The World Youth
Day Story
The village of Calla Creek is really more of a
conglomeration of ranches located in the same general area than it is an actual
village. It is divided by the Mopan
River, the two sides connected by a rustic wooden “hammock” bridge which dances
a good deal as one traipses across it. Our
small school on the far side of the river serves about 75 students coming from
35 families. Half of those are single
parent homes. On August 23, 2008 Deborah
Xis and her 5 siblings were added to that group.
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| The Bridge to Calla Creek - the former thatched roof Church in the background |
I had come to know Deborah Xis (pronounced “Sis”) through my
visits to the school, particularly for school Masses. She was a quiet girl but something made her
stand out. Perhaps her unique facial
characteristics with her high cheek bones, perhaps her athleticism, perhaps
merely the quiet humble nature by which she went about her business drew my
attention to her. She became one of only
a handful of students whose name I knew.
In June 2008, at the age of fifteen, Deborah did what
relatively few young people from Calla Creek do: she graduated from primary
school. That was possibly my first real
connection with her. I recall at the
simple graduation ceremony for the ten graduates that I was able to communicate
somehow my pride in her and also my satisfaction and excitement with her plans
to accept a parish scholarship to take her shot at high school. The choice to attend high school does not
seem the prudent one to a Calla Creek mind.
Deborah came from a ranch with no electricity and where chores abound; as
a “farmhand” Deborah was far more useful to the family than as a student. With the added sacrifices on top of it all –
the daily 5:30a.m. tackling of a four-mile walk to the highway to catch the bus
to school and the same repeated in reverse in the afternoon – high school was a
hard sell in Calla Creek. But God spoke
something silently in Deborah; she saw the path and set out.
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| Graduation Day |
Two months after that June graduation, Deborah’s father and
oldest brother were shot and killed less than 2 miles from their home, held up
by “banditos” presumably from the other side of the border. Deborah’s younger brother Willie was also in
the pickup truck as it was assaulted. Willie
ducked to avoid being shot; his older brother and role model took that bullet
which took his life. Willie ran for his and got away but not without the deep living
scar of hearing his father’s last cries and the torturous burden of self-blame
for his own brother’s death.
I went out to the “velorio” the next night to pay my
respects to the family and to support them in that terrible time. I remember Deborah walking out from near the
house where the whole village had gathered.
It was very dark and she came across the field to greet me. My heart was breaking for this girl and I
already felt the anguish of knowing there was little I would be allowed and
able to do to ease her sorrow. I stretched
out my arm to give her the “one-armed-hug” common in the Latino culture and
recited the expected phrase: “Lo siento Deborah”. She gave me the perfunctory one-armed-hug
response and said “Si Father”; she was the picture of sorrow and anguish, a
tough farm-girl holding in her sadness.
But in an instant, and I would say a moment of grace, she rested her
head on my chest in that greeting and that gesture somehow gave her permission
to the depths of her person to rest, to relax, to let go. And she cried. The silent sobbing lasted for about two
minutes, and I, by and in Jesus’ grace – and I believe just like Him – stood
and stayed. When her sobs subsided, she retrieved
her arm, stood erect and said “Gracias Padre”. With that Deborah Xis walked into my heart,
found herself a spot, and sat down for keeps.
Sometime in April 2010 I was sitting in the rectory chapel
in adoration one afternoon and God said “Take a group to Spain”. God doesn’t say much to me; I on the other
hand do say a lot to me – I therefore rated the likelihood of this phrase
being truly from Him as “dubious at best”.
I followed up on this
conversation that He had (possibly) begun with a few practicalities, in case the
Good Lord had missed from way up there some of the more obvious facts His idea
implied: “I’ll go, but I can’t lead it.
I don’t have the time. You’ll
have to send someone to lead it for me.” I don’t know if the Lord felt insulted, if He
went to work on it, or if He felt we had said quite enough that day, but in any
event, my sublime dialogue with the Divine ended there…
…until I went downstairs after prayers, walked into the
front office, and saw Perla Chablé one of my parishioners who promptly said to
me “Father, I’ve come to see you. We
need to take a group to Spain and I’m willing to lead it.” Bingo. Something was afoot.
Then He kicked into high gear. I privately thought of the young people in
our parish and school whom I felt would benefit from a trip World Youth
Day. Over the course of the month without
fail and without prompting each one approached me independently and asked about
the possibility of going. All except for
one. I didn’t think of Deborah Xis. He did.
I’ll never forget her coming to me and asking hesitant questions about
WYD: what is it, when is it, who goes, and then finally the Holy Spirit’s nudge
in me and that wonderful feeling of discovery and thrill and possibility all at
once, as I said to her “Deborah, you’re thinking of going aren’t you?” “Yes
Father.” “Deborah, you want to go,
don’t you?” “Yes Father, I want to go to Spain.” Revelation. She was hearing Him again, not even knowing it
was He who was prompting her. Deborah
was all in.
For the next 14 months we formed the group and went through
the manifold fundraising efforts from selling turkey dinners, to chopping the schoolyard
grass, to bake sales after Mass of garnachas and pastels. Deborah would provide “pepito” – roasted
pumpkin seeds – for the sales each week.
