Santa Clara University

Recently, my father came to visit me from the United States. We spent one morning in a Christian base
community called El Pueblo de Dios en Camino (The people of God on the way). I wrote a little poem
about the experience we had during a celebration of the word.

Accompaniment

El Pueblo de Dios en Camino. Celebration of the word.

Stifling, hot, immovable air,

provided by the Holy Mystery. Dispersed through the homily

shared by all.

Incomprehensible to my father.

No holy sacrament, no body or blood of the Christ.

Crisis. Salvation at stake?! Wait,

back to translating.

So much beauty lost in the process.

Beauty, like language, cannot be caged.

Only know, father, that they ask

about your dying mother.

They welcome you. Open arms. Common theme.

Accompaniment enters my mind. Wait.

What does it look like now? How can we accompany these people?

Wrong question. What can we do

to open our hearts to be accompanied?

Two way street.

To love others, one must first love herself.

To accompany, one must be accompanied.

I came to accompany, but was accompanied;

my father the same, with his faith, his mother.

To fully live, you must give yourself away to others,

fully.