I am a Chilean priest from the city of Santiago. I met the community only two months after my priestly ordination, at the age of 27, on university missions. The community is the response of God for my life, whom I so often begged during my time of formation in the seminary to give me a deeper community life than the presbytery of Santiago could deliver. I was even willing to leave the seminary seeking a religious community in which my desires would fit, but God said that in due time he would bring forward my place. The community came hand in hand with my state of life. It fulfilled it in the dimensions of spousal love with Jesus Christ, in a missionary fervor based on a life of unity that I was looking for.
To me, Shalom is the place that God chose to develop a life of humility by being one brother among all the brothers. It is the true place in which God, through the experience of the charisma, multiplies the gifts that He entrusted to me. Today, I can say that Shalom is the right way because, by joining Jesus, I can exclaim: “Father, not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42), because this is my true happiness.
Fr. Javier Andres de Concha Bazán, member of Covenant Community