A priest came to the aid of a homeless woman in distress, supporting her through the delivery of two children.
He shared this extraordinary event with Catholic Extension and now wonders what message God was trying to convey to him through this uncommon experience.
Father Jesús Mariscal serves as a parish vicar at St. Paul Cathedral in Yakima, Washington. Last September, he briefly stepped out of the residence, initially for a quick break to buy donuts in anticipation of a marriage preparation meeting with an engaged couple.
While passing the statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, erected on the cathedral grounds, he spotted a homeless woman in distress nearby.
She was frantically screaming:
"Help! I'm giving birