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Can you imagine a jacket helping you discern your vocation? This is the story of Fr. Luis Zúñiga Chávez of the Archdiocese of Guadalajara. He’s a Mexican priest who found God’s call as a teenager through a simple comment he received from his ex-girlfriend.
Fr. Luis grew up in a town called San Andres Ixtlan, Jalisco, more than 66 years ago. This year he celebrated 36 years of being a priest, and is happy to be able to make Christ present in the world. He recently told Aleteia about his unusual conversion story.
It was all because of a jacket
When he was a little boy, during Mass he would watch the priest attentively. The man at the altar seemed angelic to the boy. He didn’t understand where someone like that, who could inspire love in those who listened to the Word of God, would come from.
That curiosity motivated him to participate in the Eucharist. Although at that time he didn’t feel inclined to become a priest, God invited him to learn more about the celebration of the Mass.
It wasn’t until he was 18, when he was planning to marry his girlfriend, that everything changed:
In the villages, at that age, you’re already thinking about marriage. I had my girlfriend, and my dream was to get married, to form a family. But on one occasion, one of my father’s brothers, who lived in the United States, came to visit us in town and brought us some clothes. I got a jacket out of those clothes.
That same week, on a Sunday, he decided to wear his new piece of clothing for the first time, since people would “dress up handsome to go to the town square,” which is the place where the town’s lovers meet.
When I approached my girlfriend to start walking around with her, she was very surprised by the jacket, because she’d never seen me wear it. The first thing she said to me was, “Where did you get that jacket? Do you know that you look like a priest with that on?”
From that moment on, he began to have a nagging feeling and wondered, “Why did she me I look like a priest?” He walked around with his girlfriend repeating that question internally.
Starting to recognize a vocation
A few days later, a deacon approached him and asked him if he’d like to discern his vocation as a priest, and presented him with the option of going to a pre-seminary program. Young Luis answered “yes” because of what had happened recently with the jacket.
He didn’t think it opportune yet to tell his girlfriend the truth — that he was going to have this discernment experience — so he told her that he was going to take care of an errand out of town for a whole week. But when he saw that the formators believed that he did have a priestly vocation, he returned home and told her the truth.
They broke up. The girl decided to wait for him for a while, at his request, in case he returned. But after a year, young Luis made a definitive decision to follow his call to the priesthood.
Thirty-six years later, he lives with immense joy the grace of being a priest.
Great love for the Eucharist
Ever since he was a child, Fr. Luis has been impacted by Jesus in the Eucharist. He says that it’s now one of his greatest gifts. “I believe that the celebration of the Mass is the pinnacle of our ministry. Everything else” in Christian life “may satisfy us, fill us, but, in fact, I believe that where we are nourished spiritually to do the rest is in the Eucharist.”
Undoubtedly, God calls to the priestly vocation in different ways; and as in this case, sometimes it happens in very unexpected ways. But it is always a call filled with joy and love.
“If God were to give me the opportunity to be born all over again, I would become a priest again. I’m in love with my vocation. I think I’m more in love with it today than I was 36 years ago.”
And today we celebrate...