The sudden death of Marcos Pou Gallo who, after graduating in Physics at the University of Barcelona, had just entered the seminary, has shaken the Church in Barcelona and hundreds of people all over the world.
The report published at the time by Religión en Libertad had an extraordinary impact: Shock in Barcelona at the death of Marcos Pou, a seminarian who radiated love for Jesus Christ
The man who was his “spiritual father” for four precious years, the Madrid priest José Miguel García, of Communion and Liberation, remembers him and bears witness to how «the son has suddenly become a father».
This moving and heartfelt testimony was published in the magazine Huellas, a publication linked to the charism founded by Don Luigi Giussani. Given its interest,Religión en Libertad reproduces it in full:
Marcos’s yes
«On Saturday 21 February, shortly after six in the evening, I received this message from Marcos: «Reading the Exercises, then the baptism of Españita’s son and then a meeting I’ve organised with Miguel on the Acts of the Apostles… I’m thinking of you, my friend. How are you? How great Christ is; I invite you to think about it for a moment». It was the last challenge he set me on this earth. Any occasion was a good one to accompany one another on life’s pilgrimage, with the desire that the presence of Christ should always prevail. Any occasion was a good one to sustain each other in the desire to know and love him more each day. For some years I was a father to him, concerned to help him along the path of faith, in his overwhelming desire to belong entirely to Christ. Today, after his sudden death, Marcos has already reached the goal. He melted into a loving embrace with the One his heart so longed for. Today he sees and experiences in fullness what we desire to know more each day; he already lives with the One who is the love of his soul. The son has suddenly become a father. Today he is the expert in God, for he sees him face to face. The tables have abruptly been turned.
On pilgrimage
»I accompanied Marcos for four precious years, full of many joys and also of sorrows. Human life is a journey towards the good Destiny
that awaits us. Anyone who has taken part in a long pilgrimage, walking on foot, knows well that there are better days than others, but that along the way what prevails is the imposing presence of the Lord through creation and through the friends who walk beside us. What gives meaning to the effort and weariness of the road, to good and bad weather, to tiredness and physical pain, is the desire for the goal. Marcos was dominated by this love for his Destiny. So much so that, in moments of discouragement or weariness, he would get back on his feet by raising his gaze to the One our soul seeks. His limitations, his incapacity, his sin did not define him; what imposed itself on him was the presence of Christ and the desire it awakened in him. What prevailed in him was not his disproportion or inadequacy, but his affection for Christ.
Simplicity and greatness of heart
»He certainly had no few virtues. The ones I admired most were his simplicity in following Christ within the charism of Communion and Liberation and the greatness of his heart, which grew the more he understood himself in relationship, the more he belonged. He had a simple and docile heart. In his following, love for the Truth prevailed, wherever it came from. Every word or suggestion that he perceived as spoken to him by Christ he welcomed with enthusiasm, and it became a proposal for his life. And faced with his limitation or incapacity, what always ended up winning was the greatness of the Presence he recognised before him, the good that was communicated to him.
»He was a son of the Event. And so he became a father to many, for the Lord granted him a great heart, capable of loving many people and in such a way that each one felt preferred. No one was left out: from his classmates to the woman who begged at the entrance of the church where he usually went to Mass, from his friends in the movement, whom he loved with genuine affection, to the beggars he met at the charitable work. That capacity to love did not come from him, but from the One he looked at and who was the reason for his joy. A joy that he shared passionately with everyone.
Gestures of love
»I should like to highlight two circumstances that powerfully educated Marcos’s heart, which were a privileged way of recognising Christ and giving himself to
Him with determination, gestures that he repeated every week. When circumstances prevented him, he felt it painfully. I am referring to the charitable work and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
»Every Friday morning he used to go to the soup kitchen of the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. There, giving himself to those most in need, doing whatever they asked of him, he rejoiced in recognising that in them he was learning to love Christ by caring for his suffering members.
»And in the afternoon, he would go up to Tibidabo to be with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, often making sure his friends came with him. These were concrete actions through which he wanted to grow in his affection for Christ, to give him his life.
The passion of his life
»He said yes to Christ, when he perceived his call, promptly and radically. He gradually opened his heart to welcome him, so that he might prevail in everything he lived. And by following him, his humanity flourished in an extraordinary way. He lived his responsibility in the CLU with true fatherhood. He felt an urgent need to communicate to everyone the immense good that Christ is and how life is fulfilled by adhering to Him. In time, Christ became the dominant passion of his life.
»His continual desire was to belong entirely to Christ. How many times he expressed this desire in his messages and in our conversations! Christ took him at his word and has made him totally and definitively His own. A few minutes before his death he was having this conversation with his friends after his first days in the Seminary: «How has this week gone?». «I’m getting used to it, because the Lord is very jealous». «Jealous? I don’t understand why you use that word». «Yes, yes, it’s as if I were going to marry my girlfriend. Only I’ve ended up with the most jealous of all. The Lord is super-jealous, he’s the most possessive of all». «Possessive?». «Yes, because he asks everything of me, at all hours, in any place, and he wants it immediately».
His happiness will end up winning
»Every day I prayed the rosary for Marcos, asking the Virgin to protect him and to grant him the grace of belonging entirely to Christ, of being a powerful witness to His presence in the world, of being blessed with the heart of a father, of being happy and of being granted the gift of holiness. In these days it has become ever clearer to me that the Virgin has taken my request seriously. Certainly not in the way I had imagined. But I cannot fail to recognise that my plea has been fully granted.
»I have wept and still weep for his loss. I miss him greatly, I long for him. But the certainty of the good he possesses leaves my heart serenely at peace. Julián expresses it well in his message on the occasion of Marcos’s death: «The wrench we feel at his departure cannot prevail over the happiness Marcos enjoys in the company of the friend of his soul, Christ. His happiness will end up overcoming our sorrow, making us understand the law of Christian existence: «Alive or dead, we belong to the Lord». The memory of Christ is the only balm for so deep a wound».
José Miguel García
Message from Julián Carrón on the occasion of Marcos’s death
«Dear friends: “The life and death of each of us has its influence on others; if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that alive or dead we belong to the Lord. This explains why Christ both died and came to life: it was so that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living”. These words of Saint Paul were the first that came to my mind when I received with dismay the news of the death of our dear Marcos. I do not think we could find any more fitting words to describe him. Those of us who had the joy of knowing him saw that he lived for no one other than the Lord. His overflowing joy had its origin in Him. And his death has been nothing other than dying for the Lord. We cannot look at Marcos’s life and death without having before our eyes that «this explains why Christ both died and came to life: it was so that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living”. He who was the Lord of his life is now the Lord of his death. Sharing in the death of Christ, Marcos now shares in his resurrection, in the company of the One who was everything in his life and whom now no one can take from him. In our memory we shall not be able to separate him from Christ, of whose fullness he already lives. The wrench we feel at his departure cannot prevail over the happiness Marcos enjoys in the company of the friend of his soul, Christ. His happiness will end up overcoming our sorrow, making us understand the law of Christian existence: «Alive or dead, we belong to the Lord”. The memory of Christ is the only balm for so deep a wound.
»Let us sustain one another, friends, in this memory».
With a warm embrace,
Julián Carrón
Shock in Barcelona at the death of Marcos Pou, a seminarian who radiated love for Jesus Christ
Machine translation. If you spot a mistake, do write to us.