Alonso is a psychologist, specialising in psychological support for terminally ill patients. Tough work. Alonso has never been one for half measures. His family is Catholic, and in their home, they prayed, still pray, turn to the saints, and go to Church.

However, Alonso began to distance himself from the Church early on and, almost from school, he started to equate faith with, as he puts it, a great "no." "Don't do this, don't do that, God will punish you, you'll go to hell."

For him, everything was about duty, "I have to," until, in his adolescence, that "I have to" turned into a struggle and detachment. Friendships and the desire to fit in with the group led him to grow colder. "I began to see, like my friends, that being Christian was for fools, and I wanted to be cool."

He went on to University to study Psychology, and the crisis deepened: “Now it wasn't just that Christians were fools, it was that religion was almost a psychopathology.”

Since Alonso has always been a restless person, he continued searching, but far from the Church: "I was liberated and felt like a ‘cool’ person. I tried everything from a spiritual point of view: Buddhism, positive energy, hugging trees, seeing people’s auras, everything..."

But not everything was so spiritual: "I've always been a party animal, and now, free from guilt, I had a great time. I drank everything, went out all the time, hooked up, charmed whoever I wanted, and I managed to balance it well with my studies because I've always been a responsible person."

When he finished his degree, he started working for a company, embraced a yuppie lifestyle, and continued his excesses. But something was about to change...

"Suddenly, I was going out at night, but I began to feel sad. I, who until then had had so much fun and was so happy, now saw people in distress, with a profound look of sadness. I don’t know why I experienced that. Perhaps I had been so immersed before that I hadn’t realised, but when I stopped, I could see. And the unrestrained behaviour I saw scared me."

One day, Alonso told his friends that he was done with sex: "I told them I wouldn’t sleep with any woman again. I realised that I was using people, and they were using me. They laughed at me. They didn’t believe me, and when we went out the next day, they became very insistent, but I was determined."

A new job

Alonso did a master’s degree and decided to change jobs. He landed, in a somewhat extraordinary way – which he recounts expressively in his testimony video, and which is related to Blessed Álvaro del Portillo – a position at the Laguna Care Centre Hospital. There, he met a believing doctor who once again made him question his disbelief.

"I would question her faith, and we debated a lot… and she always won. That frustrated me a bit because I thought, ‘She’s winning because she has better rhetorical power than I do, but she’s not right.’ One day I decided to ask the hospital chaplain, a really nice person who passed away during the epidemic, and I said, ‘I can’t keep taking time away from this woman, who needs to see her patients. Who can I ask about the doubts I have?’ He encouraged me to go to an Opus Dei hall of residence very close to my house."

Alonso recounts how he went to the Moncloa residence a few days later, where there was going to be a time of prayer led by the priest. "I didn’t know anyone, I was the first to arrive. I sat down, looked at the Tabernacle (which I recognised), and I said to God (and it's funny because I didn’t believe in God, but I was speaking to Him), ‘Just so you know, this is the last chance I’m giving you in my life. You’re really starting to get on my nerves with these concerns I have. If you give me a clear sign – but it has to be very clear – I’ll believe in You and do whatever You say. But it has to be very clear.’"

A few minutes later, the priest entered and started the meditation. "He could have talked about many things, but that day he chose to speak about the prodigal son. And it wasn’t the priest speaking to me," Alonso says, visibly moved, "it was God. And I felt something that I can’t quite explain… but I understood that God loved me and didn’t ask anything of me, He just wanted to love me. I left there, smoking one cigarette after another. I was shaken but very happy. Now I felt happy, now I wasn’t guilty, there were no rules. There was love. A love I had never known before. And I didn’t have to belong to any group, or anything, because I belonged to Him, the only person who truly loved me. And I understood that the possible 'noes' weren’t renunciations. Before, I needed to consume, to fill myself… because I wasn’t satisfied. Now I didn’t need it, I was at peace, I had Him."

They love me as I am; I don't have to be cool.

Alonso’s case is one of a true road-to-Damascus experience. From that moment on, and despite many of his friends turning their backs on him, Alonso began to frequent the sacraments, went to confession for the first time after a lifetime without it, met other Christian young people at the parish, where he experienced a friendship that was also new to him – "they love me as I am; I don't have to be cool" – and embarked on a relationship with God that has filled him with confidence and happiness.

"Now I’m not afraid: fear has disappeared and transformed into hope. And that doesn’t mean my life is easier, or that I think there won’t be pain. I know there will be suffering. But life isn’t about ease or avoiding suffering. Life is about walking and experiencing, but it’s very different when you know that Someone is by your side."

Videos: María Villarino and Pablo Serrano
Text: Ana Sanchez de la Nieta and Inma de Juan
Production: Carmen García Herrería