Mariola López Villanueva

 
Mariola López, who hails from Alicante in Spain, is a professor of theology and a retreat director.  Speaking about her apostolic life, she says:
 
I am privileged to be engaged in a mission that is connected to the Word  —  reflecting on and sharing the Gospel with others, especially with women, allowing them to experience the God of Love.  I have been helped by the Society of the Sacred Heart’s contemplative outlook towards reality and the richness of our interior life.
 
In relation to accompanying people in retreats, she shares: 
 
One of the things in life that I most enjoy is accompanying people in retreats. It is such a gift to be witness to those who open themselves for some days to the action of God in their lives.

Something I have learned during these years is that despite the individuality of each person, with her unique history, unmistakeable face, loved exactly as she is, there is a common thread: the desire to give and receive love… and, at the same time, the recognition of not really doing it to the best of her ability.

There is such an amount of unspoken suffering, of fears unrevealed, of unexpressed vulnerability… yet when each one opens herself to her fragility, without realizing it she is opening herself to her own beauty; and I experience the gift of being able to welcome and get a sense her life from God’s perspective, of wishing her to open up and free the springs of life within her, to be able to feel and be conscious of her potential.

All through my life in the Society of the Sacred Heart I have been receiving this from other sisters, and precisely this experience allows me to able to offer the same to others. To contemplate how God acts, heals, raises people up, making people more gentle and mature for others is an experience that cannot be expressed adequately in words. When I am in this accompanying relationship, I need to be present, centred, as if part of a Life greater than my own. I am there, wanting to disturb as little as possible the loving action of the Creator in His beloved.

 
A book written by Mariola came out recently:
 
 

Section |Profiles


Province |Spain