gospa speaks 2

Dear children! In a special way this evening I am calling you during Lent to honor the wounds of my Son, which He received from the sins of this parish. Unite yourselves with my prayers for the parish so that His sufferings may be bearable.

Dear children! Today I beseech you to stop slandering and to pray for the unity of the parish, because I and my Son have a special plan for this parish.

Dear children! Sympathize with me!
Pray, pray, pray!

Thank you for having responded to my call. Try to come in ever greater numbers.

Miriam speaks 2

It was a long, chilly ride on that ass. I tell you, I was sick of his moldy gray back after the first day, and my back hurt, and the bigger I got, the worse it was -- no balance, just the plodding and the cold and the sand...

tortilla flats

Rosa was frying the beans for breakfast and cracked a few eggs into the other pan. She turned on the front burner and reached into the plastic sack of flour tortillas to serve with breakfast. The tortilla flipped onto the blue flame and lay still for a second, then began to smoke and char at the edges. Rosa whisked the tortilla over to char the other side, stirred the beans, flipped the eggs, swayed back and forth because her lower back ached already and she hadn't even started her day.

She called her boys to the table, Jose, Mario, Innocente, Aurelio, Domingo, her chicito mas lindo, dulcecito, guerito: Angelito, gone north to San Francisco and in some trouble, despite his angel's face, she could tell. No calls for months, no letters, but word from her cousin that he was doing all right, working, maybe. She couldn't tell long-distance, and she wished for her Angel back, but he did not come.

Another tortilla on the fire, quick smoke, flip and char, whisk it to the basket. Stir the beans, flip the last egg, screech for the boys one more time. The coffee boiled in the pot on the back burner. She pulled the next tortilla from the bag.

Dios Santo, Santa Maria.


His Face. His Precious Face.

"Imelda, Maria!" She screamed for her daughters who were pinning up their long brown hair. "Come, come now! Daughters, come now! -- hurry yourselves!" The teens clattered into the kitchen in their blue uniforms and shiny shoes.


"!Mira! Jesus -- on the tortilla, look." Imelda, 17, looked at her mother and gave her a half-mad smile. She just stood there and stared at her mother. Ridiculous girl! But 13-year-old Maria blessed herself and knelt next to the stove. She began to pray the Ave Maria, and Rosa didn't know what to do -- the beans were smoking, the eggs drying, the coffee boiling, but the Ave, she had to pray. She turned off all the knobs and knelt beside her younger daughter.

Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, Ruega para nosotros ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerta, Amen...

On they went. They said it ten times, and then "Padre Nuestro..." and then what next? She couldn't think. The food was overcooked, the boys pushed into the kitchen demanding breakfast and asking what happened, why are you on the floor, de rodillas, Mama? Can I have my eggs now, Mama, can I have my lunch, my coffee, and can I have that tortilla?

"No, my son, don’t touch the holy thing. I must call Padre, I must tell him.” Rosa wiped her hands, spooned out breakfast, then pushed her hair into some sort of shape. Must call Padre, must call the Church. It’s a miracle!

The tortilla curled, charred and dry, on the cooling stove. The brown and black burn marks that formed the slub and shadow of Our Lord Jesus seemed to radiate and burn her very retinas. Rosa found a clean plastic bag, slipped the holy tortilla inside it, zipped the bag shut and took it to lay on their bedroom altar. She dipped her hand into the stoup next to the mirror on the dresser, and blessed herself with holy water, water from the shrine at Fatima. She prayed again to Our Blessed Mother. Thank you, Maria, for this blessing. All saints, Holy Mother of God, Holy Spirit, and Baby Jesus. Blessed Señor, it’s a miracle, it’s a sign. Her Angel would come home. And Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ, was in the house.

“Santificada sea Tu Nombre...” she prayed.

Rosa buttoned her best sweater on and arranged her gold medallion of the Blessed Mother around her neck. Padre mustn’t see her looking such a mess. The boys and the girls were already out the door walking to school up the hill. Rosa followed them, praying every step. Santa Maria, Madre de Dios.

Christ! On a tortilla in her kitchen! What would the Padre think of her now?

