From Station Leader Mary Ann:

“Who are you and What are you about?” A young man cheerfully questioned Raquel and me. We cheerfully responded, “We’re Catholic and we are about Jesus and His Gospel. What about You?” This was the start of an extended beautiful encounter. He said he was a Christian and that he did not need a church. He simply talked to God Himself. His mom was a Catholic. Eyeing the rosaries, we asked if he would like one, that they are free. “I don’t idolize Mary or anyone”, he was quick to respond. We explained that it was Jesus Himself who gave us His Mother while He was on the Cross, that she always leads us to her Son, Jesus, that Catholics do not idolize Mary but we honor her as our spiritual Mother and ask for her intercession and that the rosary is the scripture-based story of the lives of Jesus and Mary, which is so powerful to meditate upon. We continued to speak to him about the awesome Gift that Jesus gave to us at the Last Supper, the Gift of Himself, Holy Communion, the Spiritual Food for our soul. We spoke also of Jesus’s words to His Apostles “Go out and proclaim the Gospel to all the world”, thus commissioning His Church. In the end we prayed with this young man and he ended up taking two rosaries and multiple pamphlets including “Why Be Catholic”.

We spoke to a man who was not practicing his Catholic faith but was anxious to come back to it. He had just become a father and in his words,” wanted to raise his new son up right”. He listened intently as we spoke of confession and how wonderful this Sacrament is, that it might be scary at first but that he would be so joyful after going. We spoke of Holy Communion. He took a rosary and pamphlets on Confession, the Eucharist and the Rosary.

We engaged a woman who was sitting on the bench, not very talkative and who did not want a rosary or pamphlets. She said she was having a difficult time. We prayed with her saying that Jesus loves her and died on the Cross for her, rose from the dead and desires eternal life for her in heaven. After the prayer her whole demeanor lightened and she smiled and thanked us. She seemed more hopeful.

We spoke to a man from San Salvador who did not have time to pray or go to Church. We spoke and prayed about our need to worship God and to thank Him for all of our blessings, to ask forgiveness for all our sins, and to ask for His guidance everyday of our lives, and that we can say a prayer when we first awake in the morning and when we go to sleep, a little meal prayer, a little prayer like … “Lord, help me” or “Thank you Lord” or “Lord, I need You”.

We spoke and prayed with a man who is having surgery this week, to another who wanted the Mysteries of the Rosary, to a woman who just had a baby, and to an atheist who did not believe in all this…as he hopped on his bus. To him we smiled and said, “we will pray for you”.