“The Coldest Day, The Warmest Day”
Aldo Michelis, Kino Border Initiative, Nogales, Arizona, USA: “The Coldest Day, The Warmest Day”
They arrived: the Girl, her brother and their mother. "Take blankets out for them three", said Sister Lorena. They had all been given out in the morning, but I still looked in the closet and I only found a baby blanket.
When I saw the Girl sitting on the bench, shivering uncontrollably under her thin sweater, with a huge sense of urgency I tore the blanket out of the plastic bag and put it on the girl, wrapping her from back to front and hugging her for an instant as brief as it took the blanket to fall into place, but as perennial as gestures of love last from the heart.
I learned it that way as soon as she turned and "shot" me with that smile: a flame that melted all thermometers and, for the first time since I left the house in the morning, made me stop feeling cold. She sheltered me. That, in her face, was the expression of someone who knows well her dear friend God and suddenly comes across Him. "Oh! God took cold away from me" I could read. And she didn't need to know about my journey of faith and my personal relationship with Jesus because of whom I have found this path that brought me to Nogales; she didn't have to know about the story of Sister Lorena and the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist that started the activities to support migrants here three years ago. She didn’t know anything about Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus that with the Sisters and so many other people gave shape to the Kino Border Initiative that was now being her host. Yet less did she know about the person or for what reason that person donated the blanket that she was now wearing.
She only knew the essential fact, she had been freezing and that God warmed her up with a little blanket. That’s what the smile on her face said. What an astonishing POWER! Another girl in the same girl! I have a feeling that this is the power of God Himself, that He makes available to us through love, to transform the environment, to literally change lives, starting by one's own.
The entire kitchen again had the fragrance of the Kingdom. Something felt different inside me. Something was making me behave differently. I imagine those who have children know well and are familiar with this occurrence: the love for the little ones. What I am certain about is that I know a bit better (and it has seduced me) the potency of this love without reasons or motives, without conditions, without expecting anything in return (even without knowing each other at all), which loves beyond the organic link and the bonds that life naturally places between parents and children.
How many "little ones" is God inviting me to love like this, on this path! I feel I know now a little bit better the loving ways of Jesus, that are God's ways, and it fascinates me. "There you go, my friend: now you are like a little wrap!", I said smiling back at her, and so even her mother smiled. From then on, everything proceeded as normal. They ate, Erin (one of the volunteers) gave them clothes, we chatted and joked, they thanked us and left.
It was literally, "The Coldest Day...": The night from the 2nd to the 3rd of February was the coldest ever in Nogales history (11°F/-12°C with wind chill sensation of -2°F/-19°C), beating the record set back in 1975.
Aldo Michelis is a Mexican pre-novice who is discerning entrance into the Mexican Province's Jesuit Novitiate this July. He currently volunteers with KBI. http://www.kinoborderinitiative.org/en/
