Eduardo Bonnín

Radical joy, iron will, institutional loyalty to the Catholic Church, and constancy unavailable to discouragement are the characteristics of this singular man, Eduardo Bonnín. A sociologically rare being, who made us conceive, with his particular way of being, typical of people who see, the possibility of connecting us to the light of the Gospel to illuminate every circumstance of Life, to confront the personal history of each one of us avoiding that our soul is imprisoned by it and to trust in a superior reality that protects us and waits for us, that accompanies us, that is accompanying presence and from whose conscience is through which we can experience true freedom.

Eduardo, a person of a single idea which was to introduce into the normality of life the consciousness of the victory of the Lord, a victory over the limits conceivable for humanity. A life of possibilities for each person, exclusively for his or her own good.

A personal and particular Good, without any submission to the group, to the movement, nor to any institution. A Good to which each person, from his freedom, will assist to celebrate it and to maintain it.

A victory called Resurrection, its greatest strength with respect to death, making it possible for this universal conception to walk with the feet of the everyday, conceiving Christianity as the culmination of the possible, by the invitation it brings to the possibility of the best version that each one can achieve with his life.

All this, from the most absolute normality, without absurd extravagances, without proselytizing prominence, without dilution of the singularity, originality and creativity of each one, who leads himself to this open reality and who put in the origin of each person the experience of a Cursillo of Christianity. A Cursillo for what? To initiate oneself together with others who can become friends in a spiritual dynamic of accepting oneself as one is, understanding that one can be better and being able to make this journey in company.

Knowing that we are loved by the Lord is the greatest source of mental energy to face and confront life, because it connects us to an intelligent Universe to which we belong and that has preferred us to live, it gives us enough self-esteem to face and confront Life, from wherever we are and whatever the circumstances that await us and that lie in wait for us. It opens us to savor the goods and je gives us the gift of Life, it enables us to participate in the awareness that everything is relative, except for Love, except for the certain decision to bet on Love at every moment in every corner of life illuminated by the light of the Gospel.

It is not the achievement of a perfect catechism but the infallible intention of being good, faithful to the Gospel, attentive to people and open to new realities.

Eduardo’s idea is not to conquer the environment in the sense that there are others who pass through my knowledge because of the previous experience of a cursillo, but to know the people to know exactly what we can give them from us and not to let ourselves be carried away by the current.

This mentality of pure fire, of Love, of pure flame lit in our hearts, makes us beacons for the development of the consciousness of others. But for what we live as a coherent testimony, not as a cathedra of previous knowledge exercised on others, pretentious of an absurd merit.

This is what Eduardo Bonnín taught me. Like so many others who wanted to listen to him. We came to express it together. The person of Christ is the inspiring axis of true freedom of conscience, the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles an attitude towards life and true friendship the noble and truly possible way of the synodal step.

(Synod = walking together)

Let us place this reality in a dynamic of interpersonal encounter in the three times of the Cursillo, its genuine work. Eduardo struggled to maintain this original intention for which the Cursillo Movement was born, more than to highlight his personal protagonism which he denied, affirming that they are the work of the Lord, making himself small before the immensity of which he makes us participate, vulnerable even to the extermination of his footprint, saying of himself that he was always an apprentice Christian, in tune with the fragility of the birth that changed the world. It is right that other men remember him, so that something of what we have had the good fortune to know can reach them. Friend Eduardo, Christian Bonnín, may the friendship of an apprentice swell our souls with full meaning.

 

Jesus Valls. December 2024