Healing the family
01.08.2008
A Peruvian couple saved their own family by helping families communicate better and teaching their children Christianity.
In 1990, Victor Sanca de la Cruz and Kathy Vega Diaz moved to the Columban-run Holy Archangels parish in Lima. Victor wrote this story about his and Kathy’s experience of family life and commitment to the task of evangelisation.
“As teenagers, we helped start a parish youth group called ‘United Youth.’ Columban missionaries, such as Sr Ana Maria Mulqueeny (now retired to Ireland) and Fr Michael Fitzgerald (RIP) helped us get the youth group started.
In 1978, Kathy and I married; we were the first couple from the youth group to take that step. Work and family took us away from the group. Ingrid was born in 1978 and Alonso in 1981. After two years however, our marriage began to go downhill.
One of our issues was our different experiences of family life. Kathy’s family is from the north of Peru and had a custom of sharing much of their lives; eating together around a table was an essential part of family life.
My family was so different. My parents are from the central Andes where our family values were poles apart from Kathy’s. My mother looked after the home, and my father spent his life working and socialising with his friends. I had one brother and the four of us went about our lives in an independent way.
I thought Kathy’s wish for more family sharing was excessive. For about seven years, we lived with a deep tension between us; I could not find a way to face the challenge of healing and deepening our relationship.
Kathy’s despondency led to a mild nervous breakdown. She talked with my mother about her troubles but, even then, found no support, when she was told to accept men as they are. ‘This is just how life is,’ she was told; ‘she should be content with having a home, children and money for food and other necessities.’
Kathy’s sickness worried me and I took her to a doctor. I failed to understand her complaints. When I talked to my friends and co-workers, they only confirmed my outlook.
Ingrid saw her mother’s profound unhappiness; it was through her that Kathy and I discovered a way to break down the wall that had separated us for so long.
Ingrid wanted to make her first Holy Communion. The parish-based programme for Holy Communion ran for two periods of six months each. There was a weekly session in the parish for the children and another for the parents who were required to talk at home with their children about the theme of the week.
For the first six-month period, Kathy went to the parents’ sessions, but I refused to join in. I played soccer with my friends on weekends. Then, disaster struck. I badly injured my knee playing soccer and needed an operation. I was shocked and afraid. I saw my misfortune as a punishment from God - another cultural heirloom from my Andean family background. God was retaliating for not helping Kathy in the first Communion programme for Ingrid.
Before surgery, I decided to join in the Family Catechesis programme with Kathy. Together, we attended the meetings for the six-month period.
The programme was new in Holy Archangels parish and there were too few group leaders so Kathy and I took on the leadership of a group in 1986.
The responsibility of leading the group of parents gave us the chance to discuss and review our lives.
We learned to pray as a family and I began to share in family meals. I learned to kiss my children, a custom that challenged me at first, especially when non-family members were present.
I also learned to help Kathy with housework. The lifestyle change came at a price when friends ridiculed me for attending parish meetings carrying my Bible.
Kathy and I have remained active in Family Catechesis programmes for more than 20 years. A retreat programme for couples helped us arrive at deeper reconciliation. When we marked 25 years of marriage, our local parish community organised a celebration for us.
One of the greatest joys for us over the years has been seeing married couples bridge the gaps that separated them.
We have had the chance to help so many. We also have evidence of the depth of our own reconciliation. Our daughter, Cristina, was born in 1993 and our son, Diego, came to us in 1995.”
Fr Peter Woodruff first went to Peru in 1967.
