Victor Martinez

My name is Victor Martinez. I am a seminarian who has just begun at Mundelein, entering Configuration One. I was in seminary for six years from 2018 to 2023; however, during the Propaedeutic Stage, I felt a call to leave seminary. During the two years out, I moved back to St. Paul, Minnesota, where I began working as a youth/young adult minister while beginning studies in psychology.     I felt a call to return to the seminary, and after much “fighting” with God and trying to come up with reasons why I should not be a priest, I realized that deep in my heart was a desire to be a priest. Since coming back to seminary, even though there have been challenges since coming back there has been quite a deeper realization that the Lord is calling me to draw closer to His Sacred Heart. The men in my class (Ben Anderson, Jose C. Gonzalez, Carlos Sepulveda, and Greg Wilk) have been nothing but welcoming and helpful in this transition back to seminary. I have been blessed to not only call these men brothers but also now my classmates, with whom I will be ordained in 2029.

As we continue to push forward in ordinary time, and as I reflect on the beginning of the new school year, I am brought to the Gospel of John 10:14-18. This Scripture talks about how Jesus lays down His life freely. I see how we must follow in his footsteps to lay down our lives. Now we hopefully will never have to lay our lives down, but we can do this in small ways. We can be more attentive and strive for the best grades we can get in our classes, or we cannot gossip about coworkers; instead, build them up, knowing that they are trying their best. It is not easy to imitate our Lord in this passage, and I understand that because when I felt the Lord calling me back to the seminary and the vocation of the priesthood, I did not want to lay down my life in this way, but I realized that he was not asking me to do something that he had not already done.     I find great strength in knowing that he experienced this, too, but he was able to show us the way to grow in love of our heavenly Father.