José María Alsina, today a priest in his native Spain, has always felt called to belong to Jesus. His family passed on their faith to him, along with Christian values, education, and culture. The call to become a priest came to him through several “voices,” but that of his little sister, Mercedes, was decisive.
When José María was 12 years old, he was deeply impacted when Mercedes, who was barely more than 18 months old, “suddenly began to die.”
A promise to the Virgin Mary
“That night, when our parents told us that she was very ill, I went to an image of the Virgin Mary and boldly said to her, ‘Mother, if Mercedes is cured, I will become a priest,’” he recalls in a video (in Spanish) on HM Television.
“I promised the Virgin Mary that I’d become a priest, and the Virgin Mary [...] kept in her heart that promise I made,” he says with a smile.
From that moment on, his father said, the family would go to Lourdes every summer to ask for the girl to be healed; and if she was healed, to give thanks. Mercedes remained quadriplegic, but the family made many pilgrimages to that shrine in France. “For me, it was a very special place,” José María emphasizes.
As a teenager, José María felt the desire to get married. But his vocation to the priesthood persisted, and he discussed all of this with his spiritual director.
On one of his trips to Lourdes, the young man prayed to the Blessed Mother: “I made that promise to you when I was a child, but Mercedes is still sick ... What have you wanted to tell me with all this?”
Always happy
“I began to think that through her, the Lord had taught me what it means to be a priest,” he explains. “Because my sister wasn’t cured, but she was always in good humor, she was always happy, joyful, and she transmitted that to us.”
He recalls that at home in Barcelona, Mercedes was a source of joy for everyone. And at the same time, everything was a source of joy for her.
Living with her, José María learned that “being a priest means filling people's hearts with the love of the Lord.”
“I thought to myself, ‘Why is Mercedes always happy?’” he explains. And he answers that she was happy because she knew she was very loved, because she had the love of her parents and family and the love of the Heart of the Lord, “who was the center of our family.”
“I understood that I was called to bring that happiness as a priest to people’s hearts,” he summarizes.
“For me, the call was to understand that I have to give the love I have received so that people can find joy, happiness, and salvation,” he adds.
“I fell in love with Jesus Christ”
José María entered the seminary in Toledo at the age of 18, encouraged by a nun.
“The most important thing about the seminary was that my friendship with the Lord grew stronger; I fell in love with Jesus Christ,” he emphasizes.
During the six years of preparation for the priesthood, “I never doubted that the Lord was calling me.”
With his ordination as a priest, “came the confirmation that what I had received as a child was true.”
“And since then, I’ve had that certainty in my heart,” he concludes, “that I belong to Him and that what my priesthood, which I received one day, is something that totally shapes my existence.”
