Return to Cuba: A trail of faith
Monday, September 28, 2015
* Ana Rodriguez Soto
Photographer: COURTESY | Mary Soto
Me outside the church of Jesus de Miramar in Havana, where I was baptized.
When Cubans talk about the things they left behind on the island, most — especially those from the first waves of exile — will tell you of homes and land, perhaps a business. It dawned on me this month, however, that what my parents left behind was a trail of faith.
I traveled to Cuba Sept. 18-21 along with nearly 200 other archdiocesan pilgrims — incredibly, my fourth trip to the island since 1998, and the third since 2011. I never imagined I would return so many times after leaving for Spain as a 2-year-old toddler, along with my parents and 1-year-old sister.
But three popes have visited Cuba since St. John Paul II made the first historic trip there in 1998, and I have been privileged to cover each of their visits for the archdiocesan newspaper.
The 2011 trip did not involve a pope but proved quite special: It was a pilgrimage, from Havana to Santiago, with Archbishop Thomas Wenski and the Cuban Association of the Order of Malta. Along the way we stopped at churches where the Knights’ donations help provide food to the elderly.
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
My daughter and I posing in front of a gorgeous Cuban sunset - the one thing that was truly taken away from my parents when they left the island.
On this my fourth trip, I had the privilege of being accompanied by my daughter, an ABC — that is, an American Born Cuban, as we found out from the press conducting interviews at Miami International Airport.
We didn’t know there was such a thing (or person, I guess) but upon reflection the term really does apply: Like many others her age, my daughter grew up in Miami “feeling” her Cuban roots even though she had never set foot on the island; with parents who barely remembered their homeland but never forgot their exile.
The fact that she wasn’t the only “ABC” on this trip proves that Cuban roots run much deeper than café cubano and frijoles negros.
My daughter wanted to go to Cuba to visit the places she had heard about in her grandmother’s tales of family history. The ideal, of course, would have been for my mother/her grandmother to go with us — and she would have if she had been physically able. But walking is difficult at 85, and just getting on and off the bus would have proved a painful daily challenge.
Which means that we had to rely on her road map — written out and emailed beforehand — to take us where we wanted to go. I realized later that the “pins” on that road map were not merely places — she only lived in one house in El Vedado until she got married — but a sacramental story of her life:
- las Catalinas, the church and cloister across the street from the humble rented house where she was born and grew up, the place where she “crossed the street and went to Mass” each morning;
- San Juan de Letran, the church where she and my dad got married;
- la iglesia del Carmen, where her parents (my grandparents) got married and she was baptized;
- and of course Jesus de Miramar, where my sister and I were baptized and where, by sheer coincidence, Archbishop Thomas Wenski celebrated Mass Sept. 19 for the archdiocesan pilgrims.
My mother also listed, as places to go, Havana’s cathedral, the parish of El Vedado, the churches of La Merced and San Francisco in Old Havana and the church of San Angel in central Havana.
All these stops she laid before us in a route fashioned from memory: “Leaving the Plaza de la Revolución try to head toward el malecón via Paseo, turn right at Calle 25 … then take Calle 23 to Calle G (Ave de los Presidentes) and turning right …”
Yes, she also mentioned the movie theater (formerly Radio Centro, now Yara), the Havana Hilton (now Habana Libre) and the University of Havana, “the places I frequented in my youth.”
But the vast majority of the stops were churches, because her youth had revolved around her faith and her involvement with la Juventud Catolica (Catholic Action’s youth movement).
It was that faith that sustained her, my dad and grandparents through the hardships of exile, initially in Spain and then in the U.S. It was that faith they passed on to us, sacrificing things — new furniture, new cars — to send all three of us (my brother was born in Spain) to Catholic schools. It was that faith I hope to have passed on to my children.
So in a way it is fitting — in that God-incidence sort of way — that all my trips to Cuba have been prompted by journeys of faith: the visits of three popes, the tour with the Knights of Malta.
No, my parents lost no real estate in Cuba. The only thing they lost to exile were the gorgeous sunsets off Havana’s Malecon and the incomparable blue of Cuba’s waters.
They brought along their memories and handed them down even to the third generation. They kept their faith and passed it on as well. And from early on they taught us a most important lesson: material possessions can be taken away but memories and faith sustain you forever.
Photographer: ROCÍO GRANADOS | LVC
My daughter and I stop for a photo in front of the plane after our arrival in Havana Sept. 18.
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