BYM Day One: Stouthearted
(Father Guillermo M. García-Tuñón, S.J. is leading the 2019 Belen Youth Missions to the village of Vaca Gorda in the Dominican Republic.)
The morning before we left on our mission to the Dominican Republic, I felt the desire to go to confession. Living at the Jesuit Hilton gives me access to 13 other priests so there’s no excuse for not going.
Confession is a tough sacrament for many. Humbling yourself to recognize your sins and then mustering the courage to say them freely to another person is not easy, even for a priest. But the desire to receive the grace in the sacrament is a grace itself. It is God who calls you to it.
I found Fr. Maza in the community library reading the paper and jumped at the opportunity to ask him to exercise his priestly ministry. It was appropriate that it was him. He had concelebrated with me the night before at the commissioning mass and had spoken to the boys and their families about the Dominican Republic and the work we would be doing. Although Fr. Maza has spent a year with us at Belen, he’s actually on loan to Belen. His work has been for many years in the DR as a professor at the Catholic university in Santiago.
After spilling my guts, he shared some thoughts and for penance gave me to Psalm 27 to pray. I read it on the ride to the airport. It reads, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear The LORD is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid (v. 1)? And concludes by saying, “Wait for the LORD, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the LORD” (v. 14).
Little did I know then how handy those words would serve me on the first day of the mission.
Everything went wrong. Our flight was delayed three times, our gate changed twice, our plane changed once. When we finally arrived in Santiago four hours later than originally planned, we realized we couldn’t make the three-hour drive to the village of Vaca Gorda on the border with Haiti. It took us over an hour to get through customs. As if that were not enough, the container that we sent over a month ago with all of our supplies was still stuck in customs in the capital.
There we were, 72 people with no clothes, no food, no place to stay, and in a foreign country. And yet the psalm kept ringing in my ears, “whom should I fear... take courage.”
As I write these words late in the evening of the first night, there are 71 people sleeping in beds at the Jesuit mission in Santiago with bellies full of Domino’s Pizza and chicken wings. Tomorrow, we make a quick run for supplies at La Sirena, the Dominican version of Walmart, and then it’s off to Vaca Gorda. “Though an army encamp against me, I shall not fear” (v. 3). The bridge will get built, the mission will be completed.
Today was a reminder that we have it all too easy back home. With the click of a button and in the blink of an Amazon Prime eye, we have it all; delivered on our front doorstep. We get lazy and comfortable. But that’s not how the vast majority of the world does it. The poor struggle, they go hungry, unattended and unheard. They don’t have buttons to click or Amazon Prime eyes to blink or front doorstep deliveries.
In the midst of the inconvenience and struggle, today was a day of grace, to trust in the Lord, to take courage and not fear. Today was the first day of our mission and we will be stouthearted and wait for the Lord.
Auspice Maria,
Fr. Willie ‘87
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba, by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the school's property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit is situated on a 34-acre site in western Dade County, just minutes away from downtown Miami.