austraLasia #2279

The Lord is weaving this web!

MONTEVIDEO: 18th October 2008 -- It sounds almost corny to say 'we met on the internet', but when such an encounter begins to involve family connections with Dorothy Chopitea, Don Orione, St Francis de Sales and involves a chance meeting in the flesh of two people as far apart as Rome is from Haiti - and when that meeting takes place in Montevideo.... well, some kind of explanation other than chance has to enter the discussion! It is the Lord weaving this web!
    Today, in that city, en route to Quito (#2278) I read several handwritten letters of Don Orione to the Lacalle family of Uruguay, including a prayer he had specifically written for them, naming them as part of it. I also saw a relic of St Francis de Sales kept in a tiny envelope that might date back more than a century. The relic appears to be ex ossibus. The person who let me see these precious items is a descendant of Dorothy Chopitea's.                 We had met on the internet for one simple reason. The lady concerned had been housebound in Haiti - 'imprisoned' by the violence in Port-au-Prince while her husband worked for the Development Bank, and with nothing else to do had turned to the internet to research the Chopitea story, which led her to www.sdb.org and its 'Salesian Saints' section, which in turn drew her attention to a plaintive plea for translators who could work on the re-worked texts for these same saints.
    Inés, she now tells me, learned English in Uruguay for one reason only - her family, and particularly her mother - had insisted on English being spoken at home, even though all the family's forbears were of Spanish blood! She speaks it absolutely fluently. Thus she offered assistance with translation from English into Spanish, something we needed badly. The 'saints' done with, and still housebound, she asked for more - and was given 'Digital Virtues'. Her web-designer son back in Uruguay was plied with questions on terminology that for her was entirely new. The job completed, and 'hubby' repatriated to Latin America, she arrived back home more or less at the time I arrived on the same continent.
    And how 'chance' was this encounter?  Well, on one occasion, just simply by way of comment for conversation, I mentioned in an email that neighbouring Paraguay had a former bishop now elected president, and hoped that Uruguay would not follow suit (the Archbishop of Montevideo is a Salesian). Talk about walking into a trap! Her brother, it turns out, is a candidate for the nation's presidential elections which will take place shortly. He has already had an earlier turn. He may need the combined forces of Chopitea, Orione and de Sales to unseat a not un-popular incumbent if he is to have another! All I'm saying is that it was not difficult, via internet, to follow the movements of the Lacalle family, but in reality it was providential that we both came to the same place at the same time.
    It is to be hoped, after today's discussions (to return to the 'saintly' element of this story), that the Orione letters and anything of the kind from the Chopitea side of the family will be duly digitized and included in SDL, so watch that space!
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Title: australasia 2279
Subject and key words: SDB General: Orione, Chopitea
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2279