Nacho Suárez is a member of the Focolare movement in Seville. His experience is one of those that doesn't seem real… until one day it happens; as he recounts: «I often passed through the arcades of the Arenal Market in Seville; also that Friday in September…

At the parish, I had been asked to bring communion to the sick. I carried the Blessed Sacrament in my jacket pocket and felt enveloped in profound emotions and sensations. My inner bliss was shattered just as I stood beneath the porticoes of the Arenal: words I didn't understand, a strong smell of alcohol, and a grimy hand on my arm. I ignored it, didn't even turn to see who it was, determined to continue on my way. However, two or three steps further on, I felt the Blessed Sacrament speaking to me from the depths of my being: "That is also Me.".

I turned around and went to the man, apologized for not listening to him, and, after receiving his forgiveness, I hugged him. I don't know how, but the man in front of me was no longer that drunk, dirty, and smelly man; it was Jesus!
And immersed in the love I was experiencing, I said "yes" to Jesus in my heart. I no longer knew whether to consider myself fortunate for carrying the Eucharist with me or for having embraced that face of Jesus.

Just as I went to Mass every day to find Jesus or visited Him in the Blessed Sacrament of the church, I also began to go every day to find Him among and in those people who lived day and night under the porticoes of the Arenal. There were people who considered that place hell, but I thought: God, who is Love, descended into the hell of my existence; and there, in that “hell,” I found my Heaven, my Paradise, because Jesus was there.

I never went there intending to bring them anything, as they never asked for anything. I simply called them by name, sat on the floor with them… When Christmas Eve arrived, for example, a young man and I went to celebrate it there with them. Since then, we've celebrated Christmas Eve dinner like this every year, and now there are almost as many of us as there are!

Almost eight years have passed and many things have happened…

Over time, the parish Caritas offered me the financial means to be able to bring them hot breakfasts; and we have reached up to 620 breakfasts a month.

As the days, months, and years went by, I began to find the same reality in other streets and squares around me. What started as something personal is now also shared by many others: we have the Focolare community of Seville and Córdoba, some parish Caritas groups, and other people.

In Seville, the “Chiara Luce Project” was born as a home for young immigrants. These days, a project we have called “GRACIAS” (THANK YOU) has begun in Córdoba, where the local Focolare community, with the help of others, has welcomed Ibrahim and Patrick from Cameroon. This began with an apartment that could accommodate up to four people in vulnerable situations. Having been welcomed, supported, and cared for by a community, they have “risen up” and are now working towards social and professional integration.

Thanks to material and spiritual support, as well as prayers, we have been able to meet basic needs by providing clothing, shoes, train and bus tickets… even plane tickets, allowing them to return to places where, perhaps, someone was waiting for them. We have also assisted others in obtaining legal status or finding work and housing, as was the case with a young family from Peru.

Yes, sometimes I feel afraid…

But when I encounter Jesus in them, the fear disappears. Jesus said in the Gospel, “I am the way […]” (John 14:6); I would say that it is that path that frightens me. But He is not only the Way, He has become a fellow traveler, He walks with me, we walk together; and it is there that there is no longer room for fear. In this journeying of His Way with Him, we do not go alone. We experience that we are not walking behind Jesus, but with Jesus.

I don't have a project, I have a story

A love story! A story that began on a Friday in September 2018 and continues to this day. If there's a project, it belongs to God. All I know is that they, being poor and vulnerable, have enriched and strengthened those of us who have gone to keep them company.
I have… if there is one thing I am clear about, it is this: To be a tangible sacrament of God's love for each and every one, being in turn aware that Jesus, as in Cana of Galilee, only asks me – asks us – to fill the jars with water; the miracle of transforming water into wine is done by Him.

Nacho Suárez