She participated in the meetings, staying overnight in the convent
afterwards and returning to Calla Creek the following day. The group progressed and the date
approached. Before we knew it we were
flying out of Philip Golson International Airport, Belize City heading for
Spain.
The first big moment of discovery was watching Deborah in
the Miami airport as she saw an escalator for the first time. I couldn’t resist. I ran up the regular stairs beside her and
looked across at her face, fixed in concentration on the moving stairs beneath
her. And I goaded her: “Deborah, I don’t
know what you’re doing. I never use those things. They’re nuts.
At the top they eat your feet if you’re not careful…” My torment went on and as it did Deborah
lowered into a crouched position and honed in on the approaching threat. With three steps to go she launched in the
air and cleared the top step by two feet soaring gracefully to safety. The delight of taking a group of 20 of my
beloved parishioners on three and a half weeks of entirely new experiences had
begun.
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| The Colosseum, Rome |
The majority of new experiences were not comical but
sublime. We hit Rome for four days,
Assisi for one and Lourdes for two before reporting to Barcelona for 4 days of
“Days in the Diocese”, Madrid for 5 days of the culminating World Youth Day
events and ending with 3 days in Gijón, Asturias hosted by an old friend
Keko. No one could merit what I received
in those days: the sheer joy – the joy of a dad watching the faces of his
children every single day – seeing either
what they had only imagined they might one day see, or seeing what they had
never imagined before. The entry to the
basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome on Day-One epitomizes that experience. I went in first just to be there to see them
all file in. Each face, without
exception, expressed total astonishment and disbelief as their minds reeled
with the delightful incomprehension: How could
anything be so magnificent?
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| After mass at St. Mary Major's, Rome |
The mind-boggling experience of new countries, new cultures,
new people and friends, new sights and new revelations began with intensity
that day and continued for almost a full month.
Whether it was looking over Rome from the great Cupola of St. Peter’s
Basilica, or peering at the Apostle’s first century tomb below the Basilica’s
floor; taking in the awesomeness of the Coliseum or celebrating Mass in the
damp silence of the catacombs with the palpable presence of the Martyrs;
straining to absorb the grandeur of the Sistine chapel or soaking in the
intimate grace of the Eucharist at Pope John Paul II’s tomb; praying with St.
Claire and St. Francis in their city of peace or swimming in the beauty of the
Mediterranean; bathing in the miraculous waters of Lourdes or processing with
thousands by candlelight at Her shrine; sitting in awe at Mass in Barcelona’s
Sagrada Familia or dancing in her subways and streets with joyful pilgrims; singing
at concerts in Madrid or contemplating the Stations of the Cross with the Holy
Father; adoring in silence before the Eucharist with millions or celebrating
joyfully in the Holy Mass with the same . . . in it all the Belizean Youth – my
parishioners, my friends, the ones God gave me, my children – were coming alive. It was the great life, the Catholic life, life
to the full.
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| St. Peter's Basilica, Rome |
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| Mass at Blessed John Paul II's Tomb |
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| Candlelight Procession at Lourdes, France |
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| Mass in the Catacombs, Rome |
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| Meeting Youth from around the world in Barcelona |
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| Deborah and Nery - buddies! |
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| Trevi Fountain, Rome |
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| On the Cupola of St. Peter's, Rome |
Deborah returned to Belize unfolded and in bloom. She continues to talk a blue streak and to
exude an innocent joy from within. In
that I believe He’s showing us His gift in her.
Deborah ran for and won vice-president of student council in this her
senior year in high school and is working on ways to continue studies after
graduation.
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| Deborah in Gijón, Spain |
Two weeks after our return the group met to study our new
YOUCAT – a catechism deigned specifically for youth and a personal gift of the
Holy Father to the pilgrims – and sign thank-you cards. As the members trickled home one-by-one from
the parish driveway, Deborah was the last to leave. We said goodnight and this time she gave me an
unexpected untraditional two-armed hug.
She hung on for a little while, and said “You have been a real Father
for me”.
Deborah’s story is unique yet universal. It is the story of the effect of WYD on a
life. And it’s an awesome story. It
encapsulates the strength of grace God poured into each of us in the
life-marking experience that WYD was. To
watch these people who, over the years, had become defining people in my life
and priesthood, to walk beside them and stand invited into intimate moments of
God’s own revealing love to them, to be a part of WYD 2011 and to witness – as
a father and as a “dad” – these beloved children grow before my eyes, and to
admire the wonder of Christ’s love for them and His love in them, has been
quite possibly the greatest, most quiet of personal joys in my priesthood thus
far.
I’m humbled that Deborah Xis chose to sit down in my heart.
I’m happy she has found a spot to stay. That Christ Jesus has decided to meet
her there, that He took her and 19 friends on a whirlwind tour of His grandeur,
that He brought 2 million others with the same hopes, same fears, same longings,
same joy and put them in one spot that He might gaze upon them and love them … and
that He let me do it all with Him: It doesn’t get much better than that.
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| Arrival in Belize! |