Meri says

April

Shopping with kids ...then --

The pains began at 2 a.m. and Meri found herself curling over her already pooched belly, just two months along, and she wondered if she was bleeding yet. She wondered if this was the beginning of the end. God has a will. God has ways. Is this one of them?

raindrops on roses

Alleged Virgin Image Shines on Glass Building
By Jane Dark
Religion News Service

Authorities in Clearwater, Fla., are trying to control crowds who have come to worship a purported apparition of the Virgin Mary on the side of a downtown office building. More than 2,000 people per day are trekking through downtown streets to gaze at the glass seemingly etched with the outline of the beloved icon.

“You can see her there, right there,” said believer Donna Hutchin, 34, who was holding a rosary and weeping. Hundreds of candles and flowers filled the lawn before the windows of the building, along with stuffed animals, photos of loved ones and handwritten notes asking for divine help.
“It’s the Blessed Mother. Pray! Pray!” Hutchin said, crying out to passersby.

Others were not so certain. “It’s just the sun shining on the glass,” said Capt. Chester Jones, a Clearwater police officer on duty to control crowds. “Next thing you know we’ve got hundreds of people shoving each other to get a look at a big nothing.”

The image, which is impressionistic at best, is not an actual photo-like image, but more of a hazy outline in iridescent colors. Glassworker Gerald Sanders said the effect of sprinklers on treated windows, and the buildup of minerals from city water sources, is more likely than a visitation from the mother of Jesus.

Local religious authorities are neither approving nor denying the claim of the vision, but are cautioning believers to abide by local ordinances and be safe with candles and in large crowds. “It is always good to pray,” said the Rev. Arthur Stock, a Presbyterian minister whose church is nearby. He had no further comment on the truth or fiction of the purported image.

Nuns from Charity House, Clearwater’s center for the homeless, however, were on their knees praying with rosaries and blessing themselves. “It is not for us to question,” said Sister Veronika of Charity House, who declined to give her last name. “It is she. Who are you to ask why?”

John Hawkins, bishop of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, issued a statement that offered a calm but more earthly note: “While we must always be ready to greet Jesus or the Blessed Virgin or the saints when they come to us, they are most likely to be in the form of the hungry, the lost and the lowly. Let us extend our prayers to those who needs us today, here in our communities, and offer thanks that God has given us such opportunities for gratitude and blessings.”

# # #


Angelito José Rodriguez de la Cruz lay back on his bunk. Damn if there wasn’t some damned lump just under his shoulder blade that kept him from getting comfortable, ever. “Granputa,” he said aloud. “This fuggin thing sucks it, Pocho.”

There was no response from his cellie. Big George never had much to say. Angelito couldn’t make up his mind whether he liked the silence or hated it. There was always enough going on outside the bars that Big George’s rock-like presence and mute stare could be ignored. But sometimes, puta. Couldn’t he grunt or something?

Angelito went back to lying on the lump and feeling it. He sometimes poked at the ticking mattress to see if he could move the lump, but there never seemed to be a lump in the actual mattress. Sometimes, just once in a while when the night devils were getting him, in the dark and the penetrating smell of hot, old foot-and-ass, the endless forever of life behind bars, Angelito thought he might be growing a cancer, some horrible lump of unstoppable flesh that would disfigure him, kill him. Angelito didn’t want to die like that. A knife fight, a quick slit between the ribs -- now you’re talking, Pocho. A drive-by, bam! Whatever. But not by a cancer on his shoulder blade. Not a slow and ugly death. Dear sweet Sacred Heart of Jesus, not that.

And now it itched. The lump that was not his mattress but was definitely starting to feel like a lump of some diseased flesh was itching. He could feel it. “Jorge, you got any lotion?”

Big George flicked his eyes over to Angelito with a rare gleam of interest.

“Never the fuggin mind. Forget it, just forget it.” Angelito rolled his back against the wall and gently bumped against the cold cement, just to feel the bounce of flesh and bone against the solidity. His shoulder blades cracked just so against the wall. Mamá always called those his chicken wings. Pollito, she called him, and sang the song:

El pollito dice pio-pio-pio
Quando tiene hambre, quando tiene frio…

Chicken wings, cancer lumps, Big George and the cold dark night ahead.

