Last year, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela that he narrated on Twitter through his account @CaminodeAlvaroThe wave of affection and devotion that it aroused around the world was such that even Pope Francis wrote a letter of thanks to him. In it he told her that "in the midst of the pandemic that we live in, with your simplicity, joy and simplicity, you were able to set in motion the hope of many of the people you met along the way or through social networks".
Those of us who have had the good fortune to know Alvaro since he was a child and to share with him the life of faith, already knew what this young man was capable of transmitting. Since he was very young, the Eucharist has been the happiest moment of his life. I know children who have enjoyed less a day at Eurodisney than Alvaro is able to experience in a celebration of the Holy Mass.
To celebrate it with him at our side is to live very closely the mystery, the heavenly banquet in which heaven and earth are united. A great feast in which God gives us everything and we can only welcome this gift from heaven, the manna that rains down upon us. God has not given him the talent to speak clearly, but his gestures of recollection and praise, according to the moment of the Mass, proclaim very clearly to all those who share it with him that something great is happening in the gathered community.
But the Eucharist is only the culminating moment of a life that is an entire liturgy. Like all children of his age, he likes to play soccer, swim in the sea and run in the countryside, but, on every occasion, he keeps God in mind and invites those around him not to forget Him and to love Him above all things.
Of course, the easy explanation is to talk about the repetitive behaviors and fixations of children with disabilities, but who doesn't have a monotheme, an obsession, an issue they keep coming back to?
Like all children his age, he likes to play soccer, swim in the sea and run around the countryside, but he always keeps God in mind and invites those around him not to forget Him.
Antonio Moreno
I rather think that Alvaro is a gift that God has given to his family and to the whole world, because "the foolish things of the world God has chosen to humble the wise, and the weak things of the world God has chosen to humble the mighty" (1 Cor 1:27). Like those figures of "The Magic Eye" in 3D that were hidden behind a colorful illustration and that one was only able to see if one looked deep into the paper, Alvaro is a hidden message to a world that only wants to see what is right in front of its nose.
On one occasion, I heard Álvaro's father say that, if he could choose today to be born without a disability, he would not choose him, "because then he would no longer be Álvaro". And it was necessary for Álvaro to be the way he is so that so many of us can see, beyond the colorful illustration, a three-dimensional God who is real and who winks at us with complicity.
Good road, Álvaro!
Journalist. Graduate in Communication Sciences and Bachelor in Religious Sciences. He works in the Diocesan Delegation of Media in Malaga. His numerous "threads" on Twitter about faith and daily life have a great popularity.
