gratitude. They should know that with their spiritual and material help they are collaborating directly in the work of salvation. I heard from a fellow seminarian about this motto "that no vocation be lost - so that all souls may be saved".
They must continue to remember that every effort is not only for one or another particular Church, but underlines the concern for many particular Churches, present on four continents. In this way they contribute to the Gospel of Jesus Christ reaching the whole world. This should fill your hearts with joy and the knowledge that you are participating in the evangelization of all peoples.
May God infinitely reward you for the help that, as we say in Mexico, "from the heart" you give to the Church so that it can carry out its mission, which our Lord came to establish a little more than two thousand years ago and which is the "universal sacrament of salvation". As He has promised, will not leave unrewarded those who giveeven a glass of water to one of his disciples. May God repay them for all the good they do for the Church. We pray for the campaign "Let no vocation be lost."
Marta Santín
Journalist specializing in religious information
