“Mary’s “yes” sparked the first “Hail Mary”;
it was with this word that Father Pierre Tequi introduced the Eucharist on the feast of the Visitation in our “cathedral parish” of Ghardaïa, where our entire central sector was gathered for our last Eucharist in the company of Sister Maria Angeles, Pierre Tequi (French Fidei Donum) and Claude Venne (Missionary of Africa) to whom we said goodbye on that day.
Mary, eagerly going to meet her cousin Elisabeth, did not know in advance what God was going to reveal to her when she met this woman who, despite her advanced age, also saw the wonders of God.
“How do I have this happiness that the mother of my Savior comes to me?”
Yes, when we came to this country, to this region, we did not know in advance everything that God was going to reveal to us about Him, about ourselves and about these wonderful people who welcomed us in this desert and who made our identity as apostles and missionaries possible.
It is with a heart full of thanksgiving that Sister Maria Angeles shared with us her experience as an apostle in this city of Ghardaia where initially everything asked her questions about
“How will this be done since most things are prohibited? Forbidden to greet men…forbidden to greet women out loud in the street and to pronounce their names, forbidden to kiss children, to caress them… What a life full of prohibitions? …”
And yet Maria Angeles lived there for eight years where each day had its share of happiness, each day was a day of great meeting of the giving and receiving of life.
For the children of migrants, Maria Angeles was the only real grandmother who visited them, and who compassionately accompanied their mothers to the hospital and/or maternity ward for the birth of a little brother or sister.
For the prisoners, Maria Angeles was “Mama”, the only mother who could, braving the cold of winter and the heat of summer, really go see them, talk to them, kiss them…pray with them and for them…pleading their cases to the prison warden and to God. “I came to prison to visit the bandits, the criminals as people say…but in truth, I met brothers, men and women who experienced the place and value of God in their lives, men and women who learned to tell the difference between a living man and a dead one. “It’s faith, hope that differentiates me from a dead person,” said a brother the day before his release after ten years in prison.
Yes, the profession of midwife has no retirement or pension, especially when we know how to connect our hearts to what we see, to the misery of others, we can always be there to help to give life, to promote life.
Yes, Maria Angeles was also a midwife for our community of Ghardaïa, how many times we told her “Maria we love you very much.”
Yes, let us love each other while we are alive. Maria brought a lot of life to our community life.
We continue to love you even from a distance, Maria Angeles, our dear big sister that God gave us.
