|
September 26 2006
Presentation
of the Books:
“Se puede”
(It’s possible) and “Amo la Vida”(I love life)
It is a great
joy for me to able to participate today of the presentation of
the re-edition of the book of a friend, a Life partner. I want
to start with a blessing, an Old Irish Blessing, that not only
brings to our memories Margarita’s Irish roots, but also reminds
us of the greeting words that welcomed us to her house, these
words expressed her deepest desire:
May the road rise
up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand
The source and origin of every blessing is
God, Our Father, who is above everything, He did all things good
to fill them of His blessings.
To bless, means
to “say well” or “say good things about someone”. The person who
blesses acts as a mediator between God and people. But in order
to act as a mediator the person has to experience both realities
that he or she mediates. The person has to feel in his or her
heart both realities, the human and divine reality. And that is
what I would like to point out today. Margarita lived a truly
human life, with everything that life involves itself, but she
lived her life with a special “spice”, an essential “spice” I’d
say, which is God. She deeply experienced both realities: she
felt in her heart both things, things from God and from humans.
Margarita’s life
speaks wonders about God. Because our Good God, gives us, along
with the gift of life, talents and gifts; and it is up to us the
multiplication of those talents. So, there is something that
comes from God and something that is an answer, fundamental
option and axis for our life. Margarita’s whole life consisted
on receiving talents from our Good God and making them fecund.
However there is something that she herself made a Gift: her 38
years of disease on which she did nothing more than to search
God’s will on her life. One has to be able to live so many years
of disease with happiness, hope and entireness.
Through-out her
book she narrates her relationship with God, her relationship
with Our Good Father and how He stole her heart and whole being.
“One can be happy, because with God everything’s possible!” that
is how she starts her book. Remembering her trip to Lourdes she
says: “It was then when I saw my path; God’s will appeared
clearly in front of my eyes. I had no idea of how hard it would
be that path for me, but I decided to abandon myself in the
hands of the Divine Providence. I’d let God act through me, in
order to be able to transmit peace and love in middle of this
chaotic world. Hope reappeared and I totally accepted my cross.
At the same time, I “realized” that God loved me a lot. And for
a couple of minutes I only felt Our Creator’s love.
When someone experiments the presence of
God, the desire and need to love increases. But it is necessary
to point out that a strong experience of God comes after long
strong human fights, long nights of purifications, rebellion,
and anger. This strong experience comes after searching the
meaning of things.
Saint John of the Cross, on his book, “The
dark night”, makes a very pretty comparison, using the image of
wood being burned by fire: “Fire, when applied to wood, first
dehumidifies it, dispelling all moisture and making it give off
any water it contains. Then it gradually turns the wood black,
makes it dark and ugly, and even causes it to emit a bad odor.
By drying out the wood, the fire brings to light and expels all
those ugly and dark accidents that are contrary to fire.
Finally, by heating and enkindling it from without, the fire
transforms the wood into itself and makes it as beautiful as it
is itself”
These purifications that the wood suffers
allude to the ones that the person endures when experimenting
the profound need of conforming their lives to Christ’s life.
Margarita shows us that she really had the
desire of conforming hers with Christ’s and she lived that way
even under the roughest circumstances. And I can say this not
only because of her writings that are a clear evidence, but also
because of the gift that God conceded me by giving me the
chance of knowing her. I truly feel myself as a privilege person
because I got to know the vibration of such a passionate and
lovely soul, because I knew her deepest searches, fights and
also because I was able to share with her different things of
our lives.
Conforming one’s
life with Christ’s is to search for the sense of life, in order
to love, take care and value life.
In a little book
“I love Life” there is this thing she wrote:
What’s the
meaning of life for me? What a question. EVERYTHING. And why
everything? Because life without meaning is a waste and it is
not worth living When did my life gain sense? It was the result
of a long and bloody search. And Jesus waited… I wanted precise
and instant answers. Investigating the Gospels a phrase caught
my attention: “My yoke is soft
and my burden light” I read, and re-read but there was no
way, for me it was “pure Chinese”. There was a mistake, because
the yoke weighted tons and so did the burden!”… Only when I
“plunged” entirely in the hands of Father God, I understood that
MY LIFE HAD SENSE, AND I KNEW WHAT MY PATH WAS.
How deep
those words are, they speak for their self. Margarita’s life,
her searches, her disease were always confronted and illuminated
with the Gospel.
Margarita had
the experience of feeling her heart vibrate with the things of
God; she was always searching for a deep encounter with Jesus. I
remember how she used to pass by running through Suipacha’s
Street in order to get to Mass at “Socorro’s” Basilica, I even
remember the privileged spot on which she used to sit, spot from
where she contemplated the great mystery of a God that out of
love wanted, and still today, wants to stay in the form of bread
and wine for us. You can’t imagine the great gift it was to
contemplate those peaceful deep light blue eyes, eyes that were
like the ocean, those eyes were accompanied by an eternal smile.
I always felt that when she smiled it was God taking her
expressions in order to smile at me, and I believe that I was
not the only one who experienced that.
One of the characteristics of “blessed
people” is that wherever they go the say blessing words. To
bless someone is one of the most meaningful and significant
affirmations that we can offer, it is more than saying affective
words, it is more than pointing a person’s virtues or talents.
When we bless someone we make them feel loved. The most
important thing it is not to love, but to be loved. Being loved
means that there is someone who blesses me, this means that
there is someone who says: “How wonderful it is for me your
existence, your life!” And that is one of the most fundamental
things in Margarita’s book. In every description she makes, of
her family and friends, she points out their virtues; she
describes what she saw with her heart. What a capacity of love!
I believe that the reason why God gave her
all these years of life is clearly expressed by her on her
little book “I love life”: “I started to discover that the
secret for happiness simply consisted on giving… I had stayed
too much time thinking about myself, when I actually had to
give myself. Too much thinking about me! - I said. Now I had
to worry about others. With all the energies our Good God gives
me, how He wants, where He wants and as long He wants…”
Margarita’s life
was and is for my vocational life a true oasis where rest,
gather strength and charge energies to love and search God’s
will. I believe her life and especially her writings are like an
echo of Our Father God’s words, echo that even today still
resounds in the heart of every person that met her. An echo that
do not belong us; Not sharing her life to other people would be
not understanding why she lived so many years among us. Today,
more than ever, we argentine people need to recover hope, we
need to recover the will to love and the need of God, and shout:
It is possible! ; I love life!”
Lisandro Boyle |
