Father Omar Sánchez Portillo, known for his vast solidarity service for the poorest in Peru with various initiatives such as a palliative care center, published a tender photo of when he was young accompanied by his mother, thanking her for encouraging him to become a priest.
The priest, director of the Association of the Beatitudes that welcomes hundreds of people in need, published this May 30, a photograph on Facebook in which he appears with his mother, for her 84th birthday.
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“Today you turn 84 years old. In this photo you were about 50 and I was 25. I had finished my first year of priestly formation. I didn’t remember the photo and my brother Hugo sent it to me. You are so incredibly beautiful and dazzling,” Father Omar highlighted in his publication.
“You can’t imagine how much I miss you. We were soulmates, I was so much like you. I was always your Omarcito, your conceited one. And although you are still with me physically, the illness has changed a lot,” she continued.
“I want to thank you because you taught me to be a good, generous, free, respectful man. You taught me to express my feelings without fear. You taught me to hug. You taught me to fight for what I wanted. You taught me faithful commitment. You always respected me so much,” Father Omar highlighted.
“And when you met Jesus, you presented him to me with your example and you convinced me along with Papa Hugo that it was the best path to follow. Although I must admit that by opposing you I resisted for a long time and made you suffer a lot. Although in the end Jesus won”, he stressed.
“This photo has broken my heart. But at the same time it makes me thank God for the wonderful woman he gave me as a mother,” shared the Peruvian priest.
To conclude, Father Omar told his mother: “You are the best mother that a child, adolescent, young man and priest can have. I love you mom Elo. And everything I am and do today has your seal and that of my father Hugo.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.