Angelito propped his head on his elbow and thought about walking down city streets with no iron bars, no walls, just long asphalt corridors, windows lit blue and yellow by TVs and bright lights, and the blast of ranchero music wailing from passing trucks. Cerveza. Las chicas. Freedom.

Miriam speaks 1

I was a virgin, once. Weren't we all?

"Hell, Miriam," I thought. "Why not?"

At fourteen, I had experienced nothing of the world. Everyone in the family watched my coming in and my going out. I couldn't go to the privy alone. The Law of Moses was strict for women, and I was barely a woman, though I had bled the curse for two years already. I stayed at home and worked at my spinning and weaving while my brothers went out into the sunlight or felt the rain on their faces whenever they pleased. They thought I didn't hear them when they gave thanks that they were not born female. But I gave thanks to have been given a mind, and I wove unusual patterns in the wool, and changed the words in the old songs to make them a little naughty, and I wished for an orphaned lamb to play with.

It was a fluke that I was by myself that day. I thought it was a daydream, or that strong sunlight had dazzled my eyes. His hair was so golden, unlike any of the men of my people. But some of the Romans were fair. I was bored and tired of waiting for my marriage to be made. I thought the Roman told pretty lies. Still, I admit, the thought of coupling with Yhwh had a certain appeal to me.

Women said that knowing a man would hurt the first time, but there was no pain. There was nothing like the weight of a body or any kind of thrust. I was suffused with ecstacy. I thrashed on my pallet, and wanted more. And more. I lay back and heard the birds outside, smelled the grassy scent of hay, and when the pleasure subsided, I slept.

Channah, our old nurse, found me asleep, cuffed me for a lazy girl. I went to the privy with her behind me, scolding like a monkey, and looked for the blood on my gown. I didn't see any. I told no one about my visitor. I could have said I was forced. But I hated to lie. I didn't want to hear any more of the shame of being a woman. So I kept it to myself. I am a private person. Sometimes I just sit in silence. I keep things in my heart. Inside my heart I am full. The grace that fills me is the knowledge that I hold.

Channah's tongue was relentless, and I passed from every room with her shadow behind me. I begged my mother to let me go to my cousin, Elisheba, whose wisdom I trusted. My curse had not come and I was alarmed. No, I knew what had happened. My parents would forbid me to leave the house if they knew. They would beat me to death, or throw me aside. But I snuck away, around the back of the privy, and so to the hut where Yusef was pounding wooden pegs into a stool. The sound of his mallet made my head hurt.

I called his name softly. He looked up and our eyes met. I should have covered my face but I didn't. I wasn't ashamed. He slowly set down his mallet and walked toward me as if he walked in his sleep. He stopped a few feet from me.

"Why are you here? You shouldn't be out." His voice was soft so clever ears wouldn't hear.

"I have something to tell you." I didn't bow my head. I looked straight into his eyes, and curved my arms around my flat stomach.

Yusef's expression was calm as the smooth surface of the sand. His eyes held some inner certainty. He started to speak but hesitated. He finally spoke, slowly and deliberately. "I can't explain it, but I know about the baby. I know what happened." He looked around at his workshop and back to me. "We'll marry soon. Next week, perhaps. No one needs to know. It will be all right."

I went to my cousin Elisheba the week after we married. Yusef stayed to pack his tools, and would join me soon after. We were going to the north, to some dusty village where Yusef's family lived, where our heads and donkeys and sheep would be counted for the Imperial Census. The journey to Elisheba's took two days. I rode Yusef's donkey, because a married woman doesn't walk unless she is very low and poor, but my back felt as if it were a sackful of rocks grinding together. We traveled so slowly. I was relieved when Elisheba's settlement came into view.

And after the long ride and the anticipation, I wanted to run to her and admire the fullness of her pregnancy and talk about babies. But what did she do? She bowed to me, and held her hand out to touch me, and her eyes carried a knowing look. And what a thing to say --

"Blessed are you among women." Huh. They wanted to stone me at home when they learned I was pregnant already. My father wanted to beat me. Channah wouldn't leave off scolding. But Yusef said I was his wife and no one but he would scold or beat me. And I knew by then that he never would.

