Estebane, soon to be baptized: ‘I feel even more like my brother’s keeper’

“I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” These are the words that thousands of catechumens around the world are preparing to hear on Easter night when they are baptized. Throughout Lent, Aleteia is sharing with you the stories of some of these men and women, who are happy to become children of God. Read all of the testimonies here.

Listening to Estebane talk about his journey of faith is a bit like catching your breath after running a little too fast to get on a bus. His life, his choices, his professional commitment, and his spiritual journey are all linked to this feeling that everything is now in its place, at the moment when it was meant to be.

Estebane, 35, a gendarme and father of a little son named Augustin, lives with his fiancée Aurore near Chambéry, France. At Easter, he will be baptized and become a child of God. “It’s difficult to explain how I feel, and at the same time it seems very simple to me,” he says quickly, words tumbling out of his mouth.

“It’s a bit like outdoor rock climbing,” the sports enthusiast tries to explain. “I climb the wall and when I come to passages that seem impassable, I worry less because I know that Jesus will hold me steady even if I can’t see the rope.”

When he started his catechumenate course in Chambéry two years ago, following a transfer, Estebane went to buy a Bible. “I remember the bookseller saying to me at the time, ‘When you have Jesus with you, you always travel first class,’” he says. “And it’s true: my life has taken on much more meaning. It’s amazing how faith has changed my soul in such a short time, leaving even more room for love and sharing.”

Although he didn’t naturally slip into it when he was a child, Estebane nevertheless heard about faith and God from a very young age. His father came from a communist and anarchist family that had fled Spain during the war, but his mother grew up in a Catholic family. “I remember having an illustrated Bible when I was 8 years old,” he recalls. “My mother didn’t want to leave us far from the path.”

Estebane says that he had “always had this little light,” and he grew up seeing friends being baptized, making their first communion, etc. He attended Mass from time to time and even went so far as to organize a pilgrimage while he was in the gendarme academy. “It’s like a planted seed that needed to grow a little, to blossom. I felt I was on the right path but not yet ready to be baptized.”

Since I entered the catechumenate, it’s as if my heart has opened up completely.

Reflecting for a few moments on his journey, he readily acknowledges that the choice of his profession, as a gendarme, isn’t by chance. “I’ve always wanted to defend the smallest, the most vulnerable,” he summarizes.

He also remembers this mission in the Jura Mountains at the beginning of his career, where he was looking for an 80-year-old with Alzheimer’s disease. “Imagine a huge forest with very few houses… It was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he recalls.

”After several hours of searching, I arrived in a village and saw a statue of the Virgin Mary. Instinctively, I placed my hand on it and asked her to help me.” Thirty seconds later, Estebane entered a house and found the nonagenarian. “It just worked out, it’s not really explainable,” he admits. “I had the feeling that someone was supporting me.”

A few years later, in 2017, the gendarme was deployed to Saint Martin in the West Indies after Hurricane Irma. Once there, he was mobilized in a completely destroyed shantytown. “I remember the Christmas Mass we had there… Incredible. These people had nothing left but they gave everything. It touched my heart.”

When he started his catechumenate, Estebane assures us, he received “an uppercut of love.” “I came back on tiptoe. I felt a little guilty about having taken so long to ask for baptism, I didn’t feel legitimate. But I met some incredible people who didn’t judge me and simply welcomed me.” 

Since then, he says, “everything makes more sense.”

Specializing in investigations regarding abuse of minors and violence against women, he regularly comes face to face with suffering and darkness. A mission which also makes more sense today, a few weeks away from his baptism.

“Each of us is our brother’s keeper. For the victims as well as the accused, I strive to be even more so,” he soberly summarizes. ”At crucial moments in an investigation, when someone’s death is announced to their family, when we accompany minors who’ve been violated, battered women, but also the accused, I pray and try to be that guardian, that person who brings a little light.”

And Estebane goes further: “Since I entered the catechumenate, it’s as if my heart has opened up completely. I love beyond my family, my loved ones. I have a mission to bear witness to this love that comes to me from Christ and to share it. With everyone.”

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