Eduardo Fuentes: “Clinging to Him with confidence turns deserts into oases.”

Following a fall on horseback in 2014, “a provident Friday of Sorrows”.”, Eduardo Fuentes Alonso, a lawyer from Jaén, Spain, married to Guadalupe, “.“an angel”and with “two wonderful children, Eduardo and Ángela”He became a quadriplegic after twenty years as a lawyer in the private and public administration sectors.

After a year, his main and chronic problems remained “Reduced Mobility due to Spasticity - that straitjacket that sews itself to your skin, torments you and defies your limits - and neuropathic pain.”. And as “divine grace”to have as a new friend the “little company of my light blue and silver cane".

   Then, after thousands of hours of suffering and pain, “He looked for me”to the point of being able to say that “breathing without Him was just loneliness, but breathing with Him became prayer". "When God went from my head to my heart, it was at Emmaus.”he assures.

Eduardo, you state that your life trajectory is divided into a “before” and an “after”, after the 2014 accident.

-Indeed, after eight and a half years of struggle, a providential book (Take a Breath, by Mario Alonso Puig), introduced me to the practice of breathing, eradicating suffering, but not pain. The book was sent to me, without telling me, by my friend Agustín.

The book on breathing took away my suffering, but what gave me back the desire for everything was the Lord. I kept remembering what St. Teresa said about prayer, “I was so happy.“It is a plan that the Lord has been tracing for me, it is not mine. He told me: wait, first I am going to clean you up.".

How did you make that leap to Him? I don't know if you were a practicing Catholic before.....

-I have always believed, I have always practiced faith in an “inherited” way. But for me the important leap, when God passed from my head to my heart, was at Emmaus. First of all, when I walked the road, I was moved when I saw that beautiful picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with the wounds on his hands, and then serving.

In Emmaus you walk only once, but you serve - you help - as many times as you want. I have served many times already, and also being a servant I began to have much more presence of what Jesus Eucharist is, with a living God. The Lord used Emmaus to meet me and that is where my friendship with Him began. I can explain myself better with a biblical phrase: “....“before I knew you only by hearsay, but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5).

A book has just been published Emmaus Retreats. You have made the V Emmaus retreat for men in Cordoba, in the parish of Bethlehem. Tell me a sentence about this retreat.

-Only one thing: trust, open and rest your heart in stillness and silence and sit, in patient abandonment, to “listen” to Him, before Him.

In the book Elica, your friend Elías Cabrera points out that “.“there are people who come into your life all of a sudden and order everything”.”. And he adds that you are an example of effort because you have not allowed pain to make you bitter.

–Look, if I look back, the effort has always been there, but in different ways. At the beginning it was that voluntary effort, full of illusion, like when I would take on challenges in nature, hiking in Cazorla or Segura, or in sports like basketball or horseback riding. Then came the necessary effort, as in my profession as a lawyer. And now, the vital-transcendent, after the accident that left me quadriplegic.

For me, effort is not giving up, not being toxic to oneself or to others. It has led me to be who I am, simply, a happy person who seeks to make others happy. Blessed be the effort that brought me my current “being”.

Who taught you to make an effort and what references have you had?

-At the beginning, the illusion was my teacher, without great figures as a reference. My family is and was key in my rehabilitation. Guadalupe as an angel, my children as a reason not to give up.

Today I lean on Blessed Lolo -Manuel Garrido Lozano- from Linares (Jaén), who lived in great pain and physically limited, but with overflowing joy; my -already in heaven- friend Rafa Benavides, whose suffering spread love and legacy; and Dr. Mario Alonso Puig, whose “spark” in his book helped me to eradicate, not the pain, but the suffering, in a little more than three months.

Let us return to the experience of God.

–With Him pain and suffering took on meaning and purpose in my life. His “grace”led me to become a “soul of prayer".", For, already trusting in Him, He put on my path some beautiful words: “....“Prayer made in faith saves the sick”. And since then, my perseverance and fidelity to prayer is another firm resolution that I fulfill daily. Prayer -“The language of God's love”- was my root of salvation and sustains me.

Today I know that I don't have to worry about anything, just accept His “invitation” and give Him an unconditional and unreserved yes every day, and He takes care of everything. I simply abandon myself to Him and say to Him: “Jesus, You pilot!”

How far does the certainty of your faith go?

–I have the guarantee - experienced certainty - that where my strength ends, He puts His own. I know that the gift he gives me - the instantaneous joy of living under the Holy Spirit - is undeserved and, for this reason, I am infinitely grateful to him.

I have understood that we must not be afraid of the cross.... The cross heals! -It always gives more than it takes away..., and it is the world that takes us up to the Cross and Jesus who takes us down! If I abandon prayer, He is not lost, I am lost. Clinging to Him with abandonment and infinite trust turns any desert into a continuous and precious Oasis. He is my daily guide.

How do you feel as you reflect on your life?

–I feel amazement and gratitude for this life, “undeserved gift”. Gratitude to my friend Elias for including me in his book (Elica), but above all to Him, for pulling our strings - He pulls our strings better than anyone else, makes us brave and takes away our fears, which are never born of the Lord - for choosing me - an undeserved gift - for His Team. 

I would like that someday there would be in any hospital in Spain an area of “Respiroterapia” - I like to call it that way - where they worry, even before prescribing any medical treatment, including pain relief, to suppress the “suffering” of the patient, to simply “take care of his soul”. My next dream: to go up to Medjugorje with my family, training, despite the limitations that will make me need my neighbor, for love of Mary.

Two words on the prayer of abandonment, by St. Charles de Foucauld.

-A person very dear to me showed it to me, and I have been praying it every day for almost three years now. It is the following: “My Father, I abandon myself to you, do with me whatever you want, whatever you do with me I thank you, I am ready for everything, I accept everything, as long as your will is done in me and in all your creatures, I desire nothing more my God, I put my life in your hands, I give it to you, my God, with all the love of my heart because I love you, and because for me to love you is to give myself, to give myself into your hands without measure, with infinite trust, because you are my father!”.