A Comboni missionary and his father

Fr. Fernando González,
Comboni missionary,
in South Sudan.

Dear brothers and sisters:
I thank you all for your prayers for my father and my family in this sad moment. I deeply believe that the Comboni Missionaries are my second family. I felt you so near me during these difficult days for me and my first family.

Some of you might wonder why I was not near my father at the moment when he left this world to go to the house of God, our Father, to meet Jesus face to face, whom he loved and followed with all his heart.

The answer is simple for my father and for me. I am in the place my father wanted me to be at this moment: in the mission and following the call Jesus made me to be a Comboni Missionary. He would have never accepted that I leave the mission for him. Both my father and my mother taught me to know, love and follow Jesus every day more and made of this priority the only reason of my life. The rest of my family also thinks in this way.

Two moments of my life made my father very happy: the day I was ordained priest and the day I left for the mission. My happiness was also his happiness. When I was going for holydays, coming from the mission, he was going with me to the different places I was going to share my missionary experience. He was sharing his experience as a missionary father and father of a missionary.

I thank him because he always respected and supported our personal decisions of life. He has been always for me and he will continue to be, from heaven, a strong spiritual support. I always felt his spiritual presence near me, even though we were in two different continents.

A few days ago I wrote to him: “How are you? I hope you are doing your best to recover your health and to move forward trusting in God. You have been always for me a strong support with your prayers. Your prayer make strong in the mission. I am also sure that your prayers, together with the prayers of many other people, have helped us to have peace in South Sudan. Please, continue striving for life because even though physically you are far away, spiritually you are always with me”. I am sure that he is always with me. He has never left me.

Don Toño, as we all knew him, physically has left this world, but now he rejoices in eternal life, because for those who believe in Jesus life never ends; it always transforms itself. He has passed from this earthly life to eternal life. He now shares in the Kingdom of God!

I do not tell you to rejoice with me because God called him and he went ahead us in the journey we, all, will do one day. But I ask you to rejoice with him because now he shares in the banquet of the Kingdom of God. This was his dream always, now it is a reality he enjoys with God and the holy people of God. Now he is full of joy in the feast God prepares for his chosen ones.

He lives forever with God. His happiness is my happiness, our happiness. And even though his departure makes me suffer, I believe that he has received the reward for his faithfulness to Jesus and he lives in the house of God our Father.

Don Toño! God willing, one day we will meet again in the house of God, our Father. Please, prepare a place for us. But for the time being, intercede for us in front of God: your sons and daughters, grandchildren, great grandchildren… for all the family.

We will suffer because you will not be physically present among us anymore, but we know that you will be with us always in spirit. And just, as our mother: Maria, lives always in our hearts you will also be in our hearts. Your blessings will always accompany us. Your heritage, together with the one of our mother, will continue giving us light and orientation to our lives. Thanks a lot for all your goodness to us, your family, and to many other persons who have benefited from your goodness. I am sure you will continue walking with me on the roads of the mission and be a missionary with me always.
Fr. Fernando GatKuoth