I could not and I should not simply seek the feeling of comfort or having everything go as I wish here in my house, as if I were capable of nothing else, as though no one any longer expected anything from me. If I would have fallen into this way of thinking, I would have condemned my life to a life lived with perpetual mourning as its backdrop. To resign myself to such a dark vision of my situation would not only mean making a pact with a lie, but also condemning myself to victimism. Going around the world with a victim complex, begging for the sympathy of the rest, seemed to me to be something false and cowardice because I saw clearly that having a sane mind, their was no excuse for not taking full advantage of it. (from his book, Sobre la Marcha, p. 55)

Who is Fr. Luis de Moya?
I was born around the beginning of the fifties, in La Mancha, in Ciudad Real to be specific. I’m the eldest of eight children. And, well, after a time I moved to Madrid. I studied Medicine. And once I had finished my studies in Medicine, I had asked for admission to Opus Dei and I commenced some studies in Ecclesiastical Philosophy, I went to Rome to study Theology. And once I had finished Theology, I was ordained a priest, when Monsignor Alvaro Portillo was President of Opus Dei. Then in Pamplona I did a Doctorate in Canon Law and I devoted myself to pastoral work with the University Students in the University of Navarra, immediately after my ordination.
At the same time I tended to groups of farm laborers who were completing their professional formation in the proper cultivation of the land. Also I did quite a lot of work with other priests, from Navarra and from La Rioja. And apart from this I was chaplain of the School of Architecture here in the University of Navarra until the year 1991, when I had a car accident.

Do you remember anything from the accident?
I have no recollection whatsoever of the accident, although it seems to be the case that I fell asleep at the wheel, in spite of the fact that it was around 7:00 in the evening. And as a consequence of that accident, I was left quadroplegic.

So, could you say that your life has made a 180 degree turn?
Let’s say that for me, things practically haven’t changed in the slightest. And why is that? Because I have the same approach to life as I did, as I did before; because fundamentally my approach to life is about my relationship with God and that hasn’t changed, just because I can no longer move. But the thing is, surprisingly, that this draws people’s attention. There’s nothing I can do about that. To tell you the truth, to me it seems the most reasonable thing in the world.

When did you become aware of the consequences of the accident?
Becoming aware of the situation that I’m in now, ehm, the truth is that I have to recognize that, because of the circumstances, it wasn’t something that was especially traumatic. Let me explain. It must be understood that I found out about my new situation, eh, after the accident, in a mental state that was quite confused. I mean, I had been hit very hard, they had performed a surgical intervention on me, which I knew nothing about, but which was necessary to join together the vertebrae of the neck that had been broken. And when I came out of the anaesthetic, they asked me if I knew who I was, if I knew what had happened to me. I said no, so then they told me, that I had been left quadroplegic. I didn’t need to be told more, because being a doctor, I knew perfectly well what they meant. So, well, in the midst of the stupor, I don’t think I really had the capacity to have what might be called violent reactions. The fact is, what I do remember, is that immediately my reasonings were very positive, in the sense that I never stopped to think about what I could no longer do, or, or to calculate all the things I had lost. Rather, on the contrary, I thought to myself, well, I haven’t lost what’s most fundamental. “I’m alive and for me the fundamental point of reference in life is God, and God is still there, and I’m a priest.

What have you learned?
Little by little with the passing of time I have realized that my situation had certain advantages. Although I know that this might seem to some a little excessive, but I realized that my situation had some advantages, because I was being given on a plate the opportunity to grow in many aspects of life, in a lot of those qualities, those virtues which make people truly great, logically, at the cost of being detached from one’s belongings, of being generous, of forgetting oneself.

Had your activity diminished in some sense?
I saw that it didn’t make much sense now to be thinking of what I was going to do, in how I was going to organize myself or in my plans for diversion, for comfort… no. And yet I had now the permanent opportunity to give what was most genuine in me, I mean what God had put in me because as a priest, although I had lost other things because of the accident, I hadn’t lost the capacity to speak of God. I still had my head together, in its place, apparently sane, and I had the capacity to speak, the capacity to think, the capacity to love. I had the capacity to continue studying. I saw that the world in which I had had this accident was a world in technological growth. And I could already see how through the communications media, not so much the television or the radio, but something much more accessible to all people like the computer, I could still have influence and relate with a lot of persons. Time would later bring about that reality.

