by Fr Martín Lasarte, SDB
It's a Friday and it's the ninth hour (3:00 pm). It's his Good Friday. Like the Savior, instead of three nails, there were three bullets; not on the hands and feet, but two in the stomach and one to the head. Like for Christ, Calvary was the culmination of his journey, his yes to the Father and his dedication to humanity, how Fr Cesar found the end of his pilgrimage in African lands, after 72 years of life, 55 as Salesian, 46 as a priest, 37 as a missionary. It is the end of a journey of love for the Lord and for African youth. Don Bosco said that when a Salesian succumbs at work it is a day of glory for the Congregation; therefore how much more it is if he succumbs giving life in martyrdom.
On February 25, the Church celebrates the Salesian Protomartyrs Saints Versiglia and Caravario, who loved their adoptive people, giving their lives for them; they too were taken into a forest and shot. Father César is the proto-martyr priest of 2019.
Fr César liked to be first. He was in the first group of Salesians to establish the presence of Don Bosco in Togo. He wanted to be firs, but with the eyes of Jesus: first in service, first in being the last.
As Faustino García Peña said about his death: "It was the point of arrival of a life offered for love and with love ... He gave so much fruit in life that it will continue after his death". He remembers the words of Jesus: "If the grain of wheat that falls on the earth does not die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12,24).
In this way, his testimony will be a permanent announced Gospel. His joyful Salesian life will be a call to the young to live a full and happy life. His testimony of consecration, moving and emotional, can be seen in a little video he left us now circulating on the net.
From Heaven he will now continue to give thanks for his Salesian vocation, for the benefits that the Lord has granted him in the Missions; for the grace of living with and for the young ... and now he will also sing: "Thank you for giving me the palm of martyrdom."
