Toll Tocsin for a Young Man

Mariachis! Mariachis for birth and baptism, for first Communion and Marriage, for many many happy events, maybe for the party where you met your beloved. Today they walk behind the hearse of a young man who went to the Land of Hope, the Other Side, El Norte, the USA, many years ago. A few days ago he was found there, dead. They don't know what happened. And today they bury him, here in the overcrowded cemetery behind our house, around the corner from the church. The hearse carries the plain gray coffin, and almost a hundred friends and family walk slowly behind, carrying flowers.

Children mine, do you remember that lovely popular Mexican song we used to sing every time the Lord allowed us to return to Mexico? "Voz de la Guitarra mia"? It includes that line, "If I die there, far from the land of the sun, just say that I'm sleeping, and bring me home." This one is now home, to stay.

I know you hear a lot up there about the terrible situation of illegal immigrants sneaking into the US. Surely many do, and a few are criminals, a few are even terrorists. But most are like this, from poor families, trying to build up a nest egg, hoping to return in a few years and start a family. Some die on the way, or are mutilated by the train, or robbed, or abandoned on the road. Most are little brothers of the Lord, and if you don't want them sneaking into the US, or trying to, pray seriously for a change of government and economic situations in their home countries.

Can you spare a few tears for this little brother?