Jessica Cantu has something on most teenagers, or at least she has since Oct. 15. That's when her great, great, great, great uncle - Raphael Guizar Valencia - was canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City.
Calling the Mexican prelate a bishop of the poor, the pope declared, "May the example of St. Raphael Guizar Valenica be a call to brother bishops and priests to consider as a fundamental element of their pastoral projects --- alongside the spirit of poverty and evangelization --- the fomentation of priestly and religious vocations and their formation in accordance with Christ's heart."
Jessica --- an 18-year-old freshman at Mount St. Mary's College --- grew up in a South Bay household where her mother often read to her five children about their distant relative from a well-worn biography, translating the Spanish sentences into English. She and her three sisters and brother also prayed to the then-"blessed" Valencia, especially when their grandfather suffered a paralyzing stroke and later came down with life-threatening meningitis. Both times, his health got better.
So Jessica knew that her kinsperson founded the Congregation of Missionaries of Our Lady of Hope in 1903, only two years after being ordained, and that he used his wealthy parents' money to open two colleges for young men. She knew that during the government's persecution of the church at the time of the Mexican Revolution, he continued to minister, illegally, to the poor and sick.
"I remember my mom telling us stories that because of all the persecution he disguised himself as a salesman," she recalls. "And he would go around to the sick and injured people, and he'd give them the Eucharist and Last Rites before they died. So they were looking for him to kill him. And he said, 'OK, you can kill me if you let these people practice their faith openly.' But they said no. So he stayed alive and continued his work."
Jessica also knew that the popular cleric finally had to flee Mexico to save his life, first across the border to Texas, and later to Guatemala and Cuba. And she was aware that in 1919 he returned home and was named bishop of Veracruz, spending the rest of his life ministering to the poor despite government opposition until he died June 6, 1938, in Mexico City.
Service and Life Teen
"As a little kid, I kind of looked up to him," Jessica says. "I wanted to be just like him. I just prayed to him to help me with school and everything. And I still do. There's no way I could get through college without his help.
"And now that he's canonized, that's amazing," she adds, grinning. "Just for him to be able to do all of those things he did. Like, wow! My uncle is a saint. I don't know anyone who's related to a saint."
St. Raphael Guizar Valencia has inspired his great, great, great, great niece to a life of faith and service. At Mary Star of the Sea High School in San Pedro, she logged the most number of volunteer hours, receiving the Los Angeles Archdiocese's Christian Service Award during her senior year.
She worked on food and clothing drives, was the cheerleading coach at Holy Trinity, her elementary parochial school, and planned retreats and liturgies at her parish through the Life Teen youth ministry. "Life Teen has really helped teenagers, including myself, to really be passionate about our faith and wanting to practice it thoroughly and openly," she notes.
Jessica has continued that openness at Mount St. Mary's College, where's she's in the four-year nursing program. Many weekday afternoons she can be found working in the campus ministry office, organizing Sunday Masses along with more food, clothing and toy drives.
She explains, "I really like doing drives," smiling again. "And I love helping out. Like now we do feeding the homeless on Sundays at the Santa Monica promenade. I couldn't believe how many homeless people we have just sleeping on the ground. I never noticed it before, so this like woke me up. If you look around, there's so many people who are there for your help."
And it's no accident why she's studying to be a nurse, taking 17 units of anatomy, microbiology, psychology, speech and English, and hitting the books at least five hours every day.
"I've always wanted to be a nurse," she says with a freshman's enthusiasm. "Since I was little, I've just had this passion of being in the medical field and helping people out. When my grandpa was in the hospital and I'd go visit him, I was so amazed at what the nurses could do and how much they touch your lives, even for the short time you're in there.
"So just being able to touch people and being able to help out and actually help heal people is amazing to me. Just the way they actually care about their patients. And that's something I want to take part in."
No easy task
Being a teenager, college student and committed Christian today is no easy task, says Jessica, even at an all-girls' Catholic college like Mount St. Mary's. Friends she's known from high school and the South Bay ask why she wants to continue her higher education at a Catholic institution. And some new friends she's made at Mount St. Mary's want to know why she's so involved in campus ministry, when she could be hanging out and having a good time.
"Coming into college, I met people who aren't Catholic, and they do different things than I do," Jessica points out. "But it's where your faith comes in and where going to Catholic school comes in and plays a big role in your life. Because you have morals and know that you're doing things for God."
The coed says it's been hard, but not unbearable. While she's noticed that some friends have changed over the last year, many others respect the fact that she's not afraid to worship her God openly and has even signed a sacred pledge to stay chaste until she marries. Her boyfriend, a student at Cal State Long Beach, readily agrees.
"There is a lot of pressure," she admits. "Like in the media, everything is about sex, drugs, going out partying, having fun. But you just have to remember that that's not what you're here for. You need to just relax and wait for the time to come. Like, don't rush things."
When asked if St. Raphael Guizar Valencia would approve of his great, great, great, great niece, a final grin spreads across Jessica's face.
"Yeah, I think he would," she says, nodding. "It's not as extreme as what he did. But I think he definitely would be proud of me taking the time and effort to help people and to lead a good life. I'm trying."
Editor's note: "The Faith in Our Lives" is a series spotlighting Catholics in various walks of life, and how they connect faith with what they do |