On Saturday afternoon, March 9, Juan Antonio Gil Tamayo (Zalamea de la Serena, Badajoz, 24.12.1966 - Pamplona, 9.03.2019) left us. He has left us leaving his mark. After a year and seven months of hard battle against the disease, he gave his soul to God this 52-year-old priest who has dedicated the last 14 years of his life to be a formator, first, and director spiritual after in the seminar International Bidasoa in Pamplona. Leaving his mark.

He left his mark on the hundreds of seminarians with whom he lived for so many years, and whom he accompanied spiritually; he left his mark on the team of formators of seminar, who found in him a piece core topic because of his experience, his common sense and his supernatural sense; and he left his mark on numerous people with whom he interacted through the many circumstances of ordinary life.

Itziar, one of the nurses at Clínica Universidad de Navarra who attended him in his last days, commented after his departure: this man had something special. But I think the same can be said of Juan and Conchi, his pharmacist friends; Arantxa, the administrative assistant of the School of Theology; José Luis, the porter now retired; or Andoni, the maintainer of the seminar. Juan Antonio had something special.

Where was his secret? Undoubtedly, in the extraordinary qualities that God gave him, especially the gift of committee. But it was also the fruit of his effort staff to assimilate the three traits that Pope Francis has pointed out as indispensable in a good formator after the example of the Good Shepherd.

A trainer must go ahead of the flock, with his own example, leading the way. In Juan Antonio's case, "I sell advice and I don't have any for myself" did not apply. From his lips came an encouraging "let's go for it!", which he applied first to himself. In the last months of his life, when his health was more limited, his effort to adapt to the schedule of seminar was exemplary, often with his portable oxygen cart, or his determination to celebrate the Eucharist in spite of his limitations. The talks of human and spiritual training that the seminarians received fell short of the visible example of an authentic priestly life.

The second trait of a formator is to be in the midst of the flock, among the people. After his death, someone commented that Juan Antonio was so loved because he "knew how to listen", to dedicate time to the newly arrived seminarian, to be interested in what each one told him, making an effort to remember a family detail, a concern, a hobby.... His smile and his look overcame all the difficulties of language that could be encountered by those who arrived each year at seminar from the most diverse corners of the world. He knew how to listen and he knew how to be: nobody like him, so much a Barça fan, was able to joke with grace and affection with another Madrid fan.

He followed the example of St. Josemaría, who said that he trusted the word of a friend more than the unanimous testimony of a hundred notaries together.

Juan Antonio has left us leaving his mark. Where was his secret? In that he knew how to walk in the footsteps of the Good Shepherd. Like his beloved St. Augustine, to whom he dedicated so much study, he was a man of great faith and great humanity. One of his last commitments on this earth was to promise his brother Jose Maria, Bishop of Avila, that from heaven he would pray for priestly vocations in that diocese. His restless heart did not stop until he rested in the Lord. May he rest in peace.