By Father Cireneo Matulac SSC

Father Cireneo is a recently ordained Columban priest.  He spent two years in Chile as part of his first missionary assignment.  Below he shares with us a story of a little girl he came to know in a barrio in Chile.

It was the beginning of fall in southern Chile.  I was visiting families I knew in Puerto Saavedra, especially those of the children I’d taught catechism a few months previously.  While walking from house to house in the barrio, I recognized this little girl of about seven from my catechism class.  She recognized me too and greeted me.  She welcomed me into her home, a small shack, which I hadn’t visited before.  It was fortunate that I came then because I was looking for shelter from the cold rain that was beginning to pour down.

At the center the fire was lit.  I sat in the corner trying to warm myself.  The cold wind entered through the gaps in the wooden wall.  There was no wooden floor.  The floor was of hardened soil.  In another room I saw a big bed in which, I reckoned, the whole family slept.

Walk-in visitor

The girl asked me, ‘Would you like some mate (pronounced ‘ma the’)?’  This is a kind of tea which is a very common hot drink in the cold climate of southern Chile.  But I wasn’t sure if I should accept her hospitality, so I kept quiet.  The cold wind went deeper into my bones.  My little friend looked at me and smiled.  She put the kettle on.  I was a little embarrassed to be served by a seven-year-old girl from my catechism class.  I offered to help her boil the water but she refused.  Afterwards, while I was drinking the tea, two small boys rushed in.  I reckoned they were aged about three and five.

The girl said to them, ‘Where were you?  Look at yourselves.  You’re so wet.’  It was still raining outside.  She reached out for an old but clean towel and dried their hair.  I could tell she was fond of them.  I had never met them before.  They never came to my class.

Then she told me, ‘these are my two brothers, Pedrito and Jose.  I take care of them when my mama is away.  But they are always running around in the field.’

The two boys sat beside me while they were also served mate by their sister.  They were looking at me, smiling, and said ‘Chinito,’ ‘Chinese.’  I thought to myself, ‘They’ve never seen a “Chinese” man before who’s a pure Filipino,’ and laughed.  They laughed too.  I asked them, ‘Where is your mama?  They replied in chorus, ‘She’s helping with the harvest.’  I thought it wasn’t such a bad idea to wait for a while for her as we’d met before.  I also knew that her husband had left her and their three children and was living with another woman.  This is a common reality in rural Chile.  The mother has to work alone to raise the children.

Farming in Chile

This encounter took place when I was on my first missionary assignment as a student.  Part of the Columban formation program is a missionary experience outside the home country.  I was in Chile for about two years.  In the south, the rains start around February or March after the beautiful and windy summer.  Fall also brings the cold front from the south.  We’re close to the Antartic and it gets very cold, especially during the winter.  So, the farmers were in a hurry to harvest their crop, especially the wheat.  Harvest is the busiest time in the life of this farming community.  In the fall farmers begin to prepare for the next planting season.  When winter comes, it’s time for them to wait.  It rains all the time during fall and winter in that part of Chile.

Winter was the time when I taught the children catechism in the small grade school in the barrio.

The last time I met the children was during the celebration of the ‘Mes de Maria,’ ‘Month of Mary.’  There’s a great devotion to the Mother of God in the parish.  It’s a whole month of prayer and Marian devotion, especially the Rosary.  Memories came back to me as I looked at the three children inside the small shack.

Her young dream

In that first day of class when we read the Annunciation story from St Luke’s gospel, I asked them, ‘What do you think of this story, especially about Mary?’  It was this small girl who said, ‘The mother of Jesus was from a small barrio like ours.  She was a poor young woman chosen by God.’  She spoke with the deep faith she had already learned at home.  I recognized immediately that she was precocious.  Her words gave an air of maturity.  At a very young age she already shared the responsibility of raising her two younger brothers.  She told me that Jesus was like her smallest brother, and that when she grew up, she would like to be Maria, the chosen one.

While I was looking at the youngest boy, I realized the power of this story for these children, especially for this little girl.  It was in this particular encounter that I met Jesus.  God is with us.  He raises the lowly.

The Chosen One

I was brought back to the Annunciation scene.  Jesus was conceived in that most insignificant village in Galilee.  It is through Mary that God has chosen to be a participant in God’s plan for the salvation of the world.  To a simple woman the angel Gabriel said, ‘Greetings, most favored one!  The Lord is with you.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High.’

Artists like Fra Angelico painted the Annunciation scene beautifully, portraying Mary as a very young woman in a posture that conveys total submission to the will of God.  ‘I am the Lord’s servant, may it be as you have said.’ According to Scripture scholar Francis Mononey, ‘Mary is a woman who is radically open to the mysterious ways of God in her life . . . She has come face to face with the unfathomable mystery of God that has come to work within her. . . This encounter tells us in a very profound way of the transforming power of a great and loving God who can raise the lowly.’

Story of the Shack

The lowly, the poor, the three children around the fire in a small cold shack, are raised up by God.  I too was face to face with a God who stands with the lowly.  I felt a profound sense of humility when I realized that I was confronted with this great mystery.

I didn’t notice that the rain had stopped.  I must have sat there a long time talking with the children.  The girl said, ‘Mama will be here shortly.’

After a while she arrived and was happy to see me.  She told me how difficult it is to harvest the wheat when it’s already raining.  We chatter for a while.  I was very grateful for her friendship.  It was already getting dark and time for me to leave.  I invited her to send her children to the next catechism class.  She said ‘yes.’  She also thanked me that I had taken time to be with the children in the barrio.

I left then with certainty that God is always with them.  God dwells in that small shack warming Herself by that small fire that burns tenaciously.