Paul Ponce, Juggler for God
Germany, August 29, 2005. Paul Ponce, considered one of the three
best jugglers in the world, performed during the vigil held with
Pope Benedict XVI and hundreds of thousands of youth during the
recent World Youth Day.
With incredible skill, he juggles hats, ping pong balls, seven
bowling pins
But he says of this occasion that it was one of the
most important moments of my entire professional career, because of
how important living my Catholic faith is for me.
This young juggler, originally from Argentina, was born into a
family that has a six-generation history as performers. He has
performed all over the world, especially in the United States,
Europe and Asia.
The possibility of performing for the Pope and the young people
came up last winter, when he put on a show in Cologne. He also took
advantage of that trip to perform for the elderly, the
hospitalized, young people, etc. Ponce, who never in his life has
lived for more than ten months in the same city, inherited the
faith from his family, but his trips throughout the world kept him
from keeping up a continuous formation.
What he calls his conversion took place when he was 21 years old,
while performing in a show at the casino in Nassau, Bahamas which
was the only place where I every spent 10 consecutive months in a
single place. When he went to Mass, he asked to receive the
sacrament of Confirmation, but the pastor asked him to take a
course of catechesis with young people from 14-15 years of
age.
That was where it all began, he remembers. I began to ask myself
very serious questions that I had never before asked myself: Why
was I Catholic? What did God and the Church mean for me? [
] One
part of this process of conversion that I will never forget was
going alone to the Church to pray and to fix my eyes on the
Crucifix. Looking at it, I would ask myself: Why so much pain and
suffering? [
] There, I began to see that God had flooded my
entire life with graces and gifts, and that I was very far from
fulfilling my duty toward God as a Baptized Christian. [
] The
incredible thing was that the more I tried to understand and to
learn how to do good to God and others, the more happiness and
fulfillment I experienced. [
] All of this culminated when I
decided to stop working in the artistic world for an entire year so
I could give a year to the Church as a coworker (a lay missionary).
I told myself that God had done so much for me, and I wanted to try
to do something for him. [
] At the end of the year, I realized
that that year had been the happiest year of my life, because
during that year I learned where happiness is found: in seeking
God, and in doing good to others. [
] Now, I work in the artistic
world with a new ideal: to see how I can be an instrument of God
for my companions, not on account of what I can do for them, which
would be useless, but rather on account of what God, always making
use of unworthy instruments, can do for them.
Paul Ponce and his wife Lía were able to greet the Holy Father
after his World Youth Day performance and said, Holy Father, we
ask for your blessing. We got married three months ago. We pray for
you everyday after Mass. We are Regnum Christi members.
Among his several apostolates, Paul offers economic aid to Catholic
schools in Latin America that offer education to children from poor
families. During World Youth Day in Cologne, he sold t-shirts
bearing evangelizing messages to raise money for this cause. To
find out more about these t-shirts, select the following
link.
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José Luis Sánchez del Río, Martyr at the Age of 14
Guadalajara, September 15, 2005. After having received official
notification from Pope Benedict XVI, the Archbishop of Guadalajara,
Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, announced that this coming November
24th, 13 Mexican martyrs who died during the Cristero War will be
beatified in this diocese.
Among them is José Luis Sánchez del Río (1913-192
, who was assassinated for the simple fact of refusing to
hate his faith. One year before his martyrdom, José Luis had joined
the Cristero forces led by General Prudencio Mendoza, based in
the town of Cotija, Michoacán.
The martyrdom was witnessed by several people, among them a
seven-year-old boy who would later become the founder of a
religious congregation, Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the
Legionaries of Christ and of the Regnum Christi Movement. In the
book-length interview Christ is my Life (www.christismylife.org),
he speaks of the decisive role that his friend, José Luis,
testimony had for his vocation.
He was captured by government forces, which wanted to give the
civilian population that supported the Cristeros an exemplary
lesson, remembers the founder, who was then seven years old. [
]
Then the skin of the soles of his feet was sheered off, and he was
obliged to walk through the village towards the cemetery, he
remembers. He wept and moaned with pain, but would not give in.
Every now and then, the stopped and said: If you cry out Death to
Christ the King, well will spare your life. Say Death to Christ
the King! But he answered, Hail to Christ the King! [
] Once
in the cemetery, before shooting him, they asked him once more if
he would deny his faith. He refused and was killed right then and
there. He died crying out as many other Mexicans did: Hail to
Christ the King! [
] These are indelible images of my memory and
of the memory of the Mexican people, although often there is not
much mention of it in the official history (Christ is my Life, n.
4).
José Luis mortal remains rest in the Church of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus in his hometown.