God bless my van. It has rolled many, many miles this week. Our Lady of Guadalupe has been keeping us busy.
First, in order to honor her, and at the request of Bishop Flores’s office, we attended a vigil mass for the feast of Our lady of Guadalupe at the cathedral. Guadalupe Partners were the honorary gift bearers. In her honor, the catheral was 3/4 full, with ram’s horns blowing and Aztec dancers shuffling up the aisle. But the universality of the Church stood in the mitred presence of Bishop Flores, who spoke about the simple fact that “salvation began with a greeting.”
Before attending the mass, we made our second visit to Norma. Her story is not really new, except for the fact that it is now Norma. In addition to her unborn child, she has three older children. There is no husband. She works a scatterd 10-15 hours per week. She does not drive, she has no laundry facilities-a critical complication because her oldest son has bowel control problems. She is an overwhelmed, depressed woman; and, as usual, the abortionist was quite willing to take advantage of that . She is going to require a lot of help from us: first, a washer and dryer installed in the basement, requiring a gas hook-up; second, rent assistance; third, constant friendship.
Yesterday we visited the family of Anna and Carmelo. She is bearing their eighth child. They were on the fence in their decision for a couple of weeks; then she picked up a flyer she had received from us and she read the statement “Your child is not garbage” and she thought, “That’s right.” She then called us and said that any help we could give them would be appreciated. Her husband is a landscape laborer who, in season, makes $8.00 an hour. That, though, is not the primary difficulty. It is their older sons who tempted them to despair about raising another child. The father took me into the bedroom of the 16 year-old. The back of the door was covered with graffitti, violent and pornographic. The boys prowl the streets all day, sometimes coming in as late as 3:00 A.M. The suffering of the parents, as they related all this, was palpable. The younger children were quiet, eminently respectful and behaved. The house was poor, though very clean.
Maria’s daughters were all baptized yesterday–Kimberly, Dulce, and the Guadalupe baby, Eddi. Mrs. Wong and I were godparents. I have before described the joy of being present at the birth of children rescued from the abortuary. Here was the second birth. Providing the material assistance to ease the first birth is relatively easy compared to the obligations associated with this second birth. Ruega por nosotros.
