Читать книгу From Darkness Into the Light - Marino Restrepo - Страница 4

It is quite satisfying for me to write a prologue to this testimony, which has been written as a sincere and audacious confession, full of humility and love for the truth. These traits are evident very negatively in the first part of the book and quite positively in the second part. It is a resurrection that would not have happened without dying first.

Three references can lead the reader to meditate about the Love of God that keeps human hearts alive today. The references — taken from the apostle Peter, St. Augustine and St. John of the Cross — are twenty, sixteen and five centuries removed from us.

Saint Paul says:

“...as all have sinned and have the need of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith, to manifest his justice, God in his patience remitting former sins; to manifest his justice at the present time, so that he himself is just, and makes just him who has faith in Jesus”.

1 Romans 3: 23-26

Saint Augustine says:

“You would have died for eternity, unless he had been born in time. You would never be set free from the stain of sin, unless he had taken to himself the likeness of the flesh of sin. You would have been in the grip of everlasting misery, had it not been for the occurrence of this great mercy. You would not have come back to life, unless he had adjusted himself to your death. You would have faded away, if he had not come to the rescue. You would have perished, if he had not come. Let us celebrate with joy that our salvation and redemption have come”.

Sermons of St. Augustine, Bishop

Sermon 185 PL 38

Saint John of the Cross says:

“Truly, this soul is lost to everything else but love, its life being dedicated to nothing but love. Therefore, active life and other external actions weaken on account of that ‘one single thing’ that her Beloved deemed ‘necessary’: the presence and continuous practice of God’s love”.

St. John of the Cross.

The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 8.

Translation of commentaries nn 1-3,

pp. 934-935, Edic. BAC, 1960

At the age of 47, God’s light entered into Marino’s brilliant artistic career and showed him his own darkness and that of other human beings who had violently deprived him of his physical freedom.

Paradoxically, that loss turned into true spiritual freedom due to the merciful gift Marino received from Jesus Christ. The radical change that the Lord caused in him gave him understanding of his own life and turned it into a joyful apostolic mission.

Marino’s actions have been notably supported by divine inspiration ever since. The warmth, advice and spirit of the Church have provided him with great security and doctrinal vision. In all his lectures, he is always ready to give advice to enthusiastic priests, willing to sacrifice himself to do God’s will in his own life and that of others who, moved by his testimony, have joined the regeneration movement of thousands of people in different countries.

I am grateful to Marino for his friendship and his brave example.

Rafael Vall-Serra, S.J.

Director of ECOM

(Spanish acronym for ‘Gospel Communicated’)

Bogotá, April 2003