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In the Gospel of John 14:1–12, Jesus says to his disciples:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in Me. In My Father’s house there are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me, so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

The Gospel for this special day (Luke 21:5-11) speaks of the destruction of the temple, such an imposing and sacred symbol for the people of Israel, “Days are coming when not one stone will be left on another, that will not be thrown down” and of the need to be vigilant, prepared for the moment when everything we have is left behind, because “you do not know the day nor the hour”, Jesus says.

My father was a testimony that life is not only made up of what we see, but also of what we dream. And it is in those dreams where we find the deepest connections with those we love, even when they are no longer, physically, with us.

Life, in its most elemental form, rises as a sublime gift, a jewel whose brilliance we truly appreciate only when its light threatens to fade.

Life in its infinite wisdom, becomes our most selfless and, at times, most relentless mentor. Its guides us along winding paths, sowing challenges that test the crucible of our perceptions and transform us in every step we make.

There is a beautiful letter, attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo that says when referring to death:

“If you love me, do not weep. ¡If you only knew the gift of God and what Heaven is! ¡If only you could hear the Angels’ song from where you are, and see me among them! ¡If you could only see before your eyes the eternal fields with their horizons, and the new paths in which I walk! ¡If only you could contemplate for one moment the beauty that I see, beauty before which all others fail and fade!

“Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Give me the name you have always given me. I’m not far away, just on the other side of the road… You will see me again… transfigured and happy”.

With this reflection in the form of a prayer full of faith and hope, we remember Pedro Martínez Cutillas, who would have turned 91 years old on April 8, 2022, an event that has come to prolong the affection and admiration that all of us who knew him felt for him.

Pedro Martinez Cutillas was born with a love for Panama, long before landing on its shores. He arrived from Barcelona, Spain, one day of Easter week, in 1977, convinced that there were aspects of the colonial history of the Isthmus that were yet to be written, that there was a rich history to be divulged, and that was, at the same time a challenge, a debt that he assumed.