That night Esteban Salamanca passed on quietly into the next life. When his maker called him, he was kneeling alone at the foot of his cot in the small room that had served all his needs since coming to Santa Barbara. Wrapped in blankets against the dampness of the evening, he had recited the familiar words that had haunted him since joining the Order: “Have I done enough, Lord?  Have I served you well all these years?

“Lord, I haven’t done enough,” he prayed in anguish. “For that, I beg forgiveness. In your name I’ve sinned, show me your mercy. I did not always have the strength to fight for you. I have failed these children you put in my charge, failed because of my weaknesses. They sicken and die, their children are stillborn, their numbers dwindle month by month. I did not know how to save them. In your name, I tried and failed. Do you take them in your loving arms?  Or do they burn for my failure?

“I have no strength to tame the appetites of my countrymen. I stood by while Brother Ortiz’s arrogance grew, without speaking out as St. Francis would have done. Ortiz steals from you, Lord, steals from the neophytes in his care in your name. Perhaps he does worse, and I do nothing. I came ready to stand up to the soldiers, an evil I knew from before. De Alba is a small man, a frightened man. But the evil of men like Ortiz acting in your name—their arrogance and disregard for the lives of our children is something I wasn’t strong enough to fight. I’ve written the Padre Presidente with my concerns about Brother Fermin. What else can I do?  Find it in your compassionate heart to forgive me my sins. I am too old, too weak, too scared to continue.”

His mind wandered from his prayers, as it had done more and more often these last few years, to scenes from his childhood in Petra. He saw himself walking by a stream with the young woman who had been his life at age twenty, until he was called to God. The image brought a sweet sadness to him that nestled close to his heart, clouding his eyes. Where was she now?  And what kind of life had she led without him?  Is it all in vain, he asked his maker?  I see an innocent boy, joyful in the arms of his sweetheart. Are good intentions the frauds we use to cover our failures?  Is life in Christ a masquerade for our least noble thoughts? Show me my life has been worthwhile, Lord.

It was at that moment that Esteban Salamanca’s Lord called him home.