Death to Life, Death or Love

I Thirst † M

“Laudem Gloriae” was Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity’s road to sanctity...to be a praise of Glory!

I hope you are all well…I am well, with an overall deeper peace but burdened by much suffering placed upon many that surround me.
The “I THIRST movement” for the lay was founded about a month ago. Many had been waiting for the MC Fathers to come to this point in their history, opening the full revelation of Jesus’ thirst to Mother Teresa and the charism given to her after Our Lady’s pleading to her Son. Many from all over the world came and received the “I THIRST –Kerygmatic retreat”. I was blest to translate all the talks for 6 days and absorb as much as I could…it was overwhelming! I received many special graces, Praised be Jesus Christ! But beyond that, the MC Family began to extend a very radical way! The Spirit sent home each lay co-founder transformed by the painful, but redeeming thirst of the Father, for love and for souls, and with their own thirst awakened to proclaim the Truth!

“How can we last even one day without hearing Jesus say “I love you- impossible…How great God’s love for us in choosing our Society to satiate that thirst of Jesus, for love, for souls – giving us a special place in the Church…Satiating the living Jesus in our midst is the Society’s only purpose for existing.”
-Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Varanasi Letter, 1993)

One of the migrant men of the sewer who we use to serve was murdered. Nobody was there to claim his body as he waited for days in the freezer of the government autopsy lab. My brother Jorge, found his picture in the online files of the morgue and went through a week of waiting in lines and going back and forth through Tijuana just so we could claim the body of “el ñero” and give him a funeral and proper burial…otherwise they get thrown in common graves. When Br. Jorge had this idea, I though it was out of our way and was not part of our apostolate. As the days went by and I thought and prayed, I realized what a beautiful thing my brother was doing. Exactly what I had worried about: he was going out of “our” way…to give Glory to the Father by giving dignity to the body of this drug addicted, rejected, deported, abandoned, baptized son of His.
And so there we were…4 MCF Aspirants, 2 candidates, (the Postulants were in philosophy classes), 3 lay women and a girl, the funeral home driver, a man in the last row, a Delia a pregnant woman and her “husband” that had come form the sewer tunnel in their filthy clothes to say goodbye to their dead friend and Fr. Adam, MC…all the angels and saints, and the Lamb of God on the Altar. In the casket, our brother Gabriel (“el ñero”) wrapped in a biohazard bag because of decomposition…we took his to the cemetery after the Mass and placed a home made cross with his name over his buried body.
At dinner time, which is usually very noisy, Fr. Adam broke the silence and said:
“Brothers, never forget this day.” We are not the same.

All Aspirants and Postulants received a 3 day Kerygmatic retreat a week later. Our lives are not the same after that. Every one received very special graces and blessings and it helped strengthen our brotherhood and trust, our zeal for the charism and i believe it deepened our prayer…it really is different. I long for union with all I have and am…on the Cross!

“Jesus tells me that in love it is Him who delights me; in pain, instead, it is I who delights Him. Now, to wish for health would be to seek the joy for me and not to alleviate Jesus. Yes, I love the cross, the cross alone; I love it because I see it on the shoulders of Jesus” -St. Padre Pio

My spiritual sister Dulce María is a young lover of Jesus, about to enter the MC contemplative sisters. The Lord, in His mercy and supreme love, granted us many graces by using as instruments and confirming both of us as spiritual children of a very special saint, which I never thought could happen, specially to someone like me, whose life has been one of skepticism and sin. (Abba Father can score Olympic goals with blown out soccer balls.) And so she became my sister in a powerful supernatural way, but in total contact with our daily life and daily vocational apostolate. Her brother’s girlfriend (17 year old) was kidnapped outside Dulce’s house 2 nights ago. The kidnappers called and said they had made a mistake, as they were seeking to take Dulce or her sister Teresa instead. They have asked for 50,000 dollars in 72 hours…instead of the 500,000 dollars they were going to ask for Dulce or Teresa. My sister came to me yesterday crying but radiant, and spoke about God’s will and the bittersweet taste of the Cross, and her deep sorrow for the girl that was taken…specially because she is the poorest of the poor…alone, a prisoner, with a price on her head, perhaps a gun to her face…and she does not know the love of God for her!!! Both families are very wealthy, although it took months for me to find that out because Dulce, her mother and her sister are such humble, simple, faithful servants of Christ. Less than 20 hours after the kidnapping Dulce and her family left Tijuana...where?…does it matter? They are safe, and praying for the girl.

The last thing we shared was a joyful praise to God in Heaven because we found ourselves in the midst of tragedy, on the cross, desiring deep union with Jesus so that we can listen closely to a dying man’s whisper of thirst and we can cry it out to the world, and return to Jesus’ pierced side to offer our prayers and sacrifices for those suffering the most…is this not why we were created…to be loved and love! Are these not the greatest commandments! They are real, they are ours…He came to give!
I do not know if I will ever see Dulce or her family again before Heaven, with the Grace of God…perhaps I will see her in a white, blue stripped sari when the Lord calls me to give a retreat in an MC contemplative house…God knows, God wills – Missionary life is like this.
And what was our last praise to the Father together and that which will always bring us to communion with the rest of our family and Body? -“May His will be done!”

Please pray for this young captive girl…I do not know her name. Say at least one decade of the Rosary for her safety and protection, and for God to move in her and her family; and for the criminals. Please stop here and pray, right now.

As Dulce was running out of the mission to meet Fr. Sbigniew, MC and her family, I said: “let me know if anything happens”…she said: “yes”…
I am so glad I have not heard from her…simply because it means that nothing has changed…God is still Lord of her life and this thirsty soul is being God’s love when the horror and sorrow of the world keeps us from listening to God in the silence of our hearts.

Praised be Jesus Christ now and forever! 2½ months before POSTULANCY!

“I have no desire except to die or to love God, either death or love, since life without this love is worse than death.” -St. Padre Pio