Fr. Eugenio Guerra Fausti , LC

From when I was little, I wanted to be a priest, but as I became an adolescent I changed that idea.  I had my friends, and I didn’t like school very much; I wanted to have a girlfriend and play American football like my older brother.

In my youth, my desires were beginning to be fulfilled: I played on a team at Monterrey Tech, I had a girlfriend, and I was about to graduate as a public accountant.  My plan was to stop playing football, work for two years and then get married.  But my plans were not God’s plans.

One day, while playing my last season of football, I fractured some bones in my foot.  They told me that I would have to be out of the game for a month; but my bones did not heal, so I ended up staying out for the whole season.

That same semester, I had been able to get a head in my studies, so I didn’t have anything to do.  With my foot out of commission, it wasn’t so easy to find a job. To make matters worse, I broke up with my girlfriend.

           

I wanted to give God more time

In those months I got to know the Regnum Christi through a friend.  Thanks to the youth I met there and thanks to “Chema” (José María Martínez, a consecrated member of the Regnum Christi who was helping me as spiritual director), I realized I needed to dedicate more time to God.  He was transforming me little by little.  After, I decided that before I began working, I was going to dedicate one year of my life to serve the Church as a Regnum Christi coworker, because I realized that God was asking me to give Him more.

It was not easy because I still had the same aspirations. But God had his way of teaching me. He gave me very holy parents, an incredible family (besides already having eight very good and generous siblings, I also have an uncle, who is a Legionary priest, a consecrated sister in Regnum Christi and another who is part of the Opus Dei).  I had received a very good formation in high-school as well as in the club of Catholic children that I belonged to.  And now God was putting Regnum Christi on my path.

Almost turning back

Even with this, I still remember that I almost turned back when the day came to start my coworker year.  The testimony and advice of a teacher in my last year at Monterrey Tech helped me a lot, though.  His name was David Noel Ramírez Padilla; he was also the director of my studies program.  On one occasion, I was talking with him about my way of seeing things in life (very egoistic and materialistic), and he reminded me that to be happy I needed to transcend all that.

After experiencing apostolic work, community life with the Legionaries in Guadalajara, and the moments of prayer during my coworker year, I started to think more about the idea of going to the vocational discernment summer program to see what God was asking of me.

Now I have left everything behind, all of my dreams.  Nevertheless, every day I find myself with Christ in the Eucharist and I thank him for the gifts in my life.  I am sure that I am the same person, but I have found Christ and I want to live in his presence and be wherever he asks me to be in order to live out this enormous privilege of helping him and one day rejoicing with him in heaven.

Father Eugenio Guerra Fausti was born in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León (México),on the 4th of November, 1974.  He was a student in the Institute of Cumbres in Saltillo, Coahuila (Mexico); he began a career to become a public accountant in Monterrey Tech; he then became a coworker in the Regnum Christi helping out with the youth groups in Guadalajara (Mexico).  In the summer of 1999 he joined the Legion of Christ in Cheshire (USA), where he also studied humanities.  He got his bachelors in philosophy in the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum College in Rome (Italy).  He now helps out with children and youth in the city of Cotija de la Paz, Michoacán(Mexico).

 

Translation of the vocation story published in the book "Vivir para Cristo"