Meet Them Where They Are

Setting: Montevideo, Uruguay, 1930.

Father Emiliano Rossi sat in a straight-backed chair before a heavy oak desk. He was twenty-three years old, of average height and slender build, with neatly trimmed black hair and pale, thoughtful eyes. His face was refined, almost delicate, still carrying traces of youth. There was a reserve about him, a sense that his thoughts ran deeper than his words, and that he was still learning how to live among ordinary men.

Across from him sat Bishop Augustín Pontevedra, a tall, bald man in his late sixties, broad-shouldered and solid, with a square jaw and a gaze that cut straight into whoever sat before him. His face was deeply lined by the years of subdued anxiety that came with his position, and his voice carried the same practiced authority that the role demanded.

“You must be tired from the voyage,” the bishop said. “Rome is a long way from here.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

Pontevedra’s office was spare and orderly. Its walls were lined with dark wooden shelves holding diocesan ledgers and a few stern portraits of bishops long gone. A faint smell of old paper and incense hung in the air, carrying Emiliano back to the study of his mentor, Bishop Luchesi, in the Borgo district just steps from the Vatican.

Pontevedra continued. “I mentioned your new duties in the letter, so I’ll skip the long introduction. You will take charge of Santa María del Puerto, down by the docks. Hard people live there. Good people. They live by the sea, and they die by it.”

He removed his glasses and rubbed them with a handkerchief. “Three young men were killed there yesterday. A crate fell from a hoist, owned by a large British company. The workers had complained for months. To make matters worse, the father of one of the boys is the head of a local union. They call him Stalin. The mayor fears there might be violence.”

Emiliano nodded. “Did they have families?” he asked.

“No. They were just boys. One was eighteen, the other two no more than twenty,” Pontevedra replied. “I don’t know if that makes things better or worse in this situation,” he added.

The bishop paused, then gave Emiliano a steady look, the kind that signaled he should take the next words to heart. “You will attend the funerals by my side. You will not officiate, but you will be there. The families must see that the Church stands beside them. Speak to them afterward. Listen. Much depends on it.”

He came around the desk and rested one hand on Emiliano’s shoulder. “The Rossi family has served this Church well. Your father’s generosity does not go unnoticed. You could have chosen any life, but you chose this one, Emiliano. That counts for something.”

The young man lowered his eyes in submission.

Pontevedra circled the desk again. “Bishop Luchesi spoke highly of you. Discipline. Faith. Humility. We believe in you, Father Rossi.” He hesitated for a moment before his voice deepened. “The priest before you died in the spring. The parish is restless. They need calm, and I know you are the man who can bring it.”

He studied the young priest’s face for a moment longer, towering over him, then rested his hands on the back of his chair and added quietly, “Just meet them where they are, Emiliano.”

Father Rossi nodded, pretending he shared the bishop’s conviction.

When he stepped into the courtyard, the noon bells of the cathedral began to sound. The light struck his face, sharp and white, and far below, somewhere beyond the rooftops, the harbor answered with a ship’s long, low whistle.

The streets narrowed as he walked downhill toward the docks. Warm air carried the smell of salt and tar, of bread baking somewhere close, and of fish left too long in the sun. Men in coarse shirts pushed carts loaded with crates, and women stepped in and out of doorways, tending to errands and calling after their children.

Emiliano watched them and thought of the people who had worked on his father’s land. The same strong hands, the same worn faces. Yet even there, among them, he had never felt at home. He felt apart from the rich who dined in his father’s house, and apart from the men who mended the fences and drove the cattle. He felt apart in Rome too, among the marble halls and quiet gardens. He had always moved through the world as a visitor.

His father was a practical man, a landowner who knew how to speak to his workers and share their labor when needed. Emiliano could still see him standing in the fields, sleeves rolled, laughing with the men. He had admired that in him, though it frightened him, too. He could never imagine himself among them, not really.

Now, walking through these streets, he wondered how he could ever do what the bishop had asked. How could he meet these people where they were when he had never belonged anywhere himself? What did he have in common with them, or with anyone?

