Home Matters

Home

School Rules

The Quality Of Mercy

Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Friday, May 20, 2011 10:33 AM

A neighbor passed along a prayer request from a college classmate.

That’s not so unusual, except that this request is from a mom on behalf of the gang members who killed her son while on a cocaine bender.

Read this: I think you’ll be moved.

On May 14th three years ago, this young woman endured a mom’s nightmare:

I was walking to the store pulling my two and a half year old son in a wagon, carrying my four-month-old infant in a baby carrier. At about 2:15 on a Wednesday afternoon, a couple of known gangsters were joyriding through the school zone I was walking through. The man at the wheel, Roberto Villanueva, two weeks out of prison on parole (and unlicensed) was high on cocaine. The owner of the pickup truck, Albert Garcia, was in the passenger seat drinking Jack Daniels from the bottle. Cindy Nunez, a mutual friend, was in the back seat. Horseplay in the front caused the truck to jump the curb, striking Charles’ wagon and killing him pretty much instantly. The driver regained control and sped away.

That’s her story. Now here is the story of the three defendants.

Later on, Albert Garcia pleaded guilty (against the advice of his attorney) to various charges, and asked for full sentencing - he was the one most responsible for the accident. He is serving the third year of his 20-year sentence. Roberto Villanueva, a previous offender, negotiated a little more, but did eventually plead guilty to various charges, and was sentenced to seven years. According to his attorney at the time of sentencing, he has reconnected with his Catholic faith while in prison, and has requested Masses to be said for our family on the anniversary. Cindy Nunez, I don’t know about, but her daughter came to Charles’ visitation and abjectly apologized - their family is very broken.

Here comes the part that’s so moving.

So here is what I want. The anniversary is TAC Graduation Day, and most of you will be busy. So on Friday, May 13, I’ll be at the Santa Paula cemetery with my children, at 3pm, praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet for those three poor children of God. When people tell me they are praying for me, I appreciate it very much, and I know that it is the only thing pulling me through. But I am entirely wrapped in love and grace, surrounded by friends and family, supported by strangers and strengthened by the sacraments. These three people are vilified, tormented by guilt, and in probably the last place on earth where they can find comfort. They need your prayers.

Christ said “Today I am sending you with My message of mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my Merciful Heart.”

Come to the cemetery and join me in prayer, if you like, or if you can’t be there, pray wherever you are. If you don’t have time for the whole chaplet, pray this prayer: “O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus, as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.”

I’m not tagging or targeting anyone in this note. I would like as many people to know about it as possible, because I want as many prayers offered for their conversion and peace as possible, but I don’t want to hold myself up as a model of anything at all. Share it with anyone that you think would like to know about it - share this note on your facebook profile, send it to your e-mail list, whatever you like. But please pray for this dear intention of mine.

Isn’t that lovely? “The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain of heaven upon the place beneath,” as Shakespeare put it, “It is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” 

Maybe three times, because I feel blessed contemplating this example!

How often in the terrible and inscrutable mercy of God he binds us through sin and tragedy to people we’d have otherwise never heard of nor cared about. Perhaps he allows these things in part so that the wicked, too, will have someone to love and pray for them. These three needy souls have a powerful intercessor in the person of the mom they so wronged. I like to think of them—all of them—gathered together in heaven, every tear wiped away, the killers embracing the son who is not dead but lives, together with the mother who turned a grievous wrong into something beautiful. In some strange way perhaps they will all some day rejoice over this present suffering,

I have been pondering, along the lines of Christians being linked to people through sorrows and evils, our learning of the death of bin Laden on Mercy Sunday. A necessary thing, and a catharsis for men and women everywhere under the thumb of the terrible ideology he championed.

I can’t help but think, however, that it was the intercession of Bl. John Paul II that arranged the timing…so that our generation could never again approach Mercy Sunday without thinking of him, and praying for his soul and the conversion of all in the grips of that ugly and inhumane creed.

 Print Blog   Email a Friend   

Post a Comment

By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.

Home Matters

Home

School Rules