How I Met the Home
Natali Vera
I must begin by saying that God never lets Himself be beat in generosity. He placed His merciful eyes on me and allowed me to form part of the gift for His Mother, the Home.
I was sixteen when I met the Home. I was studying in a school run by nuns and vacations came along. My brothers told me that they had seen some nuns dressed in white with a priest in a cassock. The part about the nuns seemed normal, but the priest was strange because we had only seen priests in cassocks in movies. I thought that they were the same nuns as the ones in my school, but I was wrong.
Later a friend of mine told me that some Spanish nuns had come to Chone and I remembered what my brothers had told me and yes, they were the same nuns. I wanted to meet them but I didn’t know anything about them. I didn’t know where they lived or what congregation they belonged to or anything. I just knew that they were Spanish and that they were in Chone and so, I forgot about them.
At school, we usually celebrate with a Mass the feast day of St. Mariana of Jesus, the founder of the religious sister who direct the school where I studied. That year they decided that the Mass would be at the parish of St. Cayetano. They told me that perhaps the Spanish nuns would go and I was very excited because I was going to meet them.
The great day arrived and my class had to sing in the choir. I was paying attention to see when the sisters would arrive. I looked behind me but they didn’t come. The Mass began and they still hadn’t come. “Well,” I said, “they’re not coming,” and I resigned myself to the fact. A friend of mine who was behind me called me and told me to look back and there they were.
After Mass my friend and I went over to say hello to them. One of them invited me to a youth group and, so as not to look bad, we told her we would go, but we didn’t plan on going. We said good-bye and we forgot about it.
July came along and there were celebrations at my school where they choose someone to be the queen of the party. My friend and I wanted the girl from our class to win and we decided to suggest something to God: if He made our friend win, we would go to Mass for nine Sundays in a row, which was something I extremely disliked because Mass was horrible for me, very boring. If I ever went it was because my father made me or because there was a celebration at my school. Since it was something that neither of us liked, we decided to bribe God with this. But it seems that God didn’t like our bargain, or He had other plans, because He wanted us to lose. I got very upset and I told Him that I wouldn’t go to the Masses. Later, my conscience started bugging me and I told my friend that it was better for us to go for nine Sundays. And that’s what we did. The first Sunday came along and we went. My sister also came with us. And, how could it have been otherwise? In the Mass we saw the sisters. What a coincidence! Now I see that the hand of Our Mother was there. Since we were very embarrassed, we did not go up to them.
We went back on the second Sunday and that day we felt brave enough and we went up to them. We reminded them about the group that they had invited us to go to and they told us that the meetings were on Sundays at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. This time we were more serious and we told them we would go. The day came along and we asked our father for permission and he told us we could go. After that there was moment when we decided that we wouldn’t go, then that we would, then that we wouldn’t, then finally that we would.
When we reached the sisters’ door, neither of us wanted to knock. Finally my sister did. We were very nervous because we were wondering what the young people would be like, what we would say, etc. When we entered, there was no one there: only two nuns and the two of us. “Where’s everyone?”- we thought. The sisters told us that we were the first to arrive and we wanted to go running out the door because we were so embarrassed.
That is how I met the Home.
Now I owe a lot to Our Lady because she chose me to form part of her gift. She stretched out her hand to lift me out of the misery in which my soul was living. I have got to know the true maternal love of the Virgin Mary. Before she was just the mother of Jesus for me, and I didn’t know that she was my mother. Now she is always with me. She tells me every day not to be afraid and she helps me to love her Son more. The Eucharist, which was what I most disliked, is now the strength and spiritual nourishment that I need every day. I’ve understood that it’s not unimportant, as I thought, but rather the love of Christ given up for me and for all souls.
Now the only thing that I can say is what the Psalm says, “How shall I repay the Lord for all the good He has done for me?"
©HM Magazine No.133 - November/December 2006
