Yessenia gathers her children over atole and tells the story of Saint Juan Diego — the humble indígena of Tepeyac, the Castilian roses gathered in winter, the image left upon the tilma. And while she hands her children a faith older than the new country, across the fence a quieter house keeps the same day behind a closed door.
1 The church was behind them by afternoon, and the house had them again. On the little shelf above the stove the candle Yessenia had lit before Mass was still burning — low now, having kept the house while the house was away — and the pot of atole she set beside it breathed a sweet steam of corn and cinnamon into the kitchen, a warm invitation to gather close and listen.
2 Elisa knelt backward on a kitchen chair with her chin on the sill, watching out the window the way the very small watch everything — closely, and without yet knowing what it is they are seeing.
3 Next door the quiet house had come awake in its own quiet way. The family there filed out their front door one behind another in their good Sunday clothes — the father first, then the rest — and crowded themselves, without a word, into the old station wagon at the curb.
4 The doors shut, one and then the next, with that heavy, final sound that good doors make. The engine turned. The station wagon pulled away up the street, and where it went on Sundays no one on the Resena side of the fence had ever been told. They knew only the going — and, later, the coming back.
5 “Ven, mija — el atole.” Yessenia's voice drew Elisa down off the chair. (“Come, my girl — the atole.”)
6 The family gathered around the worn kitchen table, the steam rising between them, and for the length of a breath the loud house was as hushed as the quiet one across the fence.
7 “Mamá,” Javier asked, his eyes wide with curiosity, “cuéntanos la historia de un santo mexicano. ¿Hay algún santo que sea de aquí, de México?” (“Mom, tell us the story of a Mexican saint. Is there a saint who is from here, from Mexico?”)
8 Yessenia smiled, her heart swelling with pride for her heritage and her faith. “Claro que sí, mi amor,” she replied, her voice a gentle melody. “Tenemos muchos santos mexicanos — hombres y mujeres de gran fe que dedicaron sus vidas a Dios.” (“Of course, my love. We have many Mexican saints — men and women of great faith who gave their lives to God.”)
9 She let her gaze sweep over their eager faces, and her voice took on the old storyteller's cadence — the one her own mother had used, the one that could turn a kitchen into a hillside.
10 “San Juan Diego,” she began, her voice filled with reverence, “fue un indígena humilde y piadoso que vivió en México en el siglo XVI.” (“Saint Juan Diego was a humble and pious indigenous man who lived in Mexico in the sixteenth century.”)
11 “Un día, mientras caminaba por el cerro del Tepeyac, se le apareció la Virgen María, nuestra Madre Santísima. Le pidió que fuera a ver al obispo y le dijera que quería que se construyera una iglesia en ese lugar.” (“One day, as he walked on the hill of Tepeyac, the Virgin Mary, our Most Holy Mother, appeared to him. She asked him to go to the bishop and tell him she wished a church to be built in that place.”)
12 “Juan Diego, obediente, fue a ver al obispo — pero éste no le creyó.” She said it plainly, the way disappointment is plain. (“Juan Diego, obedient, went to see the bishop — but the bishop did not believe him.”)
13 “La Virgen se le apareció de nuevo y le pidió que volviera. Juan Diego, con humildad y perseverancia, volvió ante el obispo, y esta vez el obispo le pidió una señal — una prueba de que la historia era verdad.” (“The Virgin appeared to him again and asked him to go back. Juan Diego, with humility and perseverance, returned to the bishop, and this time the bishop demanded a sign — proof that the story was true.”)
14 “Entonces la Virgen le dijo que subiera al cerro y recogiera unas rosas que encontraría allí.” Here Yessenia lowered her voice, as though the cold of that hill had come into the room. “Era invierno, hijos. En esa época no crecían rosas en el cerro.” (“Then the Virgin told him to climb the hill and gather some roses he would find there. It was winter, children. At that time of year no roses grew on the hill.”)
15 “Pero Juan Diego, confiando en la Virgen, obedeció. Y al llegar a la cima encontró un rosal lleno de hermosas rosas de Castilla, floreciendo donde nada debía florecer.” (“But Juan Diego, trusting the Virgin, obeyed. And when he reached the top he found a rosebush full of beautiful Castilian roses, blooming where nothing should bloom.”)
16 “Cortó las rosas y las guardó en su tilma — una manta sencilla, de las que usaban los indígenas.” Yessenia gathered the front of her apron in both hands, as if cradling something into it. (“He cut the roses and kept them in his tilma — a simple cloak, of the kind the indigenous people wore.”)
17 “Y cuando se presentó ante el obispo y abrió su tilma, las rosas cayeron al suelo —” she opened her hands above the table, and four pairs of eyes followed them down “— y en la tela apareció, milagrosamente, la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe.” (“And when he stood before the bishop and opened his tilma, the roses spilled to the floor — and on the cloth there appeared, miraculously, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.”)
18 “El obispo, conmovido, cayó de rodillas. Creyó. Y mandó construir la iglesia en el cerro del Tepeyac, tal como la Virgen lo había pedido.” (“The bishop, moved, fell to his knees. He believed. And he ordered the church built on the hill of Tepeyac, just as the Virgin had asked.”)