The church stood at the end of a small square near the water, its plaster walls cracked and streaked from the sea air. A single bell hung above the door. Inside, the light fell dim through narrow windows, touching the worn wooden pews and the small altar at the far end. He walked slowly up the aisle. The crucifix above the altar was simple, carved in dark wood. The calm and sorrowful face of Christ looked down upon him, and Emiliano stood before it for a long time. He lowered his head, not sure if he was praying or only thinking.

* * *

The cemetery lay on the edge of the city, beyond the warehouses and the railway tracks. Farther down, the ground sloped gently toward the sea, and a warm, steady wind drifted up from the south. Narrow paths wound through its old, whitewashed walls, each one lined with rows of tombs and niches. In this place, the dead were often laid to rest in small, stacked chambers built into the walls, a common practice in cities where ground was scarce.

The drizzle began to pick up, speckling the three coffins resting before one of the walls. Each was covered with a plain black cloth and a small wooden cross. The officiating priest spoke the prayers in a low, steady voice that reached only the closest rows of mourners. Behind him stood Bishop Pontevedra, silent and solemn, his presence alone meant to quiet the city. To his left was Emiliano with his head slightly bowed and his hands clasped before him.

Around them pressed the families of the dead and many men from the docks, dozens of them, gathered in a broad semicircle that ran from one end of the wall to the other, with more people spilling back along the paths and between the graves. Their jackets were dark with rain, and many had their caps pulled low and their arms crossed tightly. The air was heavy with something that was not only grief.

When the coffins began to move, the men of the cemetery lifted them on wooden stretchers and slid them one by one into the narrow openings. A low moan rose from the gathered families, swelling into something raw as the first coffin disappeared into the wall. Shoulders shook, hands covered faces, and a woman let out a broken cry that tore through the rain-heavy air. The sound carried straight through Emiliano, sending a shiver down his spine.

Just at that moment, a sparrow landed on one of the open niche doors with the name Molina on it, shaking the rain from its wings. It tilted its head, watching the scene with quick, dark eyes. Emiliano saw it and for a moment felt that the bird saw him, too.

* * *

The rain followed Emiliano down the narrow streets of La Teja, a working-class neighborhood near the harbor. He stopped before a small white house with a cracked façade. A single oil lamp burned behind the window, stirring in the young priest a fleeting thought of the divine spark in every man. From inside, he could hear the low murmur of voices. This was the house of the union leader they called Stalin.

When Emiliano stepped through the door, the room fell silent. Family, neighbors, and fellow workers stood crowded together. In the corner, a woman sat with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Her eyes were red and swollen.

A man rose from a chair near the center of the room. His name was Pablo Tedeschi, father of the dead eighteen-year-old Javier, whom everyone jokingly called El Chivo – the Goat – for the faint black beard that had only just begun to show on his face. Pablo was thick-shouldered, with a face darkened by the sun and hands rough from rope and iron. He had a thick black moustache and rich dark hair that made it all too easy for Emiliano to recognize him.

He looked at the young priest without greeting him. “Sit down, Father,” he said. “Can I get you something?”

Emiliano shook his head and took the offered chair. The room stayed silent except for the ticking of a clock on the wall.

After a moment he said softly, “I was at the burial today. I wanted to speak with you, to offer my condolences. Perhaps we could talk in private.”

Pablo’s eyes narrowed. “Why in private when we can talk in front of everyone?”

Emiliano hesitated, unsure. He folded his hands together and told him that his son was with God now, quoting Scripture, “And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Pablo gave a dry, bitter laugh. “Everlasting life. Don’t you know there are people who already live in paradise? The owners of that British company, the ones who work men like my son until they die. They live well, eat well, sleep well. They have their heaven right here on earth.”

He was addressing the crowd now, something that clearly came naturally to the man. “My boy worked twelve hours a day for wages that could not feed him. He came home sore, with his hands bleeding. He and his friends told them that crane was broken. They complained three times. No one listened. Then the rope snapped, and the crate crushed them. Now they’re gone. And if it weren’t for the union, I wouldn’t even have had a coffin to put him in.” He turned to the priest again, almost as if he just remembered he was there. “Do you understand that, Father? What do you say to that?”

Emiliano opened his mouth, but no words came. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him. The ticking of the clock grew louder.

