OCR Text |
Show SliVIPLE FAITH With the Mexicans and Half Castes Edifying Edi-fying Spectacles Prayer Answered The Wailing Woman Worse Than the Gleaming Cow Effects of Her Chilling Breath Rebuilding a Church Destroyed by Tornado Padre, as Hodman, Leads the Socialistic Community An Object Lesson Recalling "The Ages of Faith" True Honesty Exemplified. (Special Cor. Intermountain Catholic.) (Copyrighted.) The morning I left Santa Cruz for the historic town of Loretto went to assist at mass in the only church in the village. It was as early as o'clock and I was surprised and edified to see the number of Mexicans and Mexican hald-bloods who were waiting wait-ing for the service to begin. After mass, as I was passing and repassing, examining the windows and other peculiarities of the architecture, I was struck with the singular appearance of a half-breed woman wo-man who was kneeling by one of the pillars, with a number of children also kneeling beside her; a group like which we see carved in marble on some of the ancient tombs of Europe. While I was examining ex-amining from a respectful distance their features and facial expressions, the Mexican priest who had offered up the Holy Sacrifice came out from the sanctuaryand in a subdued voice bade me good morning. After an interchange of courtesies asked him, "What the woman was doing there with her children V He answered just as if it Avas an 'evdry dayOcctrrrcncerSdin poor wum'a ft," T"s Up- " pose, who has something to ask of God." Then j observing the group more closely he recognized the I woman, and turning to me said: "She is the wife of a Mason who was hurt by a fall two or three days ago, the family is quite destitute and no doubt they have come to ask help of God." Without in- ' j terrupting her devotions, I laid down by the base of the pillar what was a trifle to me, but a god- f send to her ami her family; upon which, without thanking me except by a courteous inclination of the head, she went up to the high altar, followed by her children to return thanks to God. Now all this might be very ignorant religion to an American Ameri-can Protestant, but to me it was true religion, and what was more an example of sincere fai th. She trusted that God would supply what she wanted, she knew what he had said about his house being ; the house of prayer and she came to that house in faith to askdiim for help in her troubles; and when she got what she wanted she evidently believed that her prayer had been heard, and therefore did not thank me, whom she considered merely the in- j strument, but God who had scut me. ! THE WAILING WOMAN. ! My companion and guide from the town of j Jesus Maria was a quiet, honest representative of s the Mexican half-breeds to be met with in almost every village of this peninsula. "Tell me, Ignaeio," I said to him in a solemn I tone, late in the evening when we were coming out of an ugly ravine, "tell me of this La Llorona wh haunts the mountain paths and the lonely road leading to the towns; is she worse than the Vaca de lumbre, the gleaming cow, that at midnight suddenly sud-denly appears on the Plaza del Iglesia and after a moment's pause bounds forward, and with streams of fire and flame flowing from her eyes and nos trils, rushes like a blazing whirlwind through the village." "Ah, senor, she is worse, indeed she is worse than the fiery cow, for it 13 known to everybody that while the vaca is terrible to look at, and on a dark night it is awful, she never does harm to anyone. any-one. The little children, too, are all in bed and asleep, when the Vaca de lumbre appears, and it is only us grown people that see her and that not often. of-ten. But the weeping woman indeed is harmful; it is well, senor, that we all know her when she appears, and we are so afraid of her that no one will say yes or no to her when she specks, and it is well. Many queer thing3 and many evil spirits, it is known to us all, are around at night and they are angry when on dark nights there is thunder S and rain and lightning, but the Wailing Woman is the worst of all of them, some times, sir, she is out .of her' head and is running, her hair streaming af- ter her and she is tossing her hands above her head I and shrieking the names of her lost children Rita f and Anita. , But when you meet her some other j time she looks like an honest woman, only differ- I ent, for her dress is white and the reboso with which she covers her head is white, too. Indeed, (Continued on page 5.) f SIMPLE FAITH. (Continued from Page 1.) anybody might speak back to her then and offer to help her to find her children, but whoever does speak to her drops dead. Yes, indeed, sir, only one man, Diego Boula, who years afterward died in his bed, was the only one who ever answered her and lived. Diego, you must know was a loco, a fool,, nnd he met her one night when he was crossing the Plazuela San Pablo. She asked him what he t 1' j. -. ." ' - .....i.,, ...iWTiJMi.....i.iM ! did with Rita and Anita. And he said he wanted something to eat, for he was always hungry, this I Diego. Then she took a good look at him and then threw back her white reboso and Diego saw a wormy, grinning skull, and blue little balls of fire for eyes. Then she brought her skull near to his face and opened her rleshless jaws and blew into Diego's face a breath so icy cold that he dropped down like a dead man. But, senor, a fool's luck saved him and when he was found in the morning, he was recovering. It is said that this ice cold breath of hers, freezes into death who ever feels, it. Then after the person falls dead, she rushes onward again, shrieking for her lost ones, but the one who speaks to her is found the next morning dead, and on his