Feb 8 Sun
How can I be like a torch giving light to all around me?
- Having apostolic zeal.
“Its symptoms are: hunger to know the Master; constant concern for souls; perseverance that nothing can shake."
José de la Pisa was 53 years old and had served as lieutenant colonel of Spanish Marines in Lebanon, the Indian Ocean, and the Royal Guard.
He went from the special forces to priest of Opus Dei: “I wanted what is most difficult, where I could help more. In the difficulties and hardships of life, you learn to give to others without reservation, to share and to need nothing but help others."
"It's been 25 years of military work in the Marine Corps. The toughest thing in the Navy. A quarter of a century in areas of conflict, warring territories and peace missions (from Lebanon to the Indian Ocean) from which he learned some teachings that, he said, will serve him on his new priestly path."
"You learn to give yourself to others. Military life has allowed me to be in contact with many people who suffer, with people completely uprooted, with refugees, with human beings who have lost everything or who live immersed in hatred. Knowing these realities firsthand allows you to see the people behind them, to realize that everyone, in the end, wants the same, and that we all suffer."
"In the difficulties and hardships of life, you learn to give yourself to others unreservedly, to share, and to need nothing but to serve others."
"We were deployed in southern Lebanon. It was especially hard to see the kids approach the moving vehicle to ask for water and some food. It was even harder to have to give the order not to do so because if not, we risked that one of those kids could end up under the wheels of our moving vehicles."
Still as a numerary of Opus Dei, de la Pisa was stationed in the Indian Ocean under the command of a special operations team. "We were able to stop a big group of pirates, with a history of murders and excesses that would horrify anyone. When you questioned them, you realized that, just as they had chosen to go out to sea and face the real dangers of drowning, many others in their villages had chosen to seek honest ways of living. In a world where they have nothing, it is very interesting to wonder why some opt for good and others don't," he explains.
"I was lucky enough to study for a year in the United States, at US Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. There, I coincided with 200 other U.S. military personnel and 25 other foreigners. Then we started a social group that looked like a joke: a Spaniard, a Taiwanese, a Tanzanian, an Afghan, and a Malaysian. We were forging a good friendship, and questions always came up… about the Blessed Trinity, or the role of Our Lady... and so many questions and very varied, which they then tried to understand. Their friendship greatly enriched me.