Pablo’s hands were trembling. “Tell me, Father. What does your book say about that? About men who send others to their deaths and still call themselves righteous?”

Emiliano stared at him, silent, his thoughts frozen, his lips unable to form a single word. He felt the heat of the room, the weight of the people, the sound of the rain outside. He had never been so near to sorrow, or to anger, and never felt so small before both.

* * *

The second house lay farther inland. It was a low, weathered building with peeling paint, a sagging roof, and walls the color of dust. Emiliano peeked through the window. Fewer people were gathered here. He noticed that three men from the docks stood under the eaves, smoking in silence.

A portly woman in her early forties met him at the door. Her eyes were swollen, her voice hoarse. “Come in, Father,” she said.

He nodded and stepped inside. The small room held only a handful of people, all seated in silence. They rose when he entered, then sat again. The sound of the rain on the roof filled the spaces where words should have been.

“I would like to speak with the mother,” Emiliano said gently.

The woman shook her head. “Maria is in bed. She has not spoken since yesterday.”

The words brought to him an image of his own mother, also called Maria, slender and pale, her hands always smelling faintly of lavender. He remembered how she cried softly the night he told her he would become a priest, how she pressed his head against her shoulder and held him as if she could keep him from going. He saw her again at the port the morning he left for Rome, her face wet with tears, her lips trembling in a smile she tried to hold. She loved him more than anyone, guarded him from every harm, as if the world itself were too rough for him. He wondered if she would be in bed now, if it were him on a slab, like this other Maria, unable to rise, her heart broken by loss. The thought settled on him like a stone, and for a moment he could not tell which woman held his sorrow.

Emiliano nodded and turned toward a man sitting by the table. His shoulders folded in on themselves as he pressed his face into his hands. The worn-out shirt he wore hung loose on his frame, faded to a tired gray, and his hands were rough and stained. Emiliano recognized him from the burial. He was Carlos Gutiérrez, father of Juan Pablo, only a couple of years older than Javier.

He sat beside him. “I am Father Rossi,” he said softly. “I came to offer my condolences. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Carlos lifted his head at last, revealing hollow cheeks, tired eyes, and a three-day stubble. He spoke in a muffled voice. “He was my everything, my only son. How could this have happened? What am I to do now?”

Emiliano hesitated. He felt the weight of the question but could find no words that seemed to fit the moment. At last, he said quietly, “The Scripture says, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ The Lord sees your sorrow.”

Once again, Carlos said nothing for a long time. When he lifted his head, his eyes were glassy, unfocused, as if he were looking through the young priest rather than at him. They remained like that for a few moments, neither speaking nor moving. Then the man looked away again and whispered, “What am I to do now?”

The heaviness in the room pressed down on Emiliano. It was not anger, as before, but something deeper, a grief that filled every corner and left no air to breathe.

The woman who had let him into the house seemed to sense the weight of the silence. She looked from Carlos to Emiliano, then said softly, “How about if we pray the rosary, Father?”

Emiliano nodded. He reached into his pocket and drew out his rosary. The woman sat beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her shoulder. She let him take her hand, and with a slight shift drew the grieving man into the same quiet chain of touch. Emiliano began to pray, his voice low and steady, the beads moving slowly through his fingers. “Señor, dale el descanso eterno…” He knew the old man was not listening, that his mind was far away, somewhere unreachable. Yet he went on, word after word, because the silence that filled the house was heavier than any prayer, and this was all he could offer against it.

* * *

Emiliano felt utterly crushed as he prepared himself to knock on the door of the third house.

The home of the Molinas stood at the end of a narrow street near the tram line, a low building of cracked plaster and a corrugated roof. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still gray, and a faint smell of the sea drifted inland. When he knocked, a young girl opened the door. She was slender, with dark hair tied back and sleeves rolled above her elbows. There was strength in her movements, the kind that comes from doing too much for too long.

“You must be Father Rossi,” she said. “Please, come in.”

The room was small, with a stove in the corner and damp clothes hanging on a line above it. Two men from the union were speaking quietly by the door. They nodded to him and stepped aside. The girl said, “My father is in here,” and led him into the next room.

