A Spiritual Life Develops

My spiritual life with God began at home with the examples and teachings received from my parents and relatives. I gladly mention here some special events and people who have influenced my spiritual life in a significant way.

When I was fifteen years old, my cousin Gerald got me a copy of "The Story of a Soul," the autobiography of St. Theresa of Lisieux. This early edition also contained letters, recollections, poems and religious hymns. This reading awakened in my adolescent heart a thirst for God hitherto unknown. The discovery of St. Theresa has influenced my spiritual life to this day. I learned to seek union with God in very simple ways, seeking to please Him in all things, especially in performing the ordinary duties of one's life. Holy abandonment to His will became a centerpiece of my spiritual life. This attitude, I realized, gives joy and peace to the soul.

Later, at college, Gerald who had a rare spiritual maturity for a young man, introduced me little by little to the secrets of a life of intimacy with God. From his early years at college, he would read the lives of saints in his free time. This was so well known that when someone was looking for him, his confreres would say: "Go to the library. You will probably find him there reading the life of a saint." As the old Latin saying goes: "Verba Volant, sed exempla trahunt" - words flee, but examples move us forward to action.

Gerald's godly spirit was revealed to me in many ways. Every evening after supper, he and a few students made a short visit to the chapel to greet our Lord. We then proceeded to go around the fourteen Stations of the Cross, making only a brief prayer at each station. That is how I developed a special devotion to Jesus in the mystery of His passion and death. I could hear the words of St. Paul, the great lover of Christ: "Dilexit me et tradidit semetipsum pro me - He loved me and gave Himself up for me!" (Galatians 2:20)

Thanks to the influence of Gerald and the friendship that united us, the Lord prepared me for my vocation to the religious life and the priesthood.