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iPadre #306 – The Courage to Be Catholic – 03 — 2 Comments

  1. Pingback:iPadre #306 – The Courage to Be Catholic – 03 - CATHOLIC FEAST - Every day is a Celebration

  2. Hi Fr.Finelli, I apologize for not leaving my name in the feedback about the Cristeros and the priest my family knew well growing up. Fr.A.Ochoa had just been ordained 2 years at the height of the religious war in Mexico when the Federals were annihilating the priests and religious through out the country. Fr.Ochoa was one of several young priest being hung that fateful day as the Federals would move swiftly from town to town carrying out orders. He was the last to be hung from a tree and the only one to survive his small town. The people who saved him hid him in their barn and nursed him back to health before smuggling him across the border into El Paso,TX. They touch on his story in the book “Mexican Martyrdom”, can’t remember if they name him in the book or just reference his story. Anyway, he always wore a hanky around his neck, even when he wore his collar. I remember asking him one day,when I was small, why he wore it and why he talked funny. He said I was too young to understand so I asked my father and he told us the story. As we grew older, we often heard him touch on the story of the Cristeros and what he had endured for the love of Jesus. My dad was born in 1935 and Fr.Ochoa baptized him. Him and my dad were very close and we in turn felt blessed to know a very holy man. Before he passed away, he gifted my dad his priestly hat and blessed jugs of holy water for our family along with many sacramentals. Each child (7) was given something to remember him by. I, myself, have a blessed scapular and medal of his, never opened or used, and a small bottle of his holy water. All cherished and preserved with love and found memories of the priest who gave his community and God his all.

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