The Augustinian Recollect Alfonso Dávila has been interviewed in the online newspaper El Debate, edited by the Catholic Association of Propagandists, which is also the titular entity of the San Pablo CEU University in Madrid, where he studies Audiovisual Communication. This is his testimony.
Fray Alfonso J. Dávila Lomelí is a 28-year-old friar. He currently lives and is vicar in the Parish of Saint Rita and chaplain of the Augustinus-Nebrija University Residence, which is part of his religious community and is leased from the Nebrija University in Madrid.
Being a friar, Alfonso lives in community. They start the day praying together at quarter past seven, then he attends his classes at the University. Then he returns to his community, where, after the intermediate prayer, they share food amidst laughter and happy anecdotes about their day: “we try to live life with great joy.”
In the late afternoon he carries out the regular tasks, affairs of the Parish or the Residence, such as attending the parish office, giving catechism, spiritual direction, or having a coffee with a parishioner and listening to concerns. Alfonso also tries to go through the Residence, in which he acts as chaplain, to try to connect with these university students and tries to be in bed at eleven at night.
He was born into a Catholic family in Mexico City. He studied theology at the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, DECA at La Salle and now Audiovisual Communication at USP CEU, where during the last two years he has worked as part of the Pastoral and Volunteer team.
Why did you decide to prepare for the priesthood while already consecrated?
There came a time in my consecrated life in which I was not very sure if I wanted to take the step or not, but a brother invited me to give it all. All I can offer is the priesthood and it was not an easy decision. In the end it is a very great responsibility because the priesthood in my person is not something of mine, but something that He has given me.
How do you remember the day of your ordination?
The day of my ordination was one of the most beautiful days of my life. I remember that I was very afraid. I had already made my solemn profession as an Augustinian Recollect, I had been ordained a deacon, but this was different because in the end the diaconate was a service to the Church and a gift to the Church.
I don’t believe in obligations, I believe in love and within that love the priesthood was the top. It was no longer my achievement, this was the Lord’s gift to me, but it was beyond me to think that I had to feel privileged because the Lord had chosen me and had asked me to do something for his church.
The previous week I felt very accompanied by people who loved me. Two days before I was ordained, the boys from the university told me that they wanted to have a Holy Hour and they went to my parish.
It helped me recap how the boy who entered a house of formation, a convent, at the age of 17, has grown and at the age of 27 was ordained a priest with one conviction: the love of God; a love that he always asks of you more but that never asks you for something that he knows you cannot do.
That day I felt that something inside me was activated, a father’s heart, that first beat of a heart that was no longer looking for itself. Saint Augustine told the faithful of Hippo that for them he was their bishop, but with them he was a brother. That is what I want for my priesthood, to be a father for my parishioners and with them a brother, a Christian, a person who wants to live the faith with them.
“Help me love you back”: this phrase from Sister Clare Crocket changed my life. From that moment I took it as a late motivation for my life.
Why do you have faith?
God gave me the power to have faith. I believe that God has given me many gifts and opportunities in life, and I believe that this faith is the love of God in my life. And that love of God implies a responsibility.
God, in addition of giving me love, asks me to share that love. And that’s why I believe. Because I believe in Him and in this love that I truly feel, that makes me capable of anything, that has stopped me in moments of falling.
I truly believe in the love of a God who becomes bread, in the love of a God who becomes food because he wants us to feed on the best and the fundamentals of life. And that’s why I believe. That’s why I have faith.
What has been your experience compared to your expectations in this first year of ministry?
I thought it would be easier. I mean, I had it in my head that this was going to be a breeze. And I remember a lot that my prior, Fray Alberto, before ordaining me, when he told him that he intended to go to Valencia for a whole day with friends, for example, he told me:
— “You go and take it easy, because when we put our hands on you you will find out.”
And whenever he told me, I thought:
— “Ouch! What a sympathetic!”
But now I know that he was right: if I have to leave home for three days, those are three days in which a mass will have to be covered by another, the mass that corresponds to me, that makes me think twice. But there is nothing that cannot be done with God.
Do you regret anything?
I don’t regret my priesthood at all, but I do regret certain things and attitudes. I have a very fast feeling that I have to constantly work on and I have very little patience. This can hurt others and it is something that I ask the Lord daily:
— “Lord, help me to contain myself.”
To tell the truth, I joke a lot with the Lord. In these cases I say:
— “Lord, give me patience, because if you give me strength…”
I have the gift that Saint Rita is very close to the Residence or the University. This always gives me the possibility of being able to return home, to the Parish, in case something happens.
What is grateful for this first year?
I have understood a phrase from Saint Paul: “we have to go with grateful hands and give thanks after thanks”. And the truth is that I believe that life is grace after grace. We live in a very needy society, in a society that hurts a lot, in a society that needs a hug.
Many times we go around wanting young people to be good and holy, but young people today don’t need much: they need a hug, a bear hug but also a hug from God.
What do you expect from your ministry?
I really hope to be a father, to have the heart of a father. For people who need it, to be able to welcome, accompany. For the Kingdom, because God’s project is worth it, and it’s not only worth it, it’s worth life. I want to love the world.
What do you hope to provoke in people?
I want to try to get people closer to Christ, who is the most important thing we have in this life, I don’t want them to know me, I want them to know him.
Many times I pray before preaching and I take wonderful gifts, because there are days when I preach things that I had not even thought about before and I realize that it is the Lord who wants to speak.
By myself I am not worth anything because I am a lacking person, I have a character of a thousand demons and I am very incongruous in many things. I don’t want to have a YouTube gold plate, I want to earn eternal life.
But I don’t want to be in heaven alone, I want to be in heaven with the people the Lord has asked me to shepherd.
