Mama Mary and Her Children: True Stories of Real People: Mama Mary and Her Children, #1

By James B. Reuter, SJ

Part Reuter, part people whose love for our Lady he has helped to foster, part people who, through his columns, wanted to tell their stories about our Lady's entrance into their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9789712736247

Book preview

Foreword

Father JIM REUTER is now over ninety years old. He has written many plays, periodical articles, columns in our newspapers, and much more. But, someone remarked once that he hasn’t ever published a book on our blessed Lady, our blessed Mother. He has, of course, brought Mary into many of the stories he has authored for presentation onstage, his grandly successful retelling of the Fatima events, best of all.

So, being the zealous Marian devotee that Mr. Louie Reyes has always been, he approached Father Reuter and asked him to write his life’s evening tribute to the Mother of Jesus. Not to say much more: here it is, here is the book. It is part Reuter, part people whose love for our Lady he has helped to foster, part people who, through his columns, wanted to tell their stories about our Lady’s entrance into their lives.

Louie Reyes has put them all together, even as he has put together the pilgrimage sites of the twenty mysteries of the rosary along the way from the EDSA Shrine at Ortigas–EDSA to the Antipolo cathedral. This book is, in a true sense, Father Reuter’s evening bouquet for Mary.

We are told that during the Spanish occupation in our country, people would gather in town churches before night-fall, after the Angelus, and would pray together, sing together, commending the night to the Lord, placing the night in the hands of the Mother of the Lord. At San Jose Seminary, every Alumni Day held in November, the seminarians’ choir sings El toque del Angelus, a long, lovely and moving song for the Josefino old-timers, which does just that. This book is Father Reuter’s El toque del Angelus.

The Atenistas of the old days grew up in the Ateneo grade school and high school with Our Lady always around them. This is one of the elements of their Ateneo life which they miss most, when they visit the Ateneo Loyola campus in their later years. Mary was (to remember Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem) our atmosphere. She was an abiding presence everywhere in the school—not only in the chapel or even in our classrooms. In some very real way, she was with us always as long as we were in the Ateneo.

Some years ago, I met a former co-student of the Padre Faura days. He was something of a comic and a rebel then, and often didn’t bring his rosary to class in October—the month when the first period every morning began with the recitation of five mysteries of the rosary, all of us standing reverently. He would be reprimanded (often enough) by his Jesuit teacher whenever he came without the beads.

One day, to his classmates’ delight, he brought much merriment to the class, even if his Jesuit teacher (an elderly American priest) didn’t find it so amusing. But some thirty years later, when I met him, he said that he carried a rosary each day, faithfully, in his pocket, because he had learned (if nothing else!) to want to have this loving reminder of the Mother of Jesus with him, every day of his life.

Soc Rodrigo did the same, and faithfully, devoutly prayed his rosary daily. Chino Roces, despite many years away from any closeness to the Church, spent the last weeks of his life, with our Lady’s beads often in his hands.

When people found the bullet-riddled body of Evelio Javier in a small closet his blood-soaked hand were gripping a rosary completely caked with his blood. Horacio de la Costa died with his rosary pinned to his mattress, right beside his pillow, and with the chapel bell ringing the Angelus at noon. This is how the Ateneans lived out their pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

For a good number of years, at Naga and in Manila, Father Reuter formed part of this Ateneo Marian tradition.

For many decades Father Reuter has been working for The Family Rosary Crusade which Father Patrick Peyton made the great ministry of his saintly life. In the Philippines, Father Reuter was always one of the untiring promoters of that unique Peyton apostolate. We have come to identify the Family Rosary program on TV with Fr. Reuter’s well-known voice saying, The family that prays together, stays together. A world of prayer is a world at peace. As you read the pages of this book, you might hear his voice still saying those words in the background, and you might imagine Father Reuter kneeling before our Lady’s image and inviting you to say with him: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Father Reuter now moves serenely into the nineties of his own life, a life which has given so much toward leading people to a truer and deeper devotion to the holy Mother of the Lord. We pray that his book may form part of his continuing Marian ministry, and that in the years still to come, our Lady may continue to share with him her peace and her joy, and that he in turn may share them with his countless friends.

Ad multos annos!

C.G. Arevalo, SJ

8 December 2007

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

1. Romance Under Fire!

Grandma Roberts

Once upon a time, in a tiny village in Ireland, there was a girl named Sarah. Her mother was dead, and she had seven brothers. The only girl in the house, she was taking care of eight men—including her Irish father. The whole family was very, very Irish.

And Sarah did the worst possible thing that an Irish girl could do. . . . She fell in love with a Protestant! This happened because she was going down to the market, every day, alone. She met Tom Roberts in the marketplace. He treated her with great reverence, feeling that she was not only beautiful, but a very good, sacrificial, hardworking girl, and he was not worthy of her. . . . So Sarah fell in love with him.