19 “Y así,” Yessenia finished softly, “la Virgen de Guadalupe se convirtió en símbolo de fe y de esperanza para todo el pueblo mexicano — su imagen un recordatorio del amor de Dios y de la protección de nuestra Madre.” (“And so the Virgin of Guadalupe became a symbol of faith and hope for all the Mexican people — her image a reminder of God's love and of our Mother's protection.”)
20 “¡Qué historia tan increíble, mamá!” Javier breathed, his young heart caught up in the hill, the cold, the impossible roses. (“What an incredible story, Mom!”)
21 “Es una historia que nos llena de orgullo,” Yadira said, more quietly, “y nos recuerda la importancia de la fe y la obediencia.” Yet even as she spoke, her fingers had wandered up to a strand of her hair and begun to wind it. (“It's a story that fills us with pride, and reminds us of the importance of faith and obedience.”)
22 “Yadira.” The single word, firm but not unkind. “Deja el cabello. Presta atención.” The girl's hand dropped; her cheeks warmed; and the loud house's one law — that nothing be done in silence — bent, for once, around the table. (“Leave the hair. Pay attention.”)
23 “What the story teaches us,” Yessenia went on, drawing them back, “es que Dios escucha. Que escoge a los humildes. Que la fe puede mover montañas — y hacer florecer rosas en pleno invierno.” (“…is that God listens. That He chooses the humble. That faith can move mountains — and make roses bloom in the dead of winter.”)
24 Then her eyes took on a mischievous glint, and her voice dropped to the register a kitchen keeps for secrets. “Ahora — les voy a contar algo que no todos saben sobre San Juan Diego.” (“Now — I am going to tell you something not everyone knows about Saint Juan Diego.”)
25 The children leaned in. “¿Sabían,” she whispered, “que Juan Diego era un bailarín?” (“Did you know that Juan Diego was a dancer?”)
26 “¡Un bailarín!” Javier said, scandalized and delighted at once, as though sainthood and dancing were two things that could not be made to share one man. (“A dancer!”)
27 “Sí. Antes de la Virgen, era conocido por bailar las danzas de su pueblo. Decían que sus pies apenas tocaban el suelo — que parecía un pájaro en vuelo.” (“Yes. Before the Virgin, he was known for dancing the dances of his people. They said his feet barely touched the ground — that he looked like a bird in flight.”)
28 “Pero cuando la Virgen le encomendó su misión, dejó la danza a un lado para cumplir, por completo, la voluntad de Dios.” She let that settle. “A veces, hijos, hay que dejar atrás hasta lo que más amamos para seguir el camino que Dios nos marca.” (“But when the Virgin entrusted him with his mission, he set the dancing aside to do, fully, the will of God. Sometimes, children, we must leave behind even what we love most, to follow the path God has laid out for us.”)
29 Elisa weighed this with great seriousness. “¿Entonces ya no bailó nunca?” she asked — and the table laughed, because it was exactly the question the small are right to ask. (“So then he never danced again?”)
30 “Quién sabe, mija,” her mother said, still smiling. “Tal vez bailó para la Virgen.” (“Who knows, my girl. Perhaps he danced for the Virgin.”)
31 When the atole had gone low in the cups, Yessenia rose and went to the little shelf above the stove — the altarcito — where Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe stood in her chipped frame: the same starry mantle, the same downcast and loving face, keeping watch over the pots.
32 She trimmed the candle so it would last the afternoon, and crossed herself, and said the words she said over every plan and every leaving and every small hope in that house — “Primero Dios.” The children repeated them after her, even Elisa, who did not yet know all that they carried. (“God first.”)
33 “Esa imagen,” she told them, nodding at the frame, “es la misma que quedó en la tilma de Juan Diego. La cargamos desde México. Y mientras esté sobre esta estufa, esta casa no está sola.” (“That image is the same one left upon Juan Diego's tilma. We carried it with us from Mexico. And as long as it stands over this stove, this house is never alone.”)
34 Outside, the light had gone long and gold across the kitchen floor. Elisa, drawn back to her window as the small always are, said, “Mamá — ya volvieron.” (“Mom — they're back.”)
35 And they had. The old station wagon stood again at the curb next door, and the quiet family climbed down out of it the way they had climbed in — the father first, then the rest, unhurried, in their good clothes — and went in through their front door, and shut it.
36 Whatever they had done in the hours between — whatever words, or songs, or silences their Sunday had held — it had gone with them up the street and come home sealed inside that closed house, unseen; as private as the Resena Sunday was loud.
37 Yessenia looked once across the fence, and then back to her own table — to the candle, the cups, the four faces still warm with the story. She did not say what she thought of the shut white house and its sealed-away Sunday. There was nothing to say that the story had not already said better.
38 “Ven, mija.” She drew Elisa down from the glass a second time and turned her gently toward the table. “Help me clear the cups.” (“Come, my girl.”)
39 And the candle on the little shelf burned on beneath the starry mantle — low, and steady, and unhurried — as it had burned through the morning's Mass and through the whole long afternoon of the telling, keeping the house the way it always kept the house: lit, and watched over, and not alone.
Sundays 1 pm PT — Join us online
or in person inside St. Luke's Presbyterian — 1 pm Sundays (Pacific)
10 Bayview Drive, San Rafael, California