What things are difficult for you?
There are things that are hard, evidently. And, without going into too many details, let everyone think for themselves. The least difficult thing in my situation, is simply being how I am, not being able to do physically the things I used to do before. In that case what is it that’s hard? An infinity of things. Mmm. Most of all my own character, I appreciate a lot my autonomy, my independence, a certain freedom... I’ve had to not only restrain myself and put up with things but also to surrender, that is, to have the personal and interior disposition to not be attached to that. And on the contrary to invest all my effort, well in short, in love. In not having time to think of myself. That’s the ideal. Do I always achieve it? No. Lamentably, no. But it’s a journey. I said once that in life I have the impression that it’s about going towards God, advancing without stopping towards Him, continually stumbling. With little falls and struggles to get up again, again and again. And so on.

What is the key to living this way?
For me this situation is an experience lived in myself, of the truth of Gospel. That phrase of St. Paul, “I can do all things in the one who strengthens me”. Is it true? I can say that yes it is. Moreover, if it’s not in Him, it can’t be done. In this is fulfilled also that other phrase, of the Lord, recounted by St. John, when the Lord said to his disciples in the intimacy of the Last Supper, “Because without Me you can do nothing”. All things I can do with Him, and without Me nothing. What’s my secret? I think my secret is this: it’s not a question of determination or that the Castillians are very tough or that you’re an amazing man or any of that. No, no, no, no, no such nonsense. Here, the one who can do it is Him.

It’s that God has created us, He has created us with Him at our side. He has created us to be his children. And He has placed us in the world for us to count on his help and for that He offered us the Sacraments, from Baptism to the Anointing of the Sick. And the Sacrament of Confession. Speaking of which, between you and me, I make sure I go to Confession at least once a week. The Eucharist, which is food. I can’t celebrate of course. I have to concelebrate because I can’t use my hands, every day. Then there’s prayer and the continual meditation of the Gospel… I think that’s my strength.

What do you think when you hear about eutanasia?
When they speak of euthanasia as a solution for the person, in the final analysis it’s a lie. I say this because it’s not true that nothing can be done. And what is also true, and never said, is that when euthanasia is legalized and the governments of the places where it is legalized recognize this, at least one of every three euthanasias is performed without the consent of the victim, one of every three. But anyway, we will triumph, because good will triumph, and the truth will always win, sometimes sooner sometimes later, but always. It’s always happened that way.
Your vision of life is fairly optimistic, then.

I was very struck once, and on reflection I realized that the statement was a logical one, by a title they put on a newspaper article, in inverted commas, quoting something I had said, “I’m a multi-millionaire who’s lost five dollars”. What a powerful sentence I produced! Well, it happens to be true! Of course, for someone who knows he’s a child, not only a simple child of God like all Christians, but a child who is specially loved, especially graced, by God, with the ministerial priesthood, someone who has received the priesthood of Jesus Christ, then, to have to go about sitting on a wheelchair, what is that? Has that person lost something of his priestly ministry? Not at all.
The thing is, I’m a priest who prays. I go to God with a priest’s petition. A so-called normal human life means nothing to me. Life is a pure gift of God. For His glory and for the salvation of souls, and this, as I say, is how it was before and how it is now. We could even say that now things are especially facilitated for me because I feel I’m more on the Cross; I have with my difficulties, with my pains, with my sufferings. It’s more vivid the reality that, that I’m another Christ. In short, I have no right to pull back, I don’t have the right, well, perhaps it could happen to a person, to think, “Well, now that I have things so difficult, now that I suffer so so much, now that things are so hard for me, let’s see if I can get myself some easy breaks. Let’s see if I can get for myself the greatest possible compensations among the few comforts that are left to me. Let’s see if now that I can’t do this, well, at least I can get to do that other thing… People really can do the strangest things, you know. Just purely by thinking of themselves, by let’s say, condemning their life to lamentation. It makes you much more happy, to look always upwards, to keep going forward, to look towards others and to see what is it that I can do, not to lament about what I cannot do but rather to think above all of what I can still do. In a word, to think of how I can still love, of what I can do for others, of how I can grow personally also, in my relationship with God, in my love for Him, in my generosity.

And what role does the Virgin Mary have in your life?
I have to give so so many thanks to God for the wonderful memories I have, of my mother. Mother of eight children, who, who, for me, her life was a life continually lived for us. Well, with Mary, the same, but even more so. The same, but with so much comprehension, so much affection, so much tenderness, truly seeking the best for us, which is our definitive union with God. I’m talking about an affection that is strong, an affection that is demanding when necessary. I remember that my mother also knew how to call a spade a spade: “Hey, Luis, not that way”. I always knew that she never said things for her own benefit, or out of revenge, but because it was the best thing for me. Well, that’s how it is also with Mother Mary. That’s why I have to say, with all simplicity, that for many years now I have prayed the Rosary every day. And now that John Paul II has encouraged Christians to pray also luminious, well, now the luminous mysteries too. I try to pray the four parts of the Rosary every day. But I’m not doing anything that’s out of this world

©HM Magazine No. 138 - Septiembre/Octubre 2007