Her name was Lucía. She was sixteen, and since her mother’s death, she had kept the house and cared for her father and brother. Now there was only her father left. She had not cried much, though there was something behind her eyes that told of sorrow pressed down by duty.

In the next room, Alfonso Molina sat under the window. He was a small man, broad through the chest but soft around the middle, with kind eyes and a face that had once been full of laughter. His bald head shone in the dull light. The chair creaked when he shifted.

He looked up and said, “Please, Father, sit down.”

Emiliano sat opposite him, unsure where to begin. The air in the room was still and heavy. He could hear the girl moving quietly in the kitchen.

From outside came the sound of a sparrow, quick and bright. Emiliano turned his head slightly toward the window. The bird was hidden, but his eyes fell on something else – a small yellow and black banner pinned to the wall, with the word Peñarol stitched across it in bold letters.

Alfonso followed his gaze. “Juan loved Peñarol,” he said. “Since he was a boy. I used to take him to the matches. They called him El Rubio – the Blond – because of his hair. He never missed a game if he could help it.”

Emiliano nodded, trying to listen, though he knew little of the sport.

Alfonso smiled faintly, looking at the banner. “Juan bought tickets for Sunday’s match. He and I were going to go together. Now they’ll go to waste. He had been talking about it all week.”

Emiliano looked down at his hands. “Why did your son like football so much?” he asked quietly.

Alfonso seemed surprised, then leaned back a little, his eyes softening. “It’s everything here, Father. The whole neighborhood goes. It’s what we look forward to after the week. The shouting, the songs, the people together. It’s the one place where you forget everything else. We all become the same for a while. This year, we were proud. You know, the Campeonato Mundial – the World Championship – they played it here. We couldn’t afford to go, but when Uruguay won, it felt like we all had.”

He paused, smiling faintly at the memory. “My boy played for a while when he was young. He was quick, good with his feet. Then he hurt his ankle, and that was the end of it. But we still went to every match we could. It was our thing.”

Emiliano remembered the only football match he had ever attended. He was nine years old, visiting Montevideo with his father and brother, staying at his uncle Gustavo’s house. One Sunday, Gustavo took them both to see Nacional, the team of the upper classes, dressed in their white shirts with the blue and red trim. They sat in one of the boxes among well-dressed men and ladies with hats and gloves, everyone talking and laughing as if it were a social gathering more than a game. His brother shouted and cheered beside his uncle, waving his arms each time Nacional moved toward the goal, but Emiliano sat quietly, watching without interest. He could not even remember who the opposing team was, only that Nacional had won and the people around him were pleased. The match felt endless to him, the noise and excitement hollow. What held his thoughts even then were the small verses he had begun reading at night by lamplight, the words that spoke of mercy and of the soul. While the others cheered, he thought how strange it was that people could be so moved by something that meant nothing to him, and in that moment he already knew where his devotion would lie.

Emiliano heard himself say, “Could I come with you to the game on Sunday?”

Alfonso looked at him, unsure if he had heard correctly. This young priest did not strike him as a football fan. Then Lucía spoke from the other room. “You must go, Father. It will be good for you.”

Alfonso looked at her, then back at Emiliano. His eyes filled slowly with tears. “All right,” he said softly. “Yes. We should go.”

Emiliano nodded, uncertain why he had said it, only knowing that it felt right. He looked once more toward the window, where the sound of the sparrow still came faintly from the gray sky.

* * *

Emiliano sat at his desk surrounded by papers. The little office was dim, lit only by the pale afternoon light slipping in through the window behind him. He tried to focus on his work, to read the letters and fill out the parish records, but the words blurred before him. His thoughts kept returning to the three men he had met.

He rose and went to the window. The street below was narrow, lined with houses that leaned against each other like old friends. A woman crossed the road with a bucket in her hand, and a child ran after her. The sight did nothing to steady him. He rested his fingers on the window frame and lowered his eyes.

God had placed this task before him. He believed that firmly. God controlled every path, every burden, and this was his test. But was it not too egotistic to think of it only from his perspective? Wouldn’t these people be better served by a more experienced priest? He had spoken to three fathers and reached none of them. The first man met him with anger, the second with silence. They were different, but both were closed to him, as if he were speaking through glass. One spoke of things beyond his power to change; the other had nothing to say at all.

