The last Years of his Apostolate

He continued with his habitual intense apostolic activity of classes, hearing confessions, groups, spiritual direction and retreats. During 1948 he preached some four or five series of retreats along with conferences in Valparaiso, Temuco, Sewell, Iquique, Putaendo and Chillan, nine homilies on sacramental life in the church of St. Francis during the Month of Mary and various in the Catholic University. The very well attended conferences in Temuco and those with the miners in Sewell counted audiences of 4,000 and 1,200 people; some of these were transmitted by radio. He considered his homilies in the church of St. Francis his “most fruitful ministry of the year.”

The extent of his activities was a consequence of his generous dedication and a fulfillment of those words: “If someone has begun to live for God in self denial and love for others, all the forms of misery will come knocking at his door” and certainly his own words gain special relevance: “I am often like a rock that is beaten on all sides by the towering waves. There is no way out but up. For an hour, for a day I let the waves thrash against the rock; I do not look toward the horizon, I only look up to God.” O blessed active life, all of it consecrated to my God, all of it dedicated to others, its very excess leading me to find myself resorting to God! He is the only possible escape from my concerns, my only refuge.”

In 1950, the Bolivian Episcopate invited him to participate in the First National Meeting of Directors of the Social-Economic Apostolate in Cochabamba from January 6 to 13. The youth of Bolivian Catholic Action also asked for his presence during a national assembly taking place at the same time. His presentation before the episcopate was entitled: The Mystical body: distribution and use of wealth. In it he urged his listeners to search for the complete Christ, with all its consequences for, “by faith we must see Christ in the poor” and search for adequate technical solutions, because “the hour has arrived in which our socio-economic action must cease to content itself with repeating general slogans taken from pontifical encyclicals and begin to propose well studied solutions of immediate application in the socio-economic field.”

Impelled by his interest for the intellectual apostolate, he founded the Revista Mensaje. The founding of a magazine was part of a social work project he proposed to Fr. Janssens, Superior General of the Society in 1947. Fr. Hurtado wanted to publish a “highly valued magazine” for the purpose of giving religious, social and philosophic formation. He wanted it to: “Give direction and be a testimony of the presence of the Church in today’s world.” In October of 1951, the first number of the magazine Mensaje appeared. In his editorial he explained that the name of the magazine alluded to “the Message that the Son of God brought to earth and whose resonance our magazine desires to prolong and apply to our beloved Chile and to our tormented times.

Last Illness and Death

His most eloquent testimony was given during his last illness and death. The grandeur of God and the depth of the man himself were revealed in the way Fr. Hurtado faced the moment of departure. Upon learning of his immanent death, he replied: “How can I not be overjoyed! How can I not be grateful to God! Instead of a violent death he has sent me a long illness so that I can prepare myself; He has not sent me pain but rather the pleasure of seeing so many friends, to be able to see them all. Truly for me God has been a loving Father; the best of fathers.”

All during his short but arduous life, Alberto Hurtado had ardently longed for eternal life, for his definitive and final encounter with Christ. This radiates from one of the most beautiful pages of his personal notes: “And as for myself, before me, eternity. And I am like an arrow, shot into eternity. After me eternity. My existence, a sigh between two eternities. My life then, like an arrow, propelled into eternity. I mustn’t become attached to anything here but see through it all the life to come. May all creatures be transparent so that I may see God and eternity through them. When they become opaque I become earthly and lost. After me eternity. I am going there and very soon… When one considers how soon the present will end, one reaches the conclusion: be a citizen of heaven rather than of earth.” The image of an arrow shot or propelled clearly illustrates the brevity of life but demonstrates at the same time that life has but one direction, eternity. He was convinced that each Christian was called to collaborate with the work of God, to dedicate himself or herself with complete generosity. “Life has been given to man so that he may cooperate with God in order to carry out his plan, death is only a completion of that collaboration, a return of all our powers to the Creator’s hands. May every day be a preparation for my death, giving myself moment by moment to the work of cooperation that God asks of me, fulfilling my mission, what God expects of me, what only I can do.”

During his entire ministry he spoke about eternity. In a retreat for youth in 1946, he described it as “a journey infinitely new and eternally long” and he sought for attractive images to express its meaning. He commented: “This life has been given us to search for God, death to find Him and eternity that we might possess Him. After walking along a road, there comes the moment when we arrive at its end. The son finds his Father and throws himself into the Father’s arms, arms of love; and that they might never be closed, his arms were left nailed to the cross; enter his side, opened by a lance to signify his love, from which flows blood that redeems and water that purifies.” The value of these words is only heightened by the joy and serenity with which he faced his own death. This vision of eternity had brought him to a profound commitment with the world and with his fellow men “to the point of being unable to support their misfortunes”; this vision of faith impelled him to “Enclose and carry all men in my heart, all at once. Be fully conscious of my enormous treasure and with a robust and generous oblation, offer them all to God. Unify all my loves in Christ. All this in me as an oblation, a gift which bursts and overflows the breast; a movement of Christ within me which awakens and quickens my love; a movement of all humanity, through me, towards Christ. This is what it means to be a priest!”

It was on August 18, 1952, at five in the late afternoon, that Fr. Hurtado gave back his life to God, surrounded by his Jesuit brothers. Days before his death he wrote a last letter which we might consider an invitation: “As the needs and miseries of the poor show themselves, find ways to help them as you would the Master. As I greet all and bid each and every one of you farewell, I confide the poor little ones to your care, in the name of God.”

The testimony of his death had a strong impact on the Chilean society. The funeral Mass was held on August 20 at 8:30 in the morning and Cardinal Caro gave the Responsorial. The homily was given by his good friend Manuel Larraín, Bishop of Talca who affirmed: “If we were to silence the lesson Fr. Hurtado has given us we would be denying the moment of an extraordinary visit of God to our nation.” Large numbers of people from all sectors of society attended the funeral and it was after ten when the funeral cortege left for the parish of Jesus the Worker. As many of those assisting had requested, the distance of about 40 city blocks was made on foot; and as they left the church of St. Ignatius a large cross of clouds was seen in the sky.

The poetic words of Gabriela Mistral remain as a memory and a task: “He sleeps now after all his labors. But sleep is not for us, no, as enormous debtors, fugitives who turn our faces away from what surrounds us, what he has done hems us in and impels us like a shout.”

The same year of Fr. Hurtado’s death, Fr. Alvaro Lavín suggested to the General of the Society that the process for his beatification be initiated. In 1955, the Chilean Provincial Fr. Carlos Pomar, commenced the consults with the witnesses. Years later, in April of 1971, the Episcopal Conference of Chile agreed to request the Introduction of the Cause for Beatification. The cause made rapid advances and during his visit to Chile, the Holy Father John Paul II visited the Hogar de Cristo and prayed before the tomb of Fr. Hurtado. On that occasion the Holy Father pronounced these challenging words: “The figure of Fr. Hurtado, illustrious son of the Church and of Chile, illuminates us. He saw Christ himself in needy abandoned children and in the sick. Can the Spirit raise up apostles of the stature of Fr. Hurtado in these our days as well, men who show the vitality of the Church by their self-sacrificing witness? We are convinced that this can be and so we ask for this with faith.”

On October 16, 1994, Pope John Paul II beatified Fr. Hurtado in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican and the process has already begun for his canonization in 2005.