Letter from Fr. Scott in Monterrey

Nada te turbe
Nada te espante, Tasajillo 316, Barrio Mirasol Sect. II
Todo se pasa, Ciudad Solidaridad Tel. 1158-2210
Dios no se muda. Monterrey, N.L. 64100
La paciencia todo lo alcanza. Quien a Dios tiene nada le falta. Solo Dios basta.

April 29 – June 14th, 2018 Greetings in the Lord´s Love, Friends from the Church of the Nativity!
I once again thank you all for your prayers and monthly support. Here at Sta. Teresa we continue to live the adventure in the faith. Striving to incarnate our believe in our food kitchen where we feed between 50 and 60 daily, the majority elderly who need not only food, but company. We also continue support some 32 in school. Most in high school which costs around 150 dollars a semester in transportation. Public High School is not free either, in some schools we pay around 300 dollars a semester. We also have 8 we are helping that are in college. School drop out is still a problem in our neighborhoods and often related to family disintegration.

June 14th…
I started this letter the end of April and here we are the middle of June. We are in the middle of confirmations and first communions. This first batch will be 500 of each. We divide them up so there are only about 100 in each celebration. That means all of June we have first communion and confirmations on Saturdays. In July we will have the second batch, only about 200 of each and finally in August the last group of about 100 of each. We than have a teenager summer program for youth who could not participate in our normal programs for some reason. The good thing is the last couple of years the Deans can celebrate confirmation here and I can do my own confirmations. I hear some 500 confessions a week now plus parent and godparent formation talks together with the normal craziness. We are down to me and my associate (who also works at one of the State Prisons) so most of the time I am by myself.

Our “People of God” mission team had their 10th anniversary last week. There are about 600 in that group. It was a marvelous celebration. They are a big motor in the parish constantly out knocking on doors letting people know that God loves them. Mass attendance is slowly passing the 10,000 mark and we now have 16 precept masses (two on Saturday and 14 on Sunday). 10:30 p.m. mass now has some 300 to 400 in attendance. Many medical professionals and store employees attend and some elderly because it was the only time their children could bring them to mass. Its kinda a fun mass since it’s a group that really wants to be there, God forgive us the time of night… than again when it is close to 100 degrees in the day, its not a bad time of night to be out! Crime in our part of the city has dropped. Never mind that our streets are patrolled by military police with machine guns and there are often check points on our streets together with soldiers on foot at times walk the streets. Ironically our part of the metro that once was the most dangerous, is probably one of the safest parts of the city.

Our Evangelization Center is now half finished… almost… 16,145 square feet on seven levels. We finally got our elevator running.. built for 11 passangers, but I have seen almost 20 from CCD in there… they look like the minions…they all shout as it starts to move… about three feet a second…101 feet from top to bottom. Including the basement.

July 1st we will have presidential elections. Many people want change, and they might get it. I do not know if they will like it. Hopefully we will not go back to the same mistakes of the early 80s, but everything is possible.

Greetings to all and thanks for your support and our common history! Fr. Scott M. McDermott E.
(The “E” is for Eichhorst, my mother´s maiden name, in Mexico both last names our used)