Madrid, Spain, Apr 28, 2020 / 04:27 pm MT (CNA).- While most of the students at the San Fulgencia Seminary in Cartagena, Spain, returned home when the country declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, one seminarian felt a different calling.

With a background in medicine, first-year seminarian Abraham Martínez Moratón asked permission of the rector at his seminary to go back to work as a doctor to help treat COVID-19 patients in the regional healthcare system.

With permission granted, Martínez got in contact with his former employers at Queen Sofía Hospital. He began working March 16 at a facility in Monteagudo.

Martínez shared his experience in an article posted on the Diocese of Cartagena’s website.

“It was a blessing to go to work everyday and going down the Alicante highway to catch sight of the statue of Christ atop Monteagudo mountain. It was a huge gift to meet all the staff, we worked together as a team very well,” he said.

Martínez spent several weeks in Monteagudo and then was transferred to a facility in the Carmen neighborhood in Murcia.

There he was reunited with some of his former colleagues, who were surprised to see him again. “When they saw me they said, ‘This is a mirage, weren’t you in the seminary?’”

Martínez always felt his vocation in life was to help others, and from a young age he wanted to be a doctor. He said that returning to medicine has made him more aware of “growing in holiness day by day, seeing the face of Christ in the patients and praying more for them.”

Martínez said that the experience has reinforced his vocation.

“I want to be a disciple of Jesus, who is the physician of bodies and souls,” he reflected.

“I used to say to God: If I’m already helping you through medicine, why add on more things? But it’s also true that I always told him and I continue to tell him, whatever he wants for me.”

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.