Br. Basilio was our brother
This year we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the death of Brother Basilio Rueda. This man, who knew how to win the heart of everyone, deserves to be known by the greatest number of people who will find in him a reference for their life on their way towards the Lord. The start of his process of beatification opens a window on his exemplary life for those who observe it with affection and who admire him. ?He was our brother? is a booklet about his life as he lived it in our houses, making him our companion. This booklet also hopes to present to those who did not know him the most important things in his life.
The Postulator General at the General House has published this new document which gathers the most important characteristics of Brother Basilio?s life. The text is the work of Brother JosĂ© Flores GarcĂa who has already presented it in other formats. The presentation in a 10 cm by 24 cm format, 24 pages in all, was published in Rome.
The life of Brother Basilio Rueda Guzman was a song of praise to the Lord, a hymn to the work of his hands. His union with God broke the moulds of overflowing activism that invades us to put us at the service of others despite the reining egoism. His spiritual life was a journey of progressive self delivery into the hands of God and his brothers, during difficult times after the Council, concerning the renewal of the Church and religious life.
One day Basilio realised that he could be a Marist Brother and he decided to do all he could to become one, despite the difficulties in gaining his father?s authorisation, which cost him long hours of prayer, of fasting and of tears imploring the Virgin Mary to whom he vowed a singular devotion since his childhood.
He attained his objective and his life took on the face of holiness, as Saint Marcellin Champagnat used to say: ?To become a brother is to commit yourself to being a saint.? Basilio took this maxim very seriously and devoted his whole life to making it a reality.
He had the grace from the early years of his religious life of having an excellent spiritual director in the person of one of the chaplains of the house of formation at Querétaro, where he had started his professional formation.