| Date | 28th of July 2008 | Type | Internet Blog |
| Testimonio Grupo de Jóvenes San Pedro Apóstol - Buñol (Valencia) | |||
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This morning I have had a lot of free time thanks to God and I was reading the article that I found yesterday in the newspaper “El Mundo”. It is about the death of a young girl named Marta. The article calls her servant of God which, by the way, is an impressing title, and correctly states that the process of her beatification and study of her life has begun. This web page appeared http://www.causademarta.net among other things, and moved by curiosity I am reading it. First I just scanned threw it but now I am devouring it, ( like you notice by the length of this article). It is very interesting and I recommend it. I like contemplating how in a normal and everyday life which came to tragic end, we can find the greatness of the love of God and the struggle, the tension, but not anxiety of someone who seeks and finds, fulfilling the petition that many of us make in the mass: “And now Lord, remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice … …and those who seek you with a sincere heart”.
How many normal yet extraordinary things appear in the life of this simple young person. I would like to highlight a few of them. Marta grew up within a Christian family. But turbulent times arrived for her and she lost the first childlike relationship with God which she had known and learnt at home. (My God! How many lives can be seen in the life of Marta.) She also had her “bad moments”. The youth is a divine treasure, but when it is treated if not always with a bad intention nearly always with ignorance it slowly looses its valor… and what’s more it motivates conflict and hate. (How is it that this word doesn’t realize that what has rightly been called sin, is not just something which is bad and forbidden, but it is that which makes us slaves, dehumanizes us and takes our life little by little or all at once?
Separated from God we are good for nothing, we are nothing, (what an enormous truth). Marta had a personal encounter with God in silence, in the company of many young people, in the mountains of the beautiful place of prayer: Taize. I have heard them say that the place is very similar to a spring that you find by the wayside: you stop, you drink, and you continue… this is how Marta lived it. She had said to her mother: “don´t worry so much, let me stumble, I´ll soon get up…”. However, its clear that God was interested in this joyful young girl and a short time afterwards she wrote the following lines to a friend: “I find myself in Taizé, on the French-Swiss border, in a sort of marvelous “summer camp” with about 6,000 people. They are people full of the joy of life who are united by Our God. We have come to spend a week here, from Sunday to Sunday… It is curious that when you discover something important in your life and you become aware of things that are fundamental, which until then had passed unnoticed by your side, you basically feel good, at peace and…well anyway I think you know what I mean. Every human being who plants the question about the meaning of life or simualr questions passes through the phase that I am talking about. I know that you are still on the road the same as I and the same as an immense majority of people, and as well as that I believe in you. So then if you only think and analyze things carefully you will discover marvelous things that you did not even know existed. Life is just great Cris, and I am writing to you because I know that you feel the same way. After the storm always comes the calm.”
Another thing that I want to point out is how the Church and God make use of so many good people, anonymous, but also servants of God. Marta got to know God in her home and she would grow in that knowledge in an Opus Dei centre. God never abandoned her (although she had said that she didn’t want anything to do with Him), through: Friends, student residences, Priests and the Neocatecumenal way. My God, how great and beautiful is our mother the Church! Thank you Lord for this invention of your mercy!
I don’t want to finish without telling you what helped me the most by reading all this. What truly changed Marta was her experience of the mercy of God. That day, which was written in the book of life and which only God in his infinite love for His children knew of, in a car on an evening like every other evening, - amazing simplicity and greatness of everything that took place-, she started to tell a priest who was just passing by, her fears, her cross, her suffering, her sins. How beautiful is that story which so many of us have lived. From such a Divine-human meeting she came out running, full of happiness and shouting that it was true that God loved her and had never forgotten her. I think that this is the most important part of the story, that’s why I am going to finish here. I hope that it may be as useful to you all as it was for me.
I have taken quite a liking for this Marta, by the way, tomorrow is her saints feast day. Maybe one day the Church will see it fit that this “child” shines amidst the people of God for the life of the world, which continues to be spoilt by the beauty and goodness of God although it is full of poor and week people.
For more information:
http://www.causademarta.net y http://grupodejovenes.blogcindario.com/
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