Brotherhood on display during papal Masses in Santiago and Havana
'We are all Cubans'
Saturday, March 31, 2012
* Ana Rodriguez Soto
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SANTIAGO - Xiomara Silva Torres had a fever and a sore throat. Her achiness caused her to cross the street and sit on the steps of the Teatro Heredia while Pope Benedict XVI finished the Mass in Antonio Maceo Plaza.
That is when she ran into the group of pilgrims from Miami, who had also sought shelter first from the heat, and later from the rain, in the promenade of the theater building. From there, they could watch and hear the Mass from afar, in relative comfort.
Silva Torres had left her native Gibara, 32 kilometers (about 19 miles) from Holguin, at 6 a.m. that morning. She traveled on one of 90 buses - with 50 people apiece - who went to the papal Mass in Santiago from throughout the Holguin diocese.
They had signed up for the trip in their parishes, and the government had worked with the Church to arrange bus transportation for all of them. They had even provided them with three snacks for the long trek to and from Santiago.
"The state supported us," Silva Torres said. "We are very grateful."
Sitting on the same steps as Silva Torres were Rose Rodriguez of St. Benedict Parish in Hialeah and her fellow pilgrim Maria de los Angeles Martinez of St. Juliana Parish in West Palm Beach.
Rodriguez was born in Miami but her father had been a Bay of Pigs veteran. "My mom knows how Christian I am and she gave me her blessing (to come), which was very important for me," she said.
Somehow, Rodriguez got to talking to some of the women who were on guard duty at the theater, which was also the place where the priests and bishops vested for the Mass.
"I had to go to the bus to look for rosaries and I started giving them out," Rodriguez said. "Two women followed me to the bus and asked me to teach them to pray. I missed part of the Mass but I was evangelizing."
Before boarding the bus that would take her back to Santiago airport and ultimately Havana, Rodriguez and the guards exchanged hugs.
Asked if she found the gesture surprising, Silva Torres replied: "We are all Cubans. We are all brothers. The most beautiful thing is brotherhood."
Less than 24 hours later, Bishop Juan de Dios Hernandez, auxiliary bishop of Havana, would welcome Miami's pilgrims to his diocesan cathedral with very similar words: "Thank you for letting us feel so closely your hand of friendship. That only happens in the Church."
"I felt very touched," said Madeleine Lucien, a native of Haiti who went on the pilgrimage with her mother, Resilia, whom Archbishop Thomas Wenski regards as his "Haitian mom."
She was referring to an encounter that she and four others experienced after the papal Mass in Havana. She was walking back from the Mass with her mother, who is in her 80s, and three others from the pilgrimage group, including Albert del Castillo, an attorney and parishioner at Our Lady of the Lakes in Miami Lakes.
Del Castillo is a Cuban-American who was making his first trip back to the island. Unfortunately, as the group walked away from the plaza about an hour after the Mass, they could not find the street corner where the buses were supposed to pick them up.
"There were buses but not our buses," said del Castillo, who told the others, all women, to stay where they were while he walked around the block to look for the right buses.
Unsuccessful in his quest, he returned and suggested they find a taxi. One fellow nearby offered to take them but his taxi was of the pedal variety - a bicycle pulling a two-seat carriage.
"We needed something motorized," del Castillo said. So he walked up to a couple of civilians who were standing in front of a group of city buses, explained the group's situation and asked where he could hail a taxi.
The gentleman left for a few minutes and then returned with some instructions: "Take that bus over there."
It was a city bus, del Castillo said. "No one else is on the bus but us five and that bus takes us all the way to the restaurant" where the pilgrims were meeting for lunch.
"There were people all over the place, police all over the place, other buses all over the place. How this guy got this bus for us I have no idea," del Castillo added.
And when he tried to tip him as a way of thanking him for his kindness, the good Samaritan refused to accept it. "Your thanks are all I need," he said.
