The priest Chepén
In agony, thirty years ago, my grandmother Filomena whispered in the ear of the priest who attended:
"Father, father. You see that lady who is in the room? Is Death. Offer a drink or serve a drink, those that are saved for my funeral. Poor thing! He must be very tired ... With the work you do every night!
Fernando Rojas Morey, the pastor of Chepen, looked toward the room and saw no one. However, in order not to the wishes of the old, filled a glass with lemonade, walked to the room, leaving the beverage on coffee table and pretended to have a dialogue out loud to the lady that we all have to visit someday. When he returned to the room, his parishioner grateful and peaceful sleep.
Father Fernando celebrated in these days fifty years as priest, forty-five of which happened in Chepén. During that time, his Christianity has been to "like Mother Teresa of Calcutta in encouraging people to perform works of love, and take it as the best way of approaching God.
Santo and rebel committed to the poor, the priest always understood Chepén
that poverty is an evil devil, and also the result of the oppression of some individuals over others. So many times we heard him say that poverty, which dehumanizes the human being is an offense against the sky. Work to abolish poverty, he added, is to work for the Kingdom of God.
He did not stay in words. When he began his ministry, raising chepenanos saw bricks and placing them one above the other to set an example to groups of families who were eager to have a school, a bakery or a community-owned radio. It may be said that the twelve parish-eaters that now exist, have been raised by the father Fernando with his own hands.
Chepén is the largest city Jequetepeque river valley. Although the rice region traditionally caters to all Peru, nine out of ten young men were then convicted - for their financial problems, to stay in primary education, working in the months of planting and harvesting and roam the streets all the rest of the year.
With them beside him, the priest founded the San Juan Bosco Institute, in addition to study center, is also working and production because it leads to his students in the first classes to various technical specialties.
That was not all: a whole school came out of the parish of Chepen. Fernando's father sold his Volkswagen and the house that would serve as home for his final years, and struggled to establish his shirt - so that his boys had free higher education-the University John XXIII.
Forces interested and very superior to theirs when they closed the cloister was six years of operation. However, I could not complain in that short time, had managed to form two classes of systems engineers, agro-industrial engineers, nurses and administrators.
Do you stop at the field of education? No, no way! I had to do something for the landless. For nearly a year, the priest walked Chepén over and over desert land near the valley. He finally found one, no rocks and easy leveling. There he founded the agricultural cooperative "Tahuantisuyo.
What about water? That land owner because they did not have irrigation. What would I do to get the water?
It shook a stick against the sky and cried out to God in the desert because it is a modern prophet. More realistic and more quixotic, thought at windmills. Nobody had used, but the beat Fernando. With the help of German parishes not necessarily formidable and committed Catholic, the day came when the wind turned the shafts of the windmills and the water began to flow to the surface.
Fernando then handed his beloved land of poor peasants. In no time, a major green tinged with what had been deserted. These days, the thriving business turns 35.
"Who has not had to endure tribulations, it has not begun to be a true Christian." - St. Augustine said. Some rich ambitious wanted to take the land "Tahuantisuyo" and clashed with its founder. Since they could not buy it, threatened to kill him. Finally, the anonymous letters were the way of facts.
They needed someone who would enjoy immunity, and bought a few coins to the command of murderers "Rodrigo Franco". A group of them came at night and stood Chepén near the church. In the early hours of the morning surrounded the church with powerful dynamite. At two in the morning, the house where he slept the priest blew. "And the father Fernando? ... When you had five minutes to that hour, had left in haste and on the other door to care for a dying man who wanted his last rites.
This story does not stop counting because right now the priest of Chepén builds a new city. "New Monte Grande" is named, and tractors have already leveled one hundred hectares of what is going to be a healthy human settlement for families who do not have a meter of land now where to put a table, a kitchen and some beds.
The finish I can tell is the story of Mrs. Filomena.
No my grandmother died that day. It took a couple of weeks before flying to the sky, and during that time she and I had the opportunity to laugh a little.
- She did, it did! - He told me Do you remember the joke we thought him? The father is an innocent .- Fernando said. - Imagine you go to the room to offer you a lemonade to Death! He did not realize I was teasing him.
We laughed a while and then my grandmother insisted:
"Innocent ... as should be the saints and rebels.
This afternoon I phoned the father Fernando. I'll call for me to confess because it is one of the few priests who absolved me. And I pray to say a prayer for my grandmother and me, by the joke that she and I did thirty years ago.
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June 8, 2008 7:06
