Deeds, Not Words: "By Their Fruits You Will Know Them"

“By their fruits you will know them. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So, by their fruits you will know them” (Mt 7:16-20).

With this Gospel passage I want to begin today’s article, a small tribute to one of the most extraordinary men who has ever lived in our beloved Venezuela: Brother Ginés. That Basque-Venezuelan, or Venezuelan-Basque (as he liked to ask himself), has just left our Land of Grace, which he loved madly (and where he lived 72 of his 99 years), to reach his final Homeland, Heaven, and meet face to face the Great Love of his life: Our Lord Jesus Christ.

That Great Love for whom he left everything (his family, his country…). That Great Love for whom he lived serving others, and from whom he drew the strength to reap the wonderful fruits he gave to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, who will always remember him for his simplicity, detachment, humility, greatness of soul, understanding, joy, fortitude, tenacity and so much more. He was a pilgrim who spread love and learning throughout Venezuela: on foot, by jeep, by mule, by canoe… He was a man who discovered the immensity of our natural resources and the greatness of our people (of every class and condition), and knew how to polish those “diamonds” (the Venezuelans) so that they could give the best of themselves, rooted in their land, their culture and their faith… I know you expect a great deal from these Venezuelans! Don’t you, my dear Brother?

He was a De La Salle Brother who, with the help of God and of many extremely valuable people, managed to “turn water into wine,” and nothing that can be written about him could capture the extraordinary work he did for our country in education, the conservation of our natural riches, research and the spread of scientific knowledge. He leaves in Venezuela dozens of teaching and research centers, among them technological university institutes, technical high schools, a Natural Science Museum, the Caribbean Institute of Anthropology and Sociology, the La Salle Society of Natural Sciences, and the campuses in Amazonas, Guayana, Tumeremo, Cojedes, El Baúl, Boconó and elsewhere. And he placed all these works at the service of the country, especially among the neediest communities.

How did Brother Ginés manage to do so much? When a tree bears so much good fruit, it is because it is healthy and good sap runs through it. Jesus Christ himself tells us: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

Brother Ginés was a man of God who did what he did and sowed what he sowed not for his ego or vanity, not to feel like a superman or the center of the universe. He did what he did out of Love (with a capital L), out of his great Love for God, which he needed to share with others through his great passion for nature and science, in a country with immense natural and human resources and great social needs.

That was the great secret of Brother Ginés’s success: a man who lived to do God’s will and abandoned himself into His hands to undertake a titanic task in Catholic education, because he knew that with God he could do anything. He never missed the slightest opportunity to bring a Christian sense to the people and the environment around him. He liked to insist: “No one is saved alone.” He was very clear that his mission was to bring souls to God and at the same time build a more Just society.

In one of his speeches he once said, in essence, that like the sacred author who, looking at his gray hair, expressed his unshakable trust in God in a beautiful psalm, he would never stop proclaiming that if over the years he had left any flashes of light, it was all God’s work and the work of those who, in one way or another, accompanied him in it; to God his praise, and to them his gratitude.

We only want to tell you, dear Brother, that all of us who had the immense honor of knowing you and gathering so many Great fruits from you will always hold you deep in our hearts, and we will not let you down in caring for and working for our beloved Venezuela! And get ready, because now more than ever we will ask you to intercede for us from Heaven so that we can keep going “onward and upward, even if the slope is steep and sometimes slippery,” as you encouraged us so many times.