face and in his wide open eyes there is a look of awful horror. Did I ever meet her? God forbid, but I heard her shrieks and wail-ings wail-ings and the patter of her feet, as she ran, oii the cobblestones of the Calle de San Esteban. PRIEST AXD HODMAN. As we drew near to the inland village where I intended to put up for the night the country bore all the appearance of having lately been swept bv a tornado of wind and rain. A swirling mass of water must have swept over the lowlands, for rocks, trees and bowlders lay everywhere in confusion and encumbered the roads. Many of the fruit trees were uprooted, houses unroofed and outbuildings dismantled. Sure enough when we entered the town it bore all the marks of cyclonic wrath. With difficulty dif-ficulty we obtained accommodations for the night. When I strolled out early next morning to take a look at the town and the damage done by the storm, the entire population apparently, men, women wo-men and children were gathered around their church which had been blown down by the cyclone. Some, were chipping stones, some carrying lime. sor..e mixing mortar, some pulling down the shaken walls, some splitting shingles for the roof, somo strengthening the spiung beams. Everybody was . busy about the church and, seemingly, not one was engaged about any of the houses. A sudden shower drove me into a protected part of the building for shelter, and I got into conversation with a man who turned out to be the priest, but not being quite as j good a bricklayer, as he was a theologian, he was then serving as hodman to his own clerk, or sexton, . the mason of the village. Not knowing at the time-that time-that I was addressing the cura or parish priest, I asked him how all these people were paid. "Paid?" said the reverend hodman, "why, they all belong to this parish." "Yes," I. replied, "but how are they paid? I mean," continued I, hesitating and turning over in my mind what was Spanish for church rates or dues, "how do you raise the money to pay1 all these people their day's wages?" The hodcarrier laughed. "Why," he spoke back, and I now from his face and accent began to suspect sus-pect he was somebody, "why, you do not pay people peo-ple for doing their own work. It is the house of God, their own church which they are repairing. It is mine, it is theirs, it is their children's. Until the church is ready we have no place to assemble-to assemble-to pray to God and publicly to offer up to him the holy sacrifice. There will be no work done by us till we have repaired God's - temple, our own church." Who was it who wrote: "O, for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of the voice that is still." And 0 for the simple piety and child-like faith of the days of old. In the presence of this example of rugged faith and zeal for the house of God on the part of this priest and his flock I called back to my mind the ages of faith and the sublime heroism and devotion of the early Christians. Beyond a doubt the church was theirs. Xot a day did these simple people go to their work till they had assisted at the. mass offered up by the j priest who was now, as a hodman, helping in the rebuilding of their temple. . Not a time did any of them start out on a long journey without first receiving re-ceiving holy communion from the hands of this-man this-man of God. Yes, and many a time', too, when j sickness entered the home or when trouble came j to some one of the family, might you sec an anx-; ious wife or trembling mother kneeling before the j tabernacle, who had stolen' away from the noise J and distractions of home, and had come unto the altar of God to pray for herself and her loved ones, j To these honest souls their church was as neccs- j sary as their sleeping rooms or their kitchens and was used as much. When it was blown down they I felt the want of it as much as they did that of their own houses. The church was always open and they came and went when and as often as they liked. Surely it was their church and they made good use of it. I remember well the day I came down from the Sieretta mountains and was passing on foot through the little city of Aguas Coloradas, the church of which was well worth seeing. I had my camera and field glasses hanging from my shoulders, should-ers, some few samples in a canvas bag, was wearing wear-ing a suit of rough kahaki and was not altogether the figure for the inside of a church. ."What shall I do with these things?" I said 1-my. 1-my. guide. "Put them down here on the church steps," sail! he. . Now these church steps projected into the market mar-ket place, which at that time was full of all sorts j of rough-looking people. I laughed and said, "i t had much rather not put such a temptation in the way of Mexican honesty." ; "Well," answered my guide, "there is no doubt that the people of Aguas Coloradas are the great- j est rogues unhung" (he belonged himself to a ! neighboring parish, and like all members of little ( communities was narrow enough to be jealous of his neighbor's prosperity), "your excellency is perfectly per-fectly right, they are the greatest rogues unhung. But they are not so bad as to steal from God." 1 put my things on the steps and after the lapse of an hour I found them, and alon with them some i ' ' eight or ten baskets of fruit and vegetables, which the market people had left there while they went to say their prayers, all of which though looking very tempting, though entirely unguarded, except by the unseen presence of God were as safe as if they had been under lock and key. Is there a church in any city of America whose sanctity would protect day and night articles left exposed befon-its befon-its door? If not, why not? Lorctto. L. C. |