Walking with Christ

These Gospel words come to life among enthusiastic communities of faith and many parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Alice. “All parish ministries play an important role in the spiritual life of the Church,” said María Pacheco, who is a youth minister and a very active member of the parish. She says that in parishes with the highest percentage of Hispanics, a kind of spiritual movement has been forming. Like an ACTS retreat, it takes you by the hand to experience a personal and intimate encounter with Christ.

After attending the retreat, prayer groups and holy hour, Pacheco says she is a witness to these transformations in herself and in others for the past three years.

She was a witness to Jesús Castillo’s transformation, the fourth child of immigrant parents, who is now a 22-year-old youth minister. He ministers to parishes in Alice and Spanish-speaking parishes throughout the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

Castillo was once a boy who thought religion was for older people, and attending Mass was a once or twice a year occasion. As a child, he had been baptized, he received his first Communion, but as a young adult, he had strayed far from God’s teachings––until a series of events began to transform his life.

One of the events occurred on Dec. 19, 2017, the day of the accident. He was working with his father on a ranch in Benavides, fixing agricultural machinery, when a tractor exploded in his face, fracturing his head.

Bathed in blood, but still conscious, he felt Jesus Christ was carrying him while he listened to his father’s voice, “You will be fine––the ambulance is coming.

His injuries were severe, and he had to be transported by helicopter to a hospital in Corpus Christi. Castillo doesn’t remember much, only that between dreams, he heard two or three people praying for him, asking for his life and health.
Although he was still suffering from very intense headaches, the hospital released him to his parents’ care, and his parents called on their parish priest to give him the Oil of the Sick. As he lay near death, he could hear many people praying around his bed, and that’s when he first realized the power of prayer.

Feeling much better after a few months had passed, Castillo attended an inner healing retreat at his parents’ insistence and another parishioner. At the end of the third day of the retreat, Castillo says he suddenly felt the love that God had for him and that it expanded towards his parents and relatives who were waiting for him.

This first experience was followed by others in which he felt called to serve and give encouragement and comfort to other people. “The time that I have lived close to God has given birth to a need to talk to young people because I see dissatisfaction, fear, unhappiness, spiritual emptiness on their faces. The Spirit of God speaks to me and motivates me to communicate and comfort people I understand––because I felt the same way for a long time.

“What I have experienced in my relationship with God, and within the community of faith, has given me so much happiness that I want everyone to live it,” Castillo said. “I work in a funeral home––it’s not the job everyone wants––but for me, it has given me a lot of satisfaction. The other day a woman spoke to me on the phone whose son was killed, and she was so sad. She asked me if I could bring her son’s documents to her, and after I gave her the papers, she cried and thanked me. It was a very simple act–– I felt that I comforted her, and she reciprocated with gratitude. “

“People enter one way and leave another,” Pacheco said. I have felt it in myself and then in my family.” She remembers praying on her knees for her husband to come back to Church. She thought he was the most reluctant person she knew, but after the inner healing retreat––“he exchanged his can of beer for his rosary.”

The motto of that retreat is, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). “If you seek Him, a relationship and communication with Christ is formed, and it fills you with His love. Then a brotherhood is formed, where your problems are everyone’s problems, and God’s miraculous experiences are also shared. A vocation of service and help towards others is born, which teaches you to walk with Christ,” Pacheco said.

Leticia and José Isidro Villa’s family said their encounter with Christ had brought happiness to their life. José says he was so tired of suffering and of trying to comply with everyone. He attended Mass on Sundays, worked hard in construction and could not afford to buy needed medicines for his wife, who had epilepsy since she was a child. As a last-ditch effort, he decided to enroll them in a retreat since science wasn’t helping.

The experience of that approach to God transformed his life; he no longer yells at the children––he is no longer sad. “The Lord healed me,” he said.

At the retreat, he arrived very hurt by so many negative emotions from his past. “I did not know how to interpret or where to leave them,” José said. He recalled being very hurt as a child, which left him insecure as an adult. When he was five years old, his grandparents treated him differently from his cousins, making him feel like the family’s black sheep.

“One day, one of my cousins was drinking bottled water, and he offered me a glass. I was delighted to drink clean water–– usually, I drank the dirty water from puddles because I lived on a ranch. My grandmother comes and takes it away, telling me the water was for visitors, and in return, she gave me water from the trough––where the chickens drank. At the time, I wondered, “why this was happening to me.”

Later, when José fell in love with and married Leticia, it was tough for him to see the crisis’ she was going through and hear other people’s criticism. “We were looking for a miracle!”

That miracle occurred through meeting Jesus Christ at an inner healing retreat, where he said they both learned to see God’s blessings in their lives and appreciate the privilege of having their family.

Even though Leticia should not have gotten pregnant––due to some of the consequences the medications would have on her babies, she had three pregnancies. With each of them, the doctors advised her to abort. The last child was a girl. She came into her life as “a promise from God” and named her Samara, which means “protected by God” in the Bible.

Leticia shared that during the inner healing retreat, she felt God’s presence while kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and He gave her a vision of the new baby in her womb. Her baby girl was born healthy and without any medical problems. She wants to tell the world that with God, everything is possible.

The change in José and Leticia’s family life has borne fruit because their trust and communication with Christ became sources of inspiration for their children who want to, in turn, share that peace and love of family with their friends from school.

Prayer groups, adoration and these inner healing retreats are transformational and are having a rippling effect throughout the Spanish speaking communities of faith in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, fulfilling the Gospel message, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find” (Mt 7:7).

For more information call María Pacheco at (361) 207-0395.