The Cremades' plans: The audacity of the impossible

I introduced myself by saying that I was a friend of his brother Pablo, who at the time was very sickI wanted to ask about him. Don Javier solved the problem with a direct call from his cell phone to Zaragoza and I was able to say goodbye to Pablo, who was about to go to heaven. Since then I met him sporadically and I didn't have his e-mail address either, until June 2020, when his book Los planes de los Cremades (ediciones Letragrande) was published, we got in touch again and we remembered past times.

A new intercessor for the impossible

Now Don Javier is with Pablo and his parents, and with so many good friends with whom to continue making plans, because a person as determined as he is will not deprive himself of making plans to help those who are on earth. If we are looking for a new intercessor for the impossible, in addition to St. Jude Thaddeus and St. Rita, it will have to be Don Javier Cremades.. In fact, his Twitter account profile featured an image with the word Impossible, split in two.

Those who knew him as the organizer of WYD 2011 in Madrid will agree with me that he achieved whatever he set out to do: from organizing an exhibition of Andalusian horsemen at the Puerta de Alcalá to filling the Retiro with confessionals and installing Easter processions on the Paseo de Recoletos.

The Cremades' plans

But now I would like to recommend reading The Cremades' plans, the chronicle of the Cremades family's meetings with St. Josemaría. I was not a direct witness, but I did have the good fortune to meet some of those who took part in them, especially Pablo.

In that book I have foundThis is, among other things, the confirmation of what Paul heard from his mother: "Shame only to sin. When someone behaves with audacity and acts without human respect, even if it is about good and even holy things, he usually meets with incomprehension, even from people who are also good and perhaps even holy. In the Gospel there are many examples of audacity, always accompanied by faith.The Canaanite woman imploring the healing of her daughter, the blind man Bartimaeus calling out to Jesus, the publican Zacchaeus climbing a tree.....

In the book we read how the Cremades' mother, Doña Pilar, in 1958, made a movie-like chase with her car when she happened to meet Saint Josemaría, the Father, and despite an initial refusal, she managed to get him to give her and her children his blessing, who, by the way, had prayed for the Father's car to stop. And Don Javier rightly emphasizes: "They say that the bold go far and that children's requests are always heard."

The audacity of the Cremades' mother was also manifested in 1960 when she managed to get the Father, who was visiting Zaragoza, to officiate the first communion not only of Pablo, who was then seven years old, but also of his sisters Conchita and Ana Mary, who were only six and five years old respectively. The mother wanted her three youngest children to receive communion from the hand of a saint.. It was a mother's love. The priest who prepared the children set forth this condition: to have the use of reason, sufficient trainingThey were to know whom they were receiving, to distinguish the normal bread from the Eucharistic bread and to be in the grace of God. This meant that they would receive intensive formation and only those who were well prepared would receive the sacrament. Don Javier transcribed the words of the homily during the ceremony, which ended as follows: "Jesus is coming to you soon. Receive him with affection, with great affection. Press him to your heart, and always be faithful".

But that is not the end of Doña Pilar's adventures, whose stubborn perseverance, a good companion of audacity, will ensure through her prayers that her sons Javier and Carlos will reach the age of five.

We also find in The Cremades' plans bursts of good humor, even a bit of a hooliganism, a term that Don Javier does not hesitate to use: the Cremades brothers' orders to the Swiss guards to stand at attention during an audience with St. Peter and St. Paul, the Swiss guard, and the Swiss guard's orders to the guards to stand at attention during an audience with St. Peter and St. Paul. Paul VIThe brothers' snack in Rome, offered by Father, in which hunger, under the protection of Saint Josemaría, gives an account of the rules of good manners, Don Javier's magic games, which were captured in a painting, The Two Pigeons, commissioned by Father...

A play for the bold and much more

I have limited myself to giving a few sketches of a book that is all simplicity, naturalness and... good humor. Someone told me that prayer could be done with it, and he was right because a main theme of prayer is one's own life, although it is also a work for the bold, those who trust in God and do not trust in their own strength.

It's not at the end of the book, but I'll keep this phrase from Don Javier, which explains many things about his life: "You see once again that, if you take the plunge, God never leaves you in the lurch. But we could also apply these words of St. Josemaría addressed to his mother: "Pilar, you always get your own way.