ARGENTINA, Marta and Roberto Liñares. On December 20th, the fifth anniversary of his going Home to the Father, Holy Mass was celebrated in memory of Father Horacio Sosa Carbó. The Holy Mass took place at 8:00 P.M. in the “Tabor of Mary, Heart of the City” Shrine in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Father Guillermo Carmona, his course brother, presided at the Holy Mass.
Previously, among those who began to gather, especially floating in the air was an atmosphere of remembrance and gratitude. Anecdotes and experiences were shared (from his advisory position in the Schoenstatt Family Institute to a casual talk) where Father Horacio seemed to spiritually meet with each person and gave of his simple and rich life in the encounter. Many persons recalled the strength of his words, and his unconditional surrender which motivated commitment, joy and action.
Nevertheless, when Fr. Guillermo spoke of him to those present, his memory became a moment of communion with him. His testimony, given in the homily and as a result of their experiences in both studies and life, was congruent with the heartfelt remembrance that everyone treasured.
Thus appeared profiles of Father Horacio that caressed the soul, especially in the present time of Advent.
The gift that signifies the life of Father Horacio Sosa
We transcribe here – because it is a faithful reflection of the communitarian sentiment which Father Horacio inspired – some of the words of Father Carmona: “Dear Brothers and Sisters: five years ago, our Father God touched the inner boundary of our brother and took him to the fullness of his being. It is a gift to die in Advent and to awaken at Christmas forever.
The more time passes, some realities and messages which the person who left leaves us become greater, and perhaps it happens to you as it happens to me and my course that when we look in the perspective of time at one of our course brothers who was the first to go Home to the Father – that was Father Esteban and then Father Horacio – we discover more that each person is a gift from God. Especially that he is a living message from God for all men, for us, for each one.
Without a doubt, it is difficult to describe that gift which signified the life and which continues to signify the life of Father Horacio. For many of you, contact with him was to seriously discover the light, the truth. He was very much like Father Kentenich in the sense of being passionate for the truth…”
Intellectually brilliant – with the heart afire
“…Another of his very typical traits was that as time passed, being a person with great intellectual clarity, he was nevertheless a man with an enormous capacity to love, with a really very tender heart for others… a profound experience of love. It is not always easy to find people who – on the one hand are intellectually very capable and at the same time have their heart afire– … something also very typical of our Father and Founder…that clarity of mind on the one hand, but at the same time that very paternal heart, so overcome, so transversely overcome by love.
Horacio was a fanatic for freedom and also for conscience…a person who fought a great deal for freedom and who gave much freedom to the people. He would become angry when his freedom was restricted.
Horacio was a man in love with God as Father. I believe that is one of the more typical elements. I remember we were at Zion and one of the Schoenstatt Fathers, Father Agustín Alvarez, a great composer who sang beautifully, one day sang: “My Father Love” and Horacio made him sing “My Father Love” five times consecutively, and we were all already tired of “My Father Love,” but it expressed deeply what he carried in his soul: God as Father, God as Love. My Father Love. That Father of mercy and also perhaps that Father far from all love.”
Father Guillermo not only manifested the principal traits of his course brother, but he also took time to speak about his brother’s relationship with the Blessed Mother. He said: “I believe he was a great devotee of Mary the Queen, the Virgin. He would always say that the most beautiful image he had of Mary was that of Virgin Victress, the Victress Mother, crowned forever. That image of the Virgin Victress, the Virgin who conquers and who at the same time is crowned, that was like “his” image of the Blessed Mother, his image of Mary.”
He spoke of the past, but he likewise stressed the message of Father Horacio in the present: A message of freedom and valuation of the human conscience in the faith.
To love You ardently until death
And as a final flourish, the concluding words of his homily, emotionally revealed the interior face of Father Horacio: “Thus it seems beautiful to me that today we are celebrating this brother who already in Heaven no longer needs to be celebrated, but so that he can leave us his message, and we can add it to our list of important things in our circumstances. I believe he allowed himself to go, and he allowed himself to because perhaps he had felt that in the last instance, his heart, his body, his “soul” was somehow penetrated by the mystery transfigured by the person of the Virgin. Undoubtedly, he also gives us that last central message of his life, the last days, where in the last instance the child has to be disposed to leave when God wants…that each time we try to hold on to life, we seriously lose it…and each time we give it away, certainly for others fully, then we earn it forever. Is it not beautiful, to die in Advent and to awaken at Christmas?
Father Guillermo Carmona’s Homily (mp3) in Spanish
Everyone, in one way or another, upon giving thanks to God for the Eucharist, also gave thanks to God for Father Horacio’s life on this earth, at this time, and in their hearts. We remember his personal ideal, which he certainly embodied: “To love You ardently until death, to illuminate intellects with the light of truth and to enkindle hearts in the fire of your love.”
In the slumber of Advent and in the awakening of Christ’s Nativity, we give thanks for the pilgrimage of Father Horacio Sosa Carbó, a servant of Mary who will never perish, and who furthermore, will always be in our souls, in our hearts.
Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 01022013
