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PEDRO MARTÍNEZ CUTILLAS

Yesterday, November 26th, I sat in church, as I do every year, on the anniversary of the death of our always beloved and fondly remembered Pedro.

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.

In a world saturated by the need to belong, to leave an indelible mark and to cling to what we believe we possess, the passage presented to us contains a profound lesson in humility and resignation of the inevitable. It is a reminder of human fragility, not only of our bodies, but also of our ideas, our possessions and ultimately, of our passage through this world. There is something extraordinary in this exercise of self-denial, something that resonates with the need to reconcile ourselves with the transience of life, with the fleeting nature of everything we know and hoard. It leads us by the hand towards a process of stripping away, not of material possessions, but of the illusions that bind us to them.

We are finite beings who seek, in their fleetingness, to give meaning and form to what we are. Everything we consider “ours” – be it material objects, relationships, or even our own achievements – does not truly belong to us. We are part of a continuous flow that continues its course, even when we are no longer present.

The first great introspection that emerges is the mystery of time. We live in the shadow of temporality, as if we could, by some artifice of our will, dominate it. But, as the Gospel points out to us, time is an enigma that escapes our understanding. There is nothing more certain than the fact that what seems eternal today becomes dust tomorrow, forgotten. Thus, time is the first great lesson in humility, nothing remains. Neither our certainties nor our questions. And yet, we live as if we were in control, as if the clock that inexorably moves forward could be stopped, interrupted by our own desire to cling to what we know. Time is our teacher, but we ignore it.

Then, the Word of God invites us to face something even more painful, the finitude of our body, our own death. “You do not know the day or the hour,” says Jesus and in doing so, he reminds us that human life is a unique, unrepeatable fragment between two points we cannot alter. To live is to dwell on the boundary between beginning and end, between what is possible and what is final. Understanding that our existence is transitory urges us to live each moment with greater awareness and authenticity, as a conscious act, as a practice of reconciliation with that which we cannot avoid.

Human relationships, so crucial in our lives, are also ephemeral. Parents will not always be with us; children, as free beings, will chart their own horizon. We do not own the people we love and although the connections are deep, they are still marked by the freedom that each human being possesses the ability to choose their own destiny. Recognizing that others, though close, are not subject to our will, they are masters of their own reality, is a lesson in freedom and detachment. Life is a succession of moments that intertwine and although we can share them, everyone has the right to live according to their own decisions, without attachments. Here, too, we find the meaning of free and mature love: love that does not limit, that does not demand, but that respects the freedom of the other.

“Days will come when not one stone will be left upon another that will not be destroyed.” The idea that everything we preserve has been “entrusted to us on loan” completely redefines our relationship with things. To accept that our possessions, our objects, are merely temporary expressions of our pilgrimage is another step toward freedom. We live in the illusion of having power over that which merely passes beside us. Thus, the belief that we own anything is only a fleeting comfort, a way of confronting the certainty that everything, without exception, is lost and our obsession with maintaining control over what we cannot govern. Death will take away all that we have so tightly bound to our being. And in that same sense, the goods we accumulate, the material belongings we so highly value, are as ephemeral as our own existence, destined to lose their connection to our identity and to merge into a cycle of possession beyond our control. What was once a fragment of our story will become foreign and what today shines with the value of memory will fade into the distance of others, leaving no reflection of our passage.

Ultimately, everything is mortal, everything is marked by extinction. Conceiving that the beings and things to which we cling also have their own life cycle is a way of preparing ourselves for the inevitable farewell. Attachment only makes the departure more painful because we believe we have the power to preserve what does not belong to us. Perceiving the fragility of everything we love liberates us, teaches us to live with the awareness that nothing lasts forever.

Admitting our vulnerability, our mortality and the transience of everything around us is not an act of despair, but an act of liberation. By accepting what we cannot change, we can live more fully, with greater freedom. We can offer others what we have, knowing that nothing belongs to us and that everything is a loan. In this sense, the greatness of life lies in the wisdom of living in acceptance, without fear of what we cannot foresee, in the ability to live fully, to be aware of our finitude and from it, to give others the best of ourselves. This is the message that calls us to understand and to live, not in search of what is eternal, but in the certainty that each moment, however brief, is enough.

And it is in this context, where everything is revealed to us as transient, that I think of Pedro, who now dwells in the deepest threshold of my soul, immutable and eternal. Not in the memory of his face, nor in the moments we once shared, but in the living imprint he left within me, in his presence that, freed from time, endures where death can no longer reach it. In this space, surrounded by memories, I feel how his memory, unalterable through time, grows within me with greater strength than ever. He is no longer present in the form in which I knew him, not in his laughter, his voice, or his gestures. He is not in what he was, but in what, through his life, continues to be. Today, Pedro lives in the reflection of his legacy, which did not die with him.

For not every shadow is a sign of absence, but sometimes the hidden presence of a light that continues to shine beside us. His farewell, far from being an end, is but a brief parenthesis, a gentle passage toward another plane, that infinite space that welcomes the soul, where, in its ongoing process of evolution, it patiently awaits reunion.

His life reminds us that love does not depend on physical permanence, but on its capacity to transcend. It is in that recognition that we see existence does not cease at the moment when we can no longer perceive it in the same way.

Thus, a deep peace is born, the fruit of celebrating what is fleeting with gratitude, of living with greater serenity, with greater love and with the freedom that comes from knowing that, in the end, all that we are, all that we love, is but a step along a path that does not end here.

Francisco Massó Mora.

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