Both Sarah and Tom knew that if her family found out about this, they would be up in arms, so they kept it secret. Tom wrote love letters to Sarah, and put them in the hollow of a tree. Sarah had a young niece who thought that this was very romantic. She would take the letter from the tree and bring it to Sarah.

Sarah would read Tom’s letter when she was all alone, and write an answer. The niece would take the answer, secretly, and put it in the hollow of the tree. Tom would come and take the answer from the tree. . . . And so their romance went on.

Until the brothers found out! They were wild! They forbade their sister to go to the marketplace, or even to talk to Tom Roberts, whom they called That black Protestant! Black was meant to be a description of Tom’s soul, because actually he was a good-looking boy. His skin was fairer than the skin of the seven brothers.

But they had no use for Tom. They spanked the niece, and they cut down the tree. They kept Sarah under strict surveillance, home in the house. But they could not prevent her from going to Mass on Sunday. . . . When she went to Mass, she was surrounded by her eight men, all of them on the watch for Tom Roberts.

But when they got to the church, lo and behold! There, kneeling in the last pew, was Tom Roberts! The brothers knew that they could not beat up a man inside the church, so they ran around to the sacristy and said to the parish priest: He’s kneeling there in the last pew! And he isn’t a Catholic! He’s a black Protestant! He is only there to see our sister! Give us permission, and we will drag him out of the church and throw him down the stairs!

The parish priest was also Irish, but first of all a priest. He said: No, you won’t! Don’t you touch him! Don’t lay a hand on him! For all you know, he might be planning to become a Catholic. . . . And even if he’s not, the church has always been a sanctuary, a refuge of sinners. . . . You leave that young man alone!

The brothers felt frustrated, but they had to obey the parish priest. So, when Sarah was coming back from Communion, her eyes met the eyes of Tom Roberts. And that was enough. One moment a week, of looking at each other, talking with their eyes, and the romance went on.

Sarah’s eight men held a council of war. They felt that they should beat her—but they all loved her so much that they could not bring themselves to do that. They stood her in the middle—the only girl, surrounded by eight men. They said: "Will you give him up?"

Sarah, who was only seventeen, folded her arms and proved that she was just as Irish as they were. She said: No!

The men said: So what are you planning to do with him? Sarah said, fearlessly: I am planning to marry him.

This was the last straw. The brothers and their father decided to send her to the United States. They put all their money together, and they had enough to buy a passage for her on a ship. The captain of the ship was their friend. So they brought Sarah to the pier, escorting her right on board the ship, putting her under the personal supervision of the captain. They had friends in New York, who had already arranged a job for Sarah in the United States, as soon as she got there.

The eight men stood on the dock, waving good-bye, in tears, as the ship sailed out of the harbor. Also on the dock, but far from the brothers, was Tom Roberts. And he was waving good-bye, in tears.

Sarah’s eight men felt that this solved the problem permanently. Tom Roberts was as poor as a church mouse. He could never afford to get to the United States. . . . unless he swam. And the brothers were hoping he would try that.

When Sarah reached New York, she was met by the family who wanted her as a maid. They were a young husband and wife, with three small children. They loved Sarah from day one. Sarah had been taking care of eight men—buying the food in the marketplace, cooking it, serving it. She kept their home neat and clean, doing the laundry, making the beds, repairing all their torn clothing, sewing on buttons, doing everything. So taking care of a husband and wife and three small children was a dream for her. She was the yaya of the children, the cook, the lavandera, the housekeeper, everything.

The family who hired her were so proud of her—they paid her highly, gave her beautiful uniforms as a maid, provided board and lodging, and protected her from their friends. They did not want any other family to steal her from them.

Sarah was saying the Rosary every day, for Tom Roberts, praying that the Virgin Mary would bring them together. She kept all the money that she earned. She never spent a single cent. She said: They give me everything I need! Why should I spend?

In a very short time she had saved enough to pay the passage of Tom Roberts from Ireland to New York. She sent the money to Tom. He came across the Atlantic at once, third class, steerage, in the hold of the ship with the cargo. . . . They met on the dock in New York, in sight of the Statue of Liberty.

They were married.

And that was my great grandmother, Grandma Roberts. In their backyard they had a grape vine . . . beautiful blue grapes. And their home was the meeting place of the whole family on big days, like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. From their marriage there sprang so many children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren!

What I remember is—when the family was gathered in their home—we would eat in shifts. First the little children. Then they would clear the table and set it again, and the teenagers would eat. . . . They would clear the table and set it again for the young married ones. . . . And finally the old ones, like Nana and Pop, my grandmother and grandfather.

One morning, when I was