When Fr. Carron stated in The Form of Witness that Christ is the witness in me, through the change He causes in our lives, I remembered the words of the Centurion that we repeat in every mass about my unworthiness. Why Lord Almighty, do you have to humble Yourself and give testimony of Your presence, Your relevance to me? I am not at all worthy of Your closeness, Your companionship.

Then I thought of a few years back when I began to hear that Fidel Castro was sick, and I instead of celebrating and mocking and cursing, I began to pray for his well-being, his conversion. I smiled, internally, and asked, what have You done?! I had nothing to do with this! It wasn’t me! I didn’t plan this, nor did I even ask for it! I didn’t even realize this was a problem! I just followed, together with my friends, and You made me free. Free of my resentment, free to love not just an ailing Castro, but everyone more deeply because the resentment of even one son of the Father impoverished me, without my realizing it. This seeing reality in a radically different way, I knew, I was certain, it was You.

See, as a Cuban American, I grew up despising Castro. The Cuban revolution took away my father’s business, our cars, our house down to the towels and the silverware. Every possession. Most members of my family and friends suffered the same catastrophe. They expelled a young bishop, priests, nuns, closed all Catholic schools, the seminary, the Church was left only with the existing temples, and no one could build more. Christmas was totally banned, and final exams at the universities were scheduled for Christmas day so the families could not even celebrate together in hiding. The constitution was officially atheist. My mother, already exiled in Miami, could not return to attend her father’s and mother’s funeral. All societal freedoms were curtailed or eliminated. Any Cuban American can add endlessly to this list of calamities.

So after fleeing to Miami, my father dedicated the best of his life to fighting the communist regime, militarily, as much as he could. Trained as a naval officer, who in Cuba had opted for the merchant marine, he was at sea at the time of the CIA-planned Bay of Pigs invasion. When the news of that combat broke out, my mother gathered all five children and had us kneel in a circle in the middle of our living room to pray a rosary for my father’s safety. My siblings and I were too young to join the combat, but not to join the resentment.

Then last Friday night, at 1:30 AM my son Joe came to break the news that Fidel Castro had died. We spontaneously prayed together for mercy for Fidel Castro and for the Cuban people. Yes, we had not stopped seeking justice and freedom for the oppressed people of Cuba. But we could not but be moved by everyone’s need for mercy. I could wish Castro no harm. It wasn’t me, and yet It became me.