Francisco, Chile: “Is all this for me, or is it meant to be shared?”

When he turned 40, Francisco rethought his professional path. At the time, he was managing a forestry company. While flying back from southern Chile, he started to reflect on his family, friends, and all the opportunities he had been given. That was when he asked himself a key question: “Is all this for me, or could it help others?” Today he says that this crisis was a gift that opened a new chapter in his life and led him to become a teacher at a school in one of Santiago’s outlying neighbourhoods.

The crisis was a gift that opened a new chapter in my life.

He remembers being invited to take part in activities organised by Opus Dei for youth as a decisive moment in his life. There he discovered something he had never previously dreamed of: that it is possible to have a close, personal relationship with God. Some time later, a friend asked whether he had ever considered giving himself to God in Opus Dei. Although he initially dismissed the idea, over time he began a process of discernment that eventually led him to ask for admission as a numerary.

As a young man, while studying engineering and later during postgraduate studies, he took part in numerous social projects and, together with a group of friends, helped launch Casa Básica, an initiative that provides housing solutions for families without a home. In time, he moved to southern Chile, first to Temuco, then to Concepción and Puerto Varas. Each step, he says, prepared him for the next.

Today, Francisco is a teacher at Colegio Puente Maipo in Bajos de Mena, a peripheral district of Santiago, where he accompanies young people and families, helping them discover that they too can be agents of change in their communities.

I have this deep certainty that there's someone who loves me behind it all.

Looking back, Francisco recognises that there is nothing accidental about his story. “I don’t think anything particularly spectacular has happened to me. But I'm convinced that every minute has been very worthwhile. I’ve been truly happy at every moment, because I have this deep certainty that there's someone who loves me behind it all. I can’t possibly keep what I've received from myself. I’ve received it in order to give it to others, and for them to give too.”