Mario, the only seminarian of his diocese: from the arms of God we never fall

Mario Cabrera, the only seminarian of the Diocese of Salamanca (Spain), reflects on his vision of the priesthood, the need to give hope to the world and the challenge of responding to the vocation.

Six years ago Mario forms, in the company of other seminarians from different dioceses, to respond to the vocation received from the Lord. “You don’t have to be afraid to make mistakes. In the end, be it my path or not, the vocation is to see what God is asking for you, what you want from you. And you have to risk without fear, trusting, having that we never fall from the arms of God.”

“Every vocation is growing as time goes by with the Lord”, because in that frequent treatment it is “where one is letting himself model for him to be, one day, a reflection of that good pastor who is Jesus,” he explains, “he explains In an interview published on the website of your diocese.

The transformation, in effect, occurs over the years: “One, of new, always enters with expectations, with an ideal. And, as time goes by, you leave the ideal to land in reality, in what the church and society really ask for a priest.”

The Diocese of Salamanca, suffragan from the archdiocese of Valladolid, is located in northwestern Spain and bordering Portugal. It has more than 400 parishes and 163 diocesan priests, of which 93 are already retired and only 54 have charge in the diocese.

Is this an added pressure for Mario Cabrera? “I live it with the own responsibility that I have as a seminarista, not a special responsibility. In the end, be it or let’s be twenty, each one has that part of responsibility to make God present in the midst of the world.”

“I live it with peace, naturally and also waiting,” as not, “other colleagues do this path as a priest,” he says.

Being the only seminarian of Salamanca, resides in the theologian of Ávila, with candidates for sacred order from different dioceses. That variety “ends up opening the mind”, and leaves in its formation “a very strong community place that is then what we have to live in the parishes.”

“It is always positive, because the other provides wealth and, in the end, the difference of the other, one learns to integrate it and to make the best,” he adds.

Regarding the shortage of seminarians, who becomes especially pressing in different Spanish dioceses, he affirms that “if we need priests, we also have to ask the Lord. We have to pray for the vocations to the priesthood, but also for all the vocations.”

Mario Cabrera believes that our world “today more than ever is in need of hope” in front of catastrophes. The experience of this virtue “cannot be something that seems distant. Hope is already at that moment, in you to you, in contact with people.”

For the seminarian, “today’s challenge is to spread the joy of having met Christ.”

In this sense, it emphasizes: “We have to give reasons for people to see that this faith is not something that annuls anything of man, but quite the opposite: precisely, faith enhances all the good we have and everything good we are.”