Narratio Fidei by Father Sebastián García scj

Now as you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you, may you excel in this gracious act also. I say this not by way of command, but to test the genuineness of your love by your concern for others. For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.(2 Cor. 8, 7-9)

Without doubt love the hidden life; but never fear to go out when ever the loving Providence of God gives you the opportunity of being useful to your neighbour, for love you have for the Lord must fill you with zeal to gain their hearts. (Corr. III, letter nr. 9ter)

Narratio... One of the texts that has the greatest impact on my religious life is precisely in the Second Corinthians: “Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake to make you rich out of his poverty” (2 Cor. 8,9). I believe it contains everything towards which I am aiming in my life as a religious. To know the visage of Christ, humble and obedient, and who became poor for my sake. This reminds me of what St Michael has to say: “He who took the place of all victims”. I think of Jesus and of his humble life; I think of his life and the life of so many poor people. I think of my own life. I can see that I am not poor. To be a revolutionary like Jesus, who chooses the lowest place, strips himself of all his privileges, renounces his divine condition, poses question for me. I am deeply touched on seeing him so close to all mankind especially to those who feel their lives and faith in real danger and under threat.

As a religious I cannot but be touched deeply as I contemplate the attitude of Jesus and how close he is to the poor, to those who share his state and condition. Then I think of my own life, of my commitment to be as close as possible to the poorest, and especially to my consecration by the vow of poverty following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Jesus’ action is a liberating action: taking the lowest place, and from that position beginning to liberate the whole world. I think that this is what links me best to the example of the Incarnation: Jesus, a man amongst other men, who precedes others, situates himself on the same level, accepts all the condemnation for love’s sake.

These texts remind me of two fundamental realities: on the one hand the mystical experience of God, present in the Gospel and among the People; on the other hand practising everything which is the fruit of that mystical experience in the liberating action. These texts tell me loud and clear that prayer, life, ministry, neighbour and charity are realities not to be separated. They go hand in glove. They are complementary. They sustain each other. It is a truth showing the unity between the love of God and love of the neighbour. They are not to be separated. God and the People go together. They are part of the same reality. Mystical experiences beget the great desires of the heart; apostolic zeal demands that we present to the Lord those names, life histories, those faces, those sorrows, those wounds, our own but also those of the rest of mankind, those of the men and women of today who feel that their lives and faith are unsteady.

There is a reality which I am trying to practice in my day-to-day existence and which I can detect in these texts namely the effort to be a “mystic of the incarnation”; but a mystic who is fully conscious! In a word I must be embedded in this reality. Jesus is one of us. He is like us in all things except sin. That is why I am trying to be like him - to be Father, priest, religious, consecrated. I am not “above” him. On the contrary, I feel myself more than ever a brother, equal to others, close to them. Consequently, cultivating the culture of meeting, getting out so as to meet the rest of mankind. As Pope Francis says: “Get out of your caves and sacristies” so as to have a genuine meeting with the people. That is what I live in my daily life with the young people in the colleges with their specific problems: abuse, depression, abandon, anger, relationships, solitude, temptation to throw everything up, to let go. I live it in my particular situation as “priest of the great questions”. That’s how some people call me! I am always asking “How are you?”, “What’s happening? “Are you happy?” “Does this satisfy you?” “How are you coping with this in your life?” It is I who asks the important questions. Quite simply because they are the questions which I ask myself every day. I don’t give up trying: my desires, my dreams, fresh horizons.

A few days ago a brother was describing me as a passionate person. I think that he was right. I can’t be otherwise; a lot of my brothers must put up with the consequences, especially those living under the same roof: Fathers Giancarlo and Bruno. I feel that I have to deepen this passion so as to get to know it better, take care of it, work at it, shape it, let it be transformed under the action of a God who is merciful.

That is where my mystical experience of prayer and God resides. How can I direct my passion and then be a passionate about the youth, the poor. I am deeply convinced that they are the two poles of life towards which God is directing me. A preferential choice for the poor and the youth , live with them, suffer with them, share their hopes and joys, their sufferings and sadness. I feel that I am being urged to be faithful to the liberating force of Jesus: precede others, suffer with them, share their meals, their bread and their wine. ....And as I announce life to them tell them that the most important in the eyes of God isn’t sin, the canonical irregular situation, morality, the commandments.... No, the truest reality in the eyes of God is the dignity of knowing that we are his children. On a daily basis I keep on telling myself this to be able to live in freedom. This is what I repeat to the young people and to the poor every time that I have the possibility of being with them.

Here is the prayer which accompanies my commitment and my mission:

Lord, forgive me for getting used to seeing that the children appear to be eight years old when in reality they are 13.
Lord, forgive me for getting used to being mud spattered; I can get rid of it, not the youngsters.
Lord, forgive me for being able to support the stinking waters which I can avoid, but not the youngsters.
Lord, forgive me for switching on the light, forgetting that they can’t do it.
Lord, forgive me for going on hunger strike; they cannot, because nobody can go on strike over his own hunger.
Lord, forgive me when I say “man does not live by bread alone” without fighting for all I am worth to get their bread for them.
Lord, I ask for the grace to love them for themselves and not for myself.
Lord, I ask for the grace to die for them; help me to live for them.
Lord, I ask to be with them at the hour of light. Amen.

Father Carlos Mugica (1930-1974)

Father Carlos Mugica, a priest close to the Peronist left-wing, was assassinated in Buenos Aires on 11 May 1974 in front of the church of San Francisco Solano, in the working-class district of Mataderos, where he had just finished celebrating Mass and talking with a couple of young people who were about to marry. “Those who were militants in political formations considered him a political leader. But for the people of the Villa he was simply ‘el padrecito’”, says Guillermo Torres, his current successor at the church of Christ Obrero in Villa Retiro. On 9 April 1999 the remains of Father Mugica were transferred to the chapel of the Villa where he spent his priesthood. Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio on that occasion prayed as follows: “The death of Father Carlos, for his material killers, for those who were the ideologues of his death, for the complicit silences of most of society and for the times that, as members of the Church, we did not have the courage to denounce his assassination, Lord have mercy”.