When I was around ten I was raised in a very Christian environment
In particular, I was fascinated by my grandfather
And he had the habit of praying every day at three o'clock
He would pray for about an hour I seem to remember
But later on when I was in my final year of junior high school
I started to attend a secular group
No, not secular, rather apostolic
Based in France, it was called The Society for African Missions
I started to attend to learn a bit more
But until then it was not extraordinary because...
The priests from this Society for African Missions
They came one after another to be the curate in my church
So I was going just to learn a bit more
Later on, I started to attend the Jesuits
But only with the intention of deepening my faith
And as if by chance
Although I don't believe in chance
So let's call it divine providence
Which made things happen in such a way that
One day, one of the jesuits offered us to go on a retreat
A three day retreat
So I went
It was the first time that I'd had contact with the spiritual exercises
In their simplified form
But even in that simplified form
I felt something, like...
I felt something interesting
Because it was the first time that I had been given the chance
To meditate in a deeper way on the word of God
For a long time, I had been accustomed to praying for 5 or 10 minutes
But here, I started off with 30 or 45 minutes
And the last day we even reached an hour
So, I had this experience
And through it I discovered the richness of the word of God
But later on I began to notice
Some effects on my life
Nothing too big
but rather a variety of small changes I began to notice
due to practicing at home after returning from the retreat
Because of practicing these exercises at home
contemplating and meditating the word of God
I started to feel some little changes in my life
This led me to question myself, but so far, it was only to deepen my faith
It had nothing to do with living a religious or Jesuit life
I hadn't thought of it at all
There were some childhood dreams, but I had already buried them completely
I continued my journey with the Jesuits
but one of the essential experiences
I had was at the heart of the Feu Nouveau community
A community in which I had a deep searching experience
and I was asked to undertake certain tasks
And from day to day I felt like the Lord was calling me
to serve a little more
But at this moment I said to myself: "Yes, I could serve the Lord"
But in everyday, secular life
I was already attending university
I was in the student's newspaper
and there I experienced something interesting
one of my responsibilities was being in charge of finances
And there was a certain amount of pressure on me
to do a certain kind of things
and with what I had in my community
and thanks to the grace of the Lord, I was able to say no to certain things
I made some enemies sometimes
But I sensed, through this experience
an everyday calling from the Lord to go further
And after reflecting on these experiences I told myself:
"Maybe the small changes that have happened in my life
because of the spiritual exercises...
Maybe if I try to practice these spiritual exercises in a deeper way
and help others
Spread these spiritual exercises, spread the word of God
Maybe that will change some things in my life"
In my life and maybe also in the lives of those I work with
At that time I already had my personal projects
but at the same time I believed that
if I wanted to deepen my understanding of the spiritual exercises
the Lord would demand more from me
Because through this experience in the Feu Nouveau, I realised that
when you give a bit to the Lord, eventually he takes it all
So I was scared that this would intrude on my projects
I'm just telling you the way I was feeling
But I started to realize that the more I resisted
the more I tried to find things to distract me from the Lord's calling
the more these desires began to get stronger and stronger
and they reached the point where I could no longer run from myself
At that point I was lucky enough to attend a retreat that proved essential to my life
an eight-day-long retreat
through this retreat, certain things in my life were very clear
but even then
I wanted to take some time
to ask myself if these was not an illusion caused by the retreat
so I took one or two years
to see whether this calling from deep inside me
was the call of The Lord
when I finished my masters in Geography
I had to make a decision
and I finally decided to follow The Lord
I spent two years as a novitiate
Two years in the desert
but also, two very interesting years
Where I was not alone on the path
and where the Society could confirm
if this calling inside of me
was that of The Lord
Besides all the time used studying Philosophy
all the spent doing the Regency, and studying Theology
these two years also allow you to confirm your calling
So this is the story of how I...
How I joined the Society of Jesus and now here I am