He thought of the bishop’s words: Meet them where they are. He tried to understand what that meant. Was he supposed to listen, to comfort, to guide? He could not tell. He had learned that one must carry the weight of the world, that every soul is given its share of suffering, and that only faith can make sense of it. But how could he say that to a father who had just buried his son?

He turned from the window and sat again. The rosary lay beside the papers. He picked it up and began to move the beads between his fingers, one by one, in a slow and steady motion. He thought of Alfonso Molina, the third father. He promised to go to the football match with him. Would that help? It seemed absurd. He knew nothing about the game. The man loved it because it was a bond with his son. If the son was gone, what good was the game? How could his presence change anything?

Perhaps the bishop’s words were not meant to be taken so literally. Surely, they did not mean he should simply go where the people were, stand among them, sit beside them at a football match. But how else was he to reach them? How could he meet a man in his sorrow when he did not understand it?

He looked down at his hands, still moving over the rosary. The beads were smooth and cold, like drops of water. He prayed silently for strength, asking God to guide him, to show him how to bring comfort where words failed.

Outside, the light was fading. The city was quiet. Two days had passed since the funerals, and though grief hung over everything, no violence had broken out. The tension was there, like a storm that would not come, but the streets remained still. Maybe it would pass. Maybe it would not. He told himself it did not matter. His task was clear. He must do whatever he could for this man. He just did not know how.

* * *

The tram rattled through the narrow streets of Pocitos and came to a stop at one of the corners. Emiliano stepped off. He could hear the rise and fall of distant voices, the rhythmic beat of a drum, and the clatter of footsteps moving toward the stadium. The houses here were small and close together, painted in faded colors, their balconies draped with laundry. Boys kicked a ball made of rags in the dust between the buildings, and the sound of shouting came from ahead, where the street opened toward the stadium.

He stood for a while outside the gates of Estadio Pocitos. It was not large, only a few wooden stands and a low wall, but it seemed alive. People crowded in from every direction, waving flags of yellow and black. Vendors shouted, selling peanuts and roasted corn. A brass band played off rhythm somewhere near the gate.

He waited by the entrance until he saw Alfonso Molina and his daughter, Lucía, coming down the street. Alfonso wore his best jacket, his shoulders straight, his bald head shining in the sun. Lucía held his arm. She smiled politely at Emiliano. “He’s been looking forward to this, Father,” she said. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Alfonso nodded to her and turned to Emiliano. “Shall we?”

They went in together. The crowd pressed close as the noise rose and fell in waves. They found seats halfway up the wooden stand. The field below was bright and green, the lines freshly chalked. Peñarol’s players were already warming up in their yellow and black striped shirts, while across the field Rampla Juniors stood in red and green. The sun caught on the goalposts and the brass of the band.

For a long while they said nothing. Alfonso leaned forward, hands on his knees, watching the field. Emiliano sat stiffly beside him, trying not to show how out of place he felt. The shouting, the laughter, the drums. It was nothing like the match he had seen years ago with his uncle Gustavo. That one had been quiet, almost polite, the voices refined, the men in suits. This was different. Here the noise had life in it, rough and full of joy.

When the whistle blew and the match began, the stands went into a louder, wilder roar. The crowd reacted to every pass, every tackle. Ten minutes in, a Peñarol forward broke through the defense and shot from the edge of the box. The net rippled. The stadium exploded.

Alfonso jumped to his feet, clapping and shouting. His face remained solemn, but his voice broke with emotion. “That’s it! That’s it, Peñarol!” he cried. Too self-conscious to smile, he looked like an angry father reprimanding a misbehaving child. Around them, people hugged each other, waved their caps, shouted until they were hoarse. Emiliano stood with them, unsure what to do, smiling faintly at the sight of the old man. He found himself cheering too, hoping the burst of happiness in the stands might loosen something in Alfonso, if only for a heartbeat.

When the noise finally settled, Alfonso caught his breath. “You see, Father,” he said, “this is what keeps people alive around here.”

