Father Antonio Lootens

In the city of Ghent, Belgium, on September 19, 1934, the Lootens Impens family was blessed with a new member. Ángel Impens was pregnant with male twins; What Leonardo Lootens, her husband, did not know was that, in Ángel’s family, for some strange reason, all the male children were stillborn. When the time has come to give birth, the first child is stillborn. At the birth of the second son, also lifeless, Leonardo, takes the child in his arms, takes him quickly to the hospital chapel and before an image of the Virgin tells him: «If he lives, he will be yours.» Suddenly, the boy –whom they would call Antonio– began to breathe. Thus began the life of Antonio, who already had an older sister, Marietta, and later had two younger sisters Elmira and Annie .

Since he was little, Antonio felt the desire to be a priest and a missionary, but to achieve it he would have to go through a lot of suffering. One of them was experiencing the horrors of theWWII and its consequences up close. He studied at a Jesuit school and at the age of 17 his interest in the mission led him to enter the «Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary», founded in a suburb of Brussels, but his health problems forced him to leave the institution.

He worked as a medical visitor to pay for his medical studies, but without ruling out the desire for the priesthood. Upon meeting the naturist doctor André Schlemmer, a disciple of the renowned French Dr.Paul Carton, he was motivated to investigate natural methods.

Upon resuming his Theology studies, Antonio moved to Madagascar and there he arrived at the Antananarivo Seminary. Fifteen days before being ordained a Deacon, he became seriously ill with two tropical diseases, but thanks to natural medical treatment, his health was restored and, unable to return to the seminary due to the risk he was running of acquiring another tropical disease, he had to return to Europe. While installed in Syracuse, Antonio travels to San Giovanni Rotondo to confess for the second time with the renowned Capuchin friar, St. Padre Pio. When his turn came, the Friar looked at him and said “God wants you a priest, one day a bishop will ask you if you want to become a priest and he will ordain you. God has plans with you…”. And that is how Monsignor Guiseppe Bonfiglioli , Archbishop of Syracuse, Italy, decided to ordain him as a Deacon at the beginning of June 1971 and three weeks later, on June 29, he ordained him as a priest, in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Tears.

After a time of service as a priest in the same sanctuary, he decides to have a hermetic life experience, for this reason he moves to live in a grotto near the sea. In 1974 he traveled to Honduras to the Texiguat region, a very poor place without a priest. For 10 years he remains in this place carrying out a great mission, but he had to leave when the chieftain tried to poison him. In 1984, he traveled to the Diocese of San Isidro de El General, in Costa Rica, where the family cenacles of the Rosary began, which were welcomed by the local Church and thanks to which they celebrated 30 years of evangelization to families in 2017, with thousands of cenacles established in this country. When the cenacles were well established in Costa Rica, Fr. Antonio decided to take his message to other lands and that is how, in 1994, he moved to Colombia and started, together with two Costa Ricans and a Colombian, (the Hermit Laura of the Hermits and Eucharistic Hermits of Father Celestial in Piedecuesta, Santander) an experience that would later give way to other communities, including the Eucharistic Communicators of the Heavenly Father, founded in 2004 by Fr. Antonio Lootens and Mother Gabriela del Amor Crucificado.

Enjoying a predominantly contemplative charisma, he does not hesitate to open himself to the action of the Holy Spirit to become a «Hermit» to a true «Communicator» evangelizing in and through the media, not only providing content and spiritual depth to the productions carried out by the CEPC, but by actively participating in the congresses and some programs broadcast by the ESNE and EWTN channel. In addition to dedicating part of his time to research and promotion of a healthy lifestyle, which was consigned in his book «The secrets of a magnificent health (Maximvital).»

On January 4, 2018, at the age of 83, Fr. Antonio left for the Heavenly Father’s house, with a smile on his lips, a reflection of God the Father’s satisfaction for the mission accomplished. He gave himself up to the last moment for the souls of priests and consecrated persons, those whom he felt in his heart as the children that God had entrusted to him, and he asks the community not to stop praying for his soul. His legacy was: «joy», as the reflection of God the Father’s contentment over our lives; his greatest joy was celebrating Holy Mass and his consolation on this earth, his admirable filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Epitaph: «I was always happy with God, I hope He has been happy with me»

«The child, the sage, the missionary, the priest, the hermit, the doctor, the pajama dad; «the foolish donkey of Papa Dios,» as it was always considered. This is a short summary of the great story of Antonio Lootens. »