In either late '90 or early '91, my mentor took me to hear Father Andrew Greeley speak at the Marianist University of Dayton.
I don't remember anything he said but I remember liking parts of it. More about Greeley in another post. I had no idea, at the time, of the Who's Who of Catholic intellectuals or of the liberal - conservative tensions that plague the post-conciliar church.
My mentor who was in her 60's even then was a mixture of past and present: praying the rosary and studying the Bible.
Her adult son was a nurse on the border with Mexico and one day sent home to her a Mexican teenager. The runaway lived with her in Centerville for several months, learning English and going to school and working. I don't know what's become of him. She probably helped him get his papers. These days she would be arrested and jailed for "welcoming the stranger".
I loaned the boy a glossy, white New Testament in Spanish that I had gotten in Puerto Vallarta only a little while before, but he couldn't even read Spanish. And he found the book itself, so obviously suited to a female first communicant or confirmand, inappropriate and even insulting. My first lesson in how insensitive is the adage "beggars can't be choosers."
The kids are dancing to La Bamba in the living room right now.
Happy Cinco de Mayo.
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