At just 4 years of age Emilio Madrid Mérida played the celebration of “Mass” at home with his stuffed animals. Now, at 16, he dreams of being a priest and says he has found happiness in the seminary in Badajoz, Spain, where he has already been for three years.

Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, at St. García the Abbot Parish in Algeciras, a city in southern Spain near Gibraltar where he is with his family on vacation, the young man explained that for him a vocation is “the call that God gives you to make you happy.”

“From a very young age, in this parish when I was 4 years old I started helping at Mass. I wanted to be like the priest and at home I played at celebrating Mass with my stuffed animals,” he related.

Seminarian at 13

At just 13 years of age, he wanted to enter the minor seminary of St. Antón Diocesan School in Badajoz, a city on the border with Portugal about 140 miles from Lisbon, where he currently lives with his mother.

It was a decision that came to him naturally despite the “surprise” it caused to those around him, especially his family.

“Although my entire family has been practicing Catholics and hasn’t put any obstacles in the way, my mother was surprised when I told her my decision.”

He recalled that his mother “cried” while helping him pack his suitcase to leave home and that now she shares his joy at seeing that her son is happy. His friends were “very sad, but every 15 days I leave the seminary and I can see them. In general, they took it very well and were very happy,” he said.

‘My Heart is Somewhere Else’

Emilio said the majority of young people today have things they are preoccupied with, such as having fun, and he assured that he does too, although in a different way: “I am young, I still live in this world, and those things can also be there.”

However, he shared that he has “his heart in another place” and sees things “with different eyes, not so worldly, but that I relate the things of this world to God.”

The young seminarian emphasized that “God wants us to be happy,” but “we have to know where to find happiness.”

He also directs a clear message to young men who feel a vocation to the priesthood: “I would invite them to go with their parish priest, talk to them and go see the seminary.”

“I was embarrassed to go to the seminary, and after being with them one afternoon I decided to stay, and I have been there for three years now,” he told ACI Prensa.

Emilio said what he likes about the seminary is “the family that we have formed among us” as well as “sharing faith with and knowing that you are with companions who are pursuing the same thing you are.”

Next year he will begin his college prep studies and later he wants to study theology. In a few years, he imagines himself being a priest, helping others, and every day trying to be “as much like Jesus as I can.”