Home of the Mother

"I have to be like him"

It was one day in February.

My soul needed something else. I knew that God wanted me all for himself, but I didn’t know how or where I could devote myself to the salvation of souls. My father had died in Cartagena barely two months before. Everything had collapsed around me. With my father dead, I had to uproot myself from the parish where my longings for holiness had sprung up for the first time, and now in Madrid, I found myself in a total void.

It’s true that my first concern was to find an environment where those longings could become reality; but in that environment that called itself Catholic I did not find any profound friendship, and far from helping me, I actually had to fight against it. I could not conceive how one could be a member of a Catholic organisation and lead a life just like everyone else, going to dances and wasting time playing ping-pong or in the bar of the “youth centre”. That life seemed so small to me! I felt locked into a big shell and it seemed to me impossible to break it. So I rooted my life in a deeper devotion to the One who grants all things, because I had already experienced her maternal protection when I had asked Her during my father’s illness either that he be healed or that he go to Heaven. She obtained for me the grace of seeing my father die having received the Sacrament of Confession and the Anointing the makes us strong soldiers of Christ in the supreme battle. Incessantly I asked our beloved Mother to grant me the wish that was in my soul: to find a group of young people that would help me to be holy.

And... how well I remember it!

Something happened that may seem a matter of chance, but for me it was providential. I’m sure everyone goes up to the notice boards to read the notices when you’re between classes and you’ve nothing else to do. I went up the notice board in the corridor where I was studying, the Cardinal Cisnerso Institute. And I read: “Talks that matter. Matters of youth: manliness, personality, freedom, chastity...”.

In spite of the fact that I usen’t often leave the house and I wasn’t familiar with the place were the talks were to be held, I said to myself: “I’ll go”. I didn’t want to go alone, so I invited two classmates of mine to come with me. And they did.

So there we were that evening, after class, sitting on the front benches of the big hall that the Jesuits have for conferences on Maldonado Street. A Father came out and began to talk to us. I liked what he said. But the big surprise came when he announced to us that a lay person was going to address us. I had never seen a lay person speaking of God to a group of three hundred young people.

He began to speak. I was electrified. I liked his voice and everything he said was so real... He told us what had happened to him when he was our age. How many coincidences I saw between his life and mine! As he was speaking, I was saying to myself in answer to everything he was saying, “Yes. Of course. It’s true. He’s right. Evidently...”. He captivated me. But the best thing was that I found in him something that I had never encountered. Joyfulness flowed out of him and communicated itself to my spirit. I felt in myself the peace that he had. I said to myself: he doesn’t need anything, his only ideal is Christ and souls. And how he speaks of Our Lady! How much he loves her! NO, he wasn’t like anyone else. And in my heart sprang up the words: “I have to be like him. My ideal is to be what he is”. Back then I didn’t realise that what I was seeing was Christ, whom he carried within him: “I live, but it is no longer I who lives, it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2, 20). That man was Abelardo of Armas, first superior of the Crusade of Holy Mary.

I had made arrangements to speak with three priests and to get serious spiritual direction, but in the end I don’t know what it was I encountered in them that made me retreat. Yet this young man had something special that attracted me. I said to myself: “When this talk ends I’ll go and tell him what’s happening in me”.

I went up to him. I greeted him and asked him if he had a little time available.

- “Not right now. Come tomorrow”.

I left with my classmates. We talked warmly about the things that had impressed us.

The following day I brought two others with me. While the priest was talking, I was already looking forward to the layman’s talk. At last. Once again he produced the same reaction as the previous day in my spirit. The same desires to be like him. But what was it about that young man? I didn’t realise that it was Christ who was speaking to my heart, putting those desires in me.

The talk ended and I followed the same procedure.

- “Hello! Do you have time now?”.

He smiled.

- “Better to come again tomorrow. We’ll talk when it’s over”.

I came. This final day they showed us some films about the Holy Shroud of Turin. Christ seemed so close to me in that time of silence they gave us before the true face of Jesus. When the projection was over I waited for him as they collected the cables, ordered the slides and closed the projector. I didn’t know what to say to him now that we had the opportunity to talk.

- “Accompany me to the residency and we’ll talk along the way”.

I told him everything as if he were an old friend. I opened my soul to him. But when it came to the subject of spiritual direction he told me that since he wasn’t a priest he didn’t think it would be a good idea, but he would introduce me to one who could help me even better than he could. He was the Father Morales. He invited me to do Spiritual Exercises. I didn’t know what they were, although I had done a Retreat in school.

“The Spiritual Exercises are different. They must be done in an atmosphere of silence so that God may speak to you and you may listen to Him. If you want to do something for God and for others, that’s the first thing you must do”.

I told him I would go, but I had economic problems. He sorted out everything for me. He asked me: “How are you going to prepare yourself for this experience?”.

I didn’t know what to say. What did he mean? And as if he could hear my thoughts, he said to me:

- “You’ll see: it’s not the same to go there prepared as it is to go just any way. If it rains hard in a village, who do you think will gather more water, those in the village or someone just passing through?”.

- “Those in the village, I guess, because the traveller will only have his pockets and whatever hole he can dig, but those in the village will have vessels and buckets”.

- “Well, the same thing happens with the Exercises. If in these days before the Exercises begin you devote yourself to asking God to prepare you, you will go there with those vessels you need to gather the grace that God will send showering down from Heaven. That is why it would be a good idea for you to spend at least fifteen minutes every morning talking to God to ask Him to do this”.

We arrived at the residency. We saw a youth coming towards us. He introduced us: “This is Juan; he’s been giving a talk to another group”. I saw the same joy reflected on his face. He greeted me with a broad smile.

I went home. My heart was already longing for this encounter with God in the solitude of Spiritual Exercises, the experience that had changed my new-found friend to a life of total dedication to the Lord.

The day arrived. A train brought us to Navilias. I didn’t care where we were going. All I wanted was to begin. It was night. We got off the train and in complete darkness, in the freezing cold, we began to walk along what seemed to be a road but may well have been a path.

The Exercises...
One day: surprise and tiredness. Many difficulties.
Another day: everything forgotten. Only God counts in this moment.
Third day: much happiness. Only I, belonging all and always to God.
Fourth day: “He loved me and gave himself up to death for me”. Thankfulness.
How quickly the time has gone by! If only they were eight days...

Today I am dedicated to God as one day I dreamed of being. Holiness is my ideal and the conquest of young people for Christ is the concrete realisation of that ideal. I feel happy and I want to make all those around me participants in my happiness. The world needs happiness. Real happiness. I want to give it that happiness!

By Fr. Rafael Alonso Reymundo