Brother Augustine of the Divine Heart
I was born in Neira, Caldas, Colombia on August 31, 1967.
I worked as a teacher in several schools in the city of Manizales.
There was a time in my life that I spent away from the ways of the Lord God because I was shipwrecked in sin. There were so many voids in my heart that I once again felt the desire to seek God.
One Holy Thursday I asked the Lord, while praying, to grant me the grace of knowing what I could do for Him the next day, Good Friday. He meditated on the sufferings and pains of his Sacred Passion; I meditated on the pain that Jesus felt when he was crowned with thorns and dressed in mocking costumes, on the exhaustion of having to carry the tremendous weight of the cross on his delicate shoulders, the indescribable pains when his Sacred Hands and Feet were pierced with great nails. I also meditated on the suffering of His Most Sacred Heart because an entire people attacked Him, very few had compassion for Him, they joined in His affliction.
This meditation was interrupted by a voice that invited me to take a pen and paper in my hands. This voice penetrated the depths of my heart and inflamed it with His Divine Love because it was a very sweet, masculine, unmistakable voice. I felt like it was Jesus speaking to me. He called me to make every Friday a Good Friday, to become a saint, to lead a life of holiness, to leave the things of the world to follow only Him. Suddenly, I found myself on a narrow street and felt something indescribable, that I couldn't. I can describe in words what I experienced: I saw Jesus coming towards me with his bloody, muddy tunic; He carried a heavy and rustic cross on his shoulders. He looked at me with his teary eyes and told me that I would help him carry his cross but voluntarily, not in an imposed manner like Simon of Cyrene. He gave me the freedom to say yes or no. He told me that if I decided to be his Cyrenean, he would draw his suffering Face in my heart; Face that he also printed on Veronica's veil as payment for her heroic gesture.
I felt back where I was praying and Jesus continued to speak to my heart.
This experience changed my life; I was no longer the same; something special was happening inside me; I was facing something unknown, unusual.