thirsty for god
Juan, a young man from Madrid
D.Many things have caught my attention in Peru: the beauty of the landscapes, the immensity of the Andes, the delicious and peculiar gastronomy – Cuy included –, the charm of its architecture…, but more than anything else, the faith of its inhabitants and the joy of its children. First of all, because I have been shocked to see how they look forward to the arrival of the missionaries every year. When they told me that three priests serve two hundred villages, I thought it was hyperbole; but it is literally true. However, what is amazing is not this, but that despite how difficult it is for them to receive the sacraments, they maintain a true faith. Precisely because they value how important what they lack is, like a thirsty person when they don't have water.
I also thirst for God, but I'm used to receiving the sacraments whenever I want, and I don't appreciate enough how big that is. For this reason, the example of the inhabitants of Morán has helped me to be more grateful to the Lord, and to live the sacraments as the gift that they are.
As for the children..., I have been able to better understand the nature of love, and therefore of God, thanks to them. Many times I am tempted to see him more with my head than with my heart, and also to seek my happiness in abstract ideas and in the utopian. Faced with this, in Morán I have been happy receiving their love and feeling their joy.
It is shocking to see that they are much happier than the children –and of course the adults– of Spain; and that they are without tablets or consoles, playing “chungas” –marbles– or shooting with the slingshot, and despite living with great humility. They show, although it sounds like a cliché, that God lives in simplicity, and that is why Western wealth separates us from him and distances us from happiness. Dostoevsky compared the love of God and God with what a mother feels the first time she sees her child smile. Not my children, because I don't have them, but I have seen the children of Morán smile with that strength and beauty: when they hugged me when they said goodbye every day, when they pulled my beard, when they thanked me for giving them a few simple threads to make bracelets…but above all, God gave me a moment that has marked me. During a mass, a little girl sat next to me, and during Communion she took my hand and led me to the priest (not only for me to receive communion, but also so that she could pour holy water). It seemed to me a very beautiful symbol of what the Christian path is: letting oneself be guided by good and simple people, because they lead us to God.
God is in the concrete, because only in that dimension can love be lived; and for this reason they have brought me closer to Him.
