Hearing the testimonies of the young people with the pope during the Vigil is a tradition at every WYD. In Lisbon, António and Marta shared their stories.
33-year-old Fr. António from Portugal had a car accident that changed his life forever.
The person of Jesus has always been present throughout my life, beginning with the teaching and the testimony of faith that I received from my grandmother. In reality, however, Christ was often just a good reference, but not someone with whom I shared my life paths and dreams. Lacking knowledge of this, I had my own plans...My own, not with Him. I was even going so far as to think of others, to engage in social and political projects that sought the common good. But it was all my own goals.
In college, I enrolled in a mission week. There, I grew more consciously close to Christ and the Church, but the meaning of my life continued to remain centered on me. On an afternoon in August 2011, while traveling alone in the car, I fell asleep. I woke up in the ambulance - and as I became more aware of the severity of the accident - I realized that I could have died. I realized that if my pilgrimage on Earth ended at that moment, my life 'had not been worth it.' This feeling that life was passing me by made me desire to welcome it in a different way and confront questions that I had avoided until then. Questions like, 'Lord, what do you want me to do?' And it was then that the joy of meeting Christ began to fill my heart and make me want to bring this joy to others.
And so in 2012 I entered the seminary. I experienced a path of encounter: encounter with myself, but above all, I was able to meet in a truer way Christ and his Church. How beautiful is this encounter with Christ and with the Church! In my fragility, I was able to recognize how much Jesus and the Church love me and walk with me, and the desire to bring this experience to others has grown. In 2017, with my doubts along the way, I left the Seminary. But Christ was not done with me, as he does not give up on anyone. While away from the Seminary, I continued to be very involved in pastoral activities and I had the opportunity to go to World Youth Day in Panama. God is faithful and used my steps, which were more or less right, to make a path. I returned to the seminary in 2019 and I was ordained a priest in 2021 to try to bring to others the joy of finding Christ, of being found by Him. A joy that is not fleeting, a joy that is offered to me from Heaven.
CA/KG