Emiliano nodded. “You must come here often.”

“Where else would I go,” Alfonso said. “If you want to meet people, to understand who they truly are, come here. They come from every corner of the city – men from the docks, from La Teja, from the rail yards in Peñarol, from the markets downtown – all to stand side by side for these ninety minutes. Come before the game, after the game. Walk by the bars, hear them talk. I know you don’t drink, Father, but just listen. You’ll learn more about these people in one afternoon than in a hundred sermons.”

The words stayed with Emiliano. He looked out over the field again. The players ran in a blur of color, and the crowd moved with them so closely that the stadium seemed to breathe as one.

Then another shout went up. Peñarol had scored again, a clean header from a corner. The stands shook under their feet. Alfonso clapped his hands, even grinned for a moment before wiping the sweat from his forehead with a large white handkerchief. There was joy in him now, but something else too, a sorrow that would not loosen its hold.

Emiliano found himself clapping as well. The noise, the heat, the living pulse of it all worked into him. For the first time since his arrival, he felt something lift inside him, something that was neither prayer nor duty.

The referee blew the whistle for halftime. The players walked off the field, and the crowd slowly quieted, their voices dropping to murmurs and laughter. Alfonso sat again, breathing heavily but smiling. Emiliano watched him and wondered if perhaps this, too, was a kind of prayer.

They rose eventually with the rest of the crowd. Vendors moved through the aisles shouting for peanuts and pastries, and Alfonso bought two paper cones of maní tostado and a small bottle of soda. They stood near the railing, stretching their legs while the band played a tune that drifted in and out with the wind. They talked for a while, though later Emiliano could not remember what it had been about. It was something small, unimportant, maybe about the players or the weather. What stayed with him was the feeling that, for the first time, he had stopped thinking about what he should say or how it might sound. He no longer worried about what he was supposed to do for the old man or for anyone else. He simply let it go.

The second half began with a roar that rolled across the stands. Emiliano sat a little straighter, the tension gone from his shoulders. The game moved fast, and the noise around him filled the space where his thoughts usually lived. He was still a little stiff, still careful in his movements, but something inside him had shifted. For the first time, though he did not feel that he was one of these people, he felt affection for them. He thought that perhaps this was what God wanted for him. To be here, among this unruly congregation. To see them, to know them, to care for them. In that moment, he decided that he would. He would devote himself to them, to their pain and their joy, and he would give whatever he had to give.

Ten minutes before the end, Peñarol scored again. The stands erupted. Emiliano was on his feet before he realized it, clapping, smiling, shouting without words. Beside him, Alfonso jumped up, his face alive with joy. For one brief instant, he looked happy. Truly happy.

When the whistle blew, they left with the crowd, swept along by the noise and the songs. Outside the gates, Lucía was waiting. Alfonso turned to Emiliano, and they shook hands. They stood like that for a moment, saying nothing, then the old man stepped forward and embraced him.

Emiliano felt something strange in that touch, as if the man’s sorrow had turned to a kind of trembling that passed through them both. For an instant, they were one, joined by something neither of them could name. He felt rather than saw the old man wipe a tear from his face. The embrace lasted only a few seconds, though it seemed longer.

Alfonso stepped back and thanked him. He turned to go, his daughter beside him. Then he stopped, turned again, and looked at Emiliano straight in the eye. “Do you think God will ever make this pain go away?”

Emiliano had no verse, no prepared words. He did not think. He simply spoke. “No,” he said, “but if you don’t let the grief destroy you, it will make you a better man. And one day, when you see your son again, he will be proud of you.”

Alfonso looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. Lucía smiled faintly. They turned and walked away down the street.

Emiliano stood there for a while, watching them disappear into the crowd. The noise from the stadium was fading, replaced by the sound of trams and distant voices. He thought of all that had happened in the last few days, of every word he had spoken without knowing why, every act that had come not from thought but from somewhere else.

He understood then that there are moments when a person steps outside himself, when something unseen moves through him, and he becomes more than what he is. Maybe that is the divine spark, he thought, the small part of God that lives in us and speaks when we fall silent.

He turned toward the tram stop, walking slowly through the thinning crowd as the evening light settled over the city.