“Those who turn their life into a service for others in the quest for peace and brotherhood are pleasing to God. This is the soldier’s vocation”, said Spain’s military Ordinary, Archbishop Francisco Pérez, in commemorating the six Spanish soldiers serving on the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, who were killed in a terrorist attack on 24 June. Archbishop Pérez presided over a funeral service celebrated in the barracks of the Parachute Brigade at Paracuellos del Jarama. He said: “faith shows us the road we must pursue and, if we follow it with perseverance, we shall reap the reward for all we have done”. In his homily Archbishop Pérez declared that “those who let themselves be guided by love, and not by hatred, are pleasing to God. Those who live with purity of intentions and nobility of heart are pleasing to God”. “The Church and all men and women of good will – he added – pay tribute to those who have sacrificed their own life for their country and for a world which has so deep a need for peace”. “Before the biers of our brother-soldiers – he concluded – let us pray that the Parachute Brigade may continue to express its specific vocation to serve Spain and to safeguard and defend the peace that is so much under threat in the Middle East”.