"Blessed is the fruit of your womb," she said. But I knew that. The child in every womb is a blessing. And more so hers than mine, because she was so old and even her curse had left her. Elisheba's baby was a miracle. Mine was a dream, or an imagining, or a mystery.

Later, when I held him in my arms, his dark, damp hair stuck to his head and his little mouth rooting for milk, I forgot the mystery of his creation, the long journey to this miserable stable, and the awful pangs of birth. I cradled him close and kissed him, blessed him, named him.

Every mother is holy; every woman mothers G*d. Every woman is G*d. By whatever magic, she creates the child inside her, her belly the cauldron. Her caressing hand invokes the spirit, calls the elements together and works them. From her alone slips the child.

And from that moment, its new lungs unfolding like a butterfly, its first kittenish cry and tiny hands that knead at the breast, she prays for him, until the hour of her death.

Gospa speaks 1

My darling children, how I long to hear your prayers. There is terror in the world, and Satan walks. But I am to come among you soon. You will hear me and see me in your daily lives. Pray to me, 25 Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers, every night for six nights. On the fourth night of the fourth month of the fourth year, you will hear my voice. On the seventh day of the seventh month, you will feel me near. On the twelfth day of the twelfth month, you shall know my name. And I shall be with you on the last day.

Pray my children, that ye not fail.

Gospa has spoken.

Chap 3

April 4

Meri had a rare morning to herself. Her neighbor had taken the kids, thank god; Joe had a day job building a deck for some parishioners, and she hardly knew what to do with herself. She made a half-hearted effort at housework, but morning sickness had hit hard this time. I wonder if it’s a boy. I don’t remember feeling this sick before. She was just eight weeks along in the pregnancy and already her clothes were too tight, she could hardly keep food in her stomach and a persistent headache dogged her days. She felt utterly exhausted after ten minutes of straightening the living room, pushing piles of toys out of the way with her foot, tossing a stack of newspapers and piling up the battered video boxes near the television.

Meri sat on the couch and took deep breaths. The house had a funny smell, stuffy with the scent of baby wipes, sour milk and last night’s dinner. The greasy roasting pan sat in the sink, soaking. Stray Cheerios were under every surface – the couch, the kitchen table, stuck to the wallpaper in the breakfast nook. Some days she thought if she stepped on one more Cheerio and heard that dry crunch, she’d snap. Not today, though. She didn’t have the energy to sweep them up, nor the energy to snap, for that matter.

Outside, the birdfeeder swayed with the arrival and departure of finches and linnets, which twittered and flitted like a singles bar. The birch trees were leafing out, with the softest of green leaves. The roses, too, were starting to bud, purple leaves feathering the tips of thorny canes. She missed the smell of fresh cut roses from her yard. They never had the money for roses from a florist, not even at anniversaries or Valentine’s, and those roses had no scent anyway. Meri wondered how the rest of her garden was doing.

She got up and found a jacket and went out the front door. The ground was soft and moist, the sky overcast, but there were signs of life everywhere. Besides the birds, there were squirrels chasing each other through the trees. Tulips were blooming next to daffodils, with tiny grape hyacinth clustered at their base. Baby’s tears drifted like a foamy green sea around the edges of her yard, and though the lawn needed a trim and the roses were not yet in bloom, it looked like a garden was growing.

Her garden’s progress cheered her, and she decided to take a walk. At least something was going right. Joe had not been able to find much work. It was supposed to be the right time of year, everything was supposed to be booming. But all the job sites were full. Something was amiss at the union office. Joe couldn’t seem to get hired on by anyone. He had put up flyers around town and a small ad in the local paper, advertising carpentry and handyman work. But little had come of it. The job today felt like charity. But Joe wasn’t complaining. He rarely did. He had paid bills last night, Meri beside him, writing the check numbers and dates on the receipts. She meant to file them later, but felt too ill; instead, the paperwork drifted into a pile, overflowing from a basket, and sometimes spilling over.

