From a young age, David, from the diocese of Escuintla (Guatemala), felt a special call from the Lord, without really knowing what it was. His vocation began to take shape in his family. His grandmother taught him to pray the rosary with an uncle who was a priest and whom he looked up to a lot. He learned to have my times of conversation with God. "She always said I would be a priest. Grandparents are a big book where you can learn a lot of things, and I learned a lot from them. are the fundamental basis of a family: without them, customs and traditions would disappear.".
When he was only five years old, one day, sitting in his uncle's parish, he stared at the crucifix on the altar. "I felt the Lord looking at me; so I started chatting with Him, and you know what the best thing was? that He answered me. It may sound like something I imagined, but to me it was real. All He would say to me was, 'It hurts, it hurts,' and I would ask Him what it was that hurt and He would just say, 'Follow me and you'll see.
David is the youngest of five siblings, a large family, something that today is seen as crazy. "My parents have always worked hard to give us an education. We lived from day to day, but thank God we never lacked for anything. My father is in the military and my mother always looked for ways to bring money home, whether it was selling ice cream or owning a beauty salon, with which she paid for all of us to go to school. My mother has always worked and still does. She is an exceptional woman. She is my role model".
Prior to her marriage her mother was a Mormon. She converted shortly after meeting his father, practicing the faith in a very pious way. She taught David to love God above all things and to have a great devotion to the Virgin Mary. "In her simplicity and humility, I wanted to follow the Lord." In addition to her influence on her son's vocation, his mother helped him understand and accept when one of his sisters became an Adventist.
David's family has also gone through moments of the Cross, which they have accepted with great faith. The second of the siblings died when she was only three months old due to an illness that at that time could not be cured. Every year, when her birthday comes around, they remember her with special affection and emotion. "My mother still grieves, but she firmly believes that she is our guardian angel and that she watches over us and reserves a place for us in Heaven."
David entered the propaedeutic (seminary discernment course) in Guatemala when he was 17 years old. Then, for personal reasons, he decided to leave the seminary and began to study Law and Social Sciences at the university, spiritually accompanied by a priest.
"When the Lord called me again with more strength, I left everything and began to study philosophy in the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Afterwards, I returned to Guatemala and worked in the Ecclesiastical Tribunal. It was then that my bishop decided that I should continue my theological studies and I arrived in Spain, in Pamplona, in 2021. The Lord is the one who guides my path and He decides how it is carried out and how it will end. I am in His hands.
Faced with a secularized world and a shortage of vocations, David believes that the priest must be a well-prepared person who knows and understands theology. He must be a man of faith, hope and charity. He must be a priest one hundred percent, that is to say, he must always be there for others, he must not be absent. A priest who does not marginalize or make distinctions. That he knows how to be a shepherd with capital letters and that, as Pope Francis says, at the end of the day it smells like sheep. May it be Christ for the people.
Marta SantínJournalist specializing in religious information.
