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BY PETER SOLIS NERY
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XXI. MARIAN DEVOTION
He used to love Mama Mary with deep devotion. And he wondered where it went when he ran away from home. Now he remembers, “ora pro nobis peccatoribus — pray for us sinners,” and there are tears in his eyes.
*
Regarding his jeremiad about the festival, Matt understood where the priest was heading, so he cut him short by defending Mercedes’s reputation.
That was not the intention of my grandmother! She brought me up in the church, taught me devotion to Mama Mary.
Matt felt his face getting warm.
My grandmother was a religious woman!
*
Indeed, Mercedes was piously devout, a prayer warrior of the Virgin Mary.
She introduced Matt to Roman Catholic religiosity.
He remembered his childhood in the church—Mercedes wearing a Blue Ladies of Fatima uniform, white dress, white veil, a sky blue sash.
He, wearing a blue choir gown toga with big wide white collar.
*
Mercedes fixed his collar, took him to the choir pit.
She then, went, knelt in a nearby pew, and crossed herself in prayer.
Organ music started, he sang Schubert’s hymn to the Virgin Mother.
Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena…
*
Pious devotion filled the old stone church.
People wept with ecstatic tears.
Mercedes dried her eyes with a white handkerchief. (To be continued)/PN
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