The mortgage was paid, and the car insurance, but he hadn’t paid the electricity, and there wasn’t much left for groceries. The chicken from last night would make a casserole tonight and its sorry carcass, with hardly enough meat to call it edible, would end up in the soup pot for the next night’s dinner. But the thought of scraping the white flesh from the chicken’s bones brought on a wave of nausea. Her head began to pound, and her heart. Meri looked around for a bench or someplace to sit. She realized she was quite near their church, and the thought of a warm, dim, quiet place to sit seemed utterly necessary. She took a deep breath and, when it was clear, crossed the street. She went through the heavy double doors, dipping her fingers into cool holy water and blessing herself. She went into the side chapel for the BVM, as they used to call her, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The small room was still and dim, lit only by the flicker of votives in red glass jars. Another wave of nausea passed over her, so Meri sat down without genuflecting, sliding into the hard wooden pew, her eyes closed, her mouth watering sourly. Dizziness washed over her, and the slight smell of incense made her feel even queasier. Her hands were shaking. She bent her head down and leaned her forehead on her crossed arms on the back of the pew.

“Are you all right, dear?”

Meri startled up, but her vision was bleary and the old woman’s soft voice said from behind her, “No, no, sit there, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Meri leaned back in her pew and closed her eyes, while queasiness rose and fell. She heard the soft click of rosary beads and an occasional squeak as the old woman shifted in her pew. She could smell a faint perfume, a soft floral scent with a hint of raspberries, like the first red roses of the season. She felt embarrassed by her own silence and lack of prayerful attitude. She felt she should explain. It took a moment to get her courage up to speak.

“I’m having a baby,” she said. “I was feeling a bit – “

“Of course you were, of course. Is this your first one?” The rosary beads clicked, the prayer continuing despite the conversation.

“No, it’s my third. But I’ve never felt so sick.” Meri felt a rush of overwhelming emotion. She tried to sit up and shake it off but it was too late. The short walk, the illness, the worries over money – it all conspired to do her in this morning. “I’m sorry,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m just so tired.”

“No need, no need to apologize.” Meri heard rustling, then a tissue came over her shoulder. Meri took it and wiped her eyes. She turned to see her kind helper, but the room was so dim; she caught again the scent of roses but couldn’t clearly see the old woman’s face, just a quick gleam of dark eyes, grey-white hair pulled back under a scarf, her face cast downward at her rosary beads.

“Never mind, dear, just sit. It will all pass away, you know. It will soon pass away. I remember my first baby. I was a very young girl, much younger than you. I was still a teenager. We thought it the best time to marry in my day, not wait too long, get the marriage going and the babies born. It was a long time ago now,” the woman said.

Chapter 2

March (date)
St (name)

The fax machine rang and purred into life in the rectory at St. (name). Margoline Alvaro, the church secretary, pushed her glasses up on her nose and glanced at it, then back to her paperwork. It could be a bill or a reservation for the church for somebody’s wedding, but at the moment she didn’t care. She had to make the numbers add up. Somehow the kids in the Youth Group were using more than their fair share of napkins and paper plates at their meetings and she couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t that it was such a big deal, Heaven only knows, but the Charismatics had complained, and so had the Knights of Columbus, and the Legion of Mary had got in on the fray. Now she had to read through the inventory and see who was using what and how much. It was all a bother, to say the least.

Father Cesar Castro opened the door and came into the office. He had been outside gardening in the chill spring air. The rectory’s dahlia garden was his joy, and had been since he had become pastor. He pulled off his garden gloves, which were remarkably clean, and set them on the chair by the door.

“Good morning, Pader,” she said. “Mabuhay! How are the flowers?”

“Still sleeping, Margoline, but they’ll be beautiful in July. How is the inventory?”

“Very good, Pader. Very good. I will find out what’s happening to all those paper plates.”

“I know you will,” he said, reaching for the fax tray.

“It’s just not right,” she said. “Those kids are so careless…”

But he wasn’t listening, rather reading the fax. He shook his head and handed it to Margoline.

She read it and her eyes widened. “What is this? Is it real?”

“I don’t believe we should give credence to these random faxes,” he said. “They might not be approved by the Holy Father.”

“No, Pader.”

“But it doesn’t hurt to pray.”

“Yes, Pader.”

Margoline closed her eyes for a few seconds and said a Hail Mary. “Amen.”

“Amen,” he said back to her, as he left the room.