Angeli et amici: Da mihi animas cetera tolle

Once upon a notoriously noxious time, the tough thoroughfares of Manhattan’s Alphabet City had, how shall we say, endearing epithets: Avenue A was for Assault, Avenue B was for Battery, Avenue C was for Crippling, and Avenue D was for Death. In that lovely little land was an adorably scrawny little boy; so scrawny in fact, that if the Beaufort scale hit six he could go flying. This little boy wanted very much to go to Catholic school. Unfortunately, the Reverend Sister Principal sadly said, there was no more room for an additional pupil. The Reverend Pastor got wind of this and, for some unfathomable reason that will forever remain a mystery of Divine Providence, in imitation of his Order’s founder, that wonderworker of Turin, Saint John Bosco, said simply, “Then we will make the room for him.”
The beautiful oasis that once was the Church of Mary Help of Christians is now just a pile of dust. A century’s worth of blood, sweat and tears are now just wisps in the air. The treasured temple modeled on the magnificent mother basilica of the same title in the one time capital city of the Duchy of Savoy exists now only in memories and photographs. Faint now are the lyrical echoes of industriously intrepid immigrants lovingly lisping sweet supplications to “Mary Help”, “Maria Auxiliadora”, “Maria Ausiliatrice”.
The one, true, holy catholic and apostolic Faith is not, and can not ever be, limited to any one particularly poignant locus. Rather it is the call of all the Faithful in virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation to cast that spiritual fire across the entire face of the world as Our Lord so passionately exclaimed in the Gospels. The Salesian Fathers who devotedly staffed MHC, as it was affectionately known, constantly taught in their words and above all in their actions the marvelous maxim of Don Bosco: “Give me souls!, take away the rest”.
But it still hurts so much that the sweet supernatural garden wherein one was given a deliciously divine nurturing has been diabolically decimated, never more to enrich this pathetic vale of tears.
However, with the help of the Most Holy Mother of God, so long as one is on this side of Eternity, an amusingly alliterative acolyte will continue to the best of his limited abilities to repay that heavenly trust placed in a scrawny little boy.

Mr. Screwtape