Keep Going

Today I almost left my column blank. The reason: I had to send my article to El Universal early on Monday and I didn’t have it ready. I had planned to write it after the elections, because what I wrote depended on Sunday’s results. I was so tired that I thought of leaving my space blank, just as I had disconnected from Twitter for a few minutes on Sunday night (after an exhausting day on Twitter, encouraging people, giving hope, praying with them and so on).

When I heard what the results were likely to be (before they were announced), I switched off Twitter, took a sleeping pill and went to bed with my husband. But I couldn’t sleep, and as soon as I heard the first firework I jumped out of bed and ran to the living room where the television is. The results were being announced at that very moment. My children (all six of them, aged 11 to 19) were sitting there waiting to see the outcome.

I immediately turned Twitter back on and found this message: “Ma Denisse, we’re very distressed, please send us a message of calm!!!!” That was when I thought: my God, we have fought so hard and spread so much hope, and now I’m going to throw in the towel? No, Lord! So I started sending my followers messages of calm, like this one: “Lord, Thy will be done. Only You know what is best for us. We will keep Praying and Fighting for a better country for our children.”

I sat down to watch the results calmly, and I was very surprised when my 18-year-old son said to me: “There’ll be a way, Mom. We’ll make it.” My heart almost broke when I heard that. In the morning I had been so happy to see that huge number of young people voting for the first time and working at the polling stations. That was something you never saw in my day, and we are still paying for that apathy.

I felt pain, because without a doubt everything we have managed to do so far, with great effort, in this Beloved Homeland with so many problems, is so that our children (and many other people’s children) can live in a better country. But I didn’t shed a single tear, and I won’t. Because we cannot afford the luxury of getting depressed. There is a great deal of work to do in Venezuela. I have been convinced of that ever since I watched the government’s march on Avenida Bolívar and heard comments on TV like “I like my president because he gives me everything” or “I’ll vote for my president because I live in an expropriated house,” and countless others. That day I came down to earth and realized (once again!) that until we tackle education (in values) seriously, there will be no way out of the problems our nation faces.

Now all I think about is that tomorrow (October 11) the Year of Faith begins in our holy Catholic Church. It will be a wonderful year of new opportunities to bring our Faith and Christian values to every corner of Venezuela and the world. At the Entre Líneas Foundation we will continue with the projects we have planned, and many more, because society urgently needs to be re-Christianized (and don’t think I’m speaking only of Venezuela; many first-world societies need it too). It is urgent to teach values as fundamental and basic as the value of work, respect for the truth and for others, respect for life and for other people’s property, honesty, fidelity, solidarity and so on.

At Sunday’s Angelus the Pope asked that during this Year of Faith we give new value to praying the Holy Rosary. I think Benedict XVI will be very pleased with his Venezuelan children, because if there is one thing we have prayed all these years, in every corner of the country, for Peace in our nation, it is the Holy Rosary. The Virgin covered us with her mantle last October 7, and everything took place in Peace.

We will keep praying hard and spreading this devotion, because only through prayer will we be filled with the strength and peace to keep going, working in this beloved Homeland where we were born and where God does not yet want us to rest.

So let’s keep up the fight, with great spirit and great commitment! Young people have been our great support, that wonderful crane that lifts us up in the hardest moments. Sooner rather than later we will see a country with Justice and Peace for EVERYONE, the fruit of our prayer, our commitment, our work, effort, sweat and tears. We will keep going, whatever it costs, with the help of God and our Most Holy Virgin of Coromoto.