Peru. Luis Ángel Maguiña, 35 years of age, had not yet completed seven years as a Claretian priest, he was director of the Claretian School of Huancayo, and Joel Ayaipoma Ñañez, 25 years, Professor in the same School, have gone from the dangerous crags of the Andes to the House of the good Father God. It is the permanent risk of the missionaries who have to cross many times the dangerous road that links Huancayo with the capital, Lima. The snow, sometimes, the rain and fog, others, require a dose of fearlessness that these two “missionaries”, I don’t know if it is because of their condition of youth or of missionaries in the style of Claret, whom nothing daunted, but they do not think twice before they take to the road.
It was October 23, about 11:30 in the morning; the intense rain and the mountain fog, some 3 thousand metres high, in the km 120 of the Central Highway, in Casapalca, an error of centimetres because of the poor visibility and the difficulty of braking in the rain make the two occupants to jump in the car to the void in a slope of about 300 m. In a few seconds the bodies rest in the bottom: Fr. Luis A. Maguiña and Mr. Joel Ayaipoma. Two life projects that they will only complete in eternity.
On the eve of the double solemn celebration: the feast of the Founder of the Congregation, Saint Anthony Mary Claret and the first centenary of Claretian presence in Peru. In Lima they waited for them in vain while they had advanced to the feast in an Easter which, in our view, was premature and, therefore, painful, very painful for the Claretian community, the teachers, the students and their families, for the entire population that appreciated them so much. We have them very present, for them we raise our prayer and we welcome this test in the hope born of our faith in the risen Jesus. We have not lost them, they are still with us in another way. (On top, photo of Fr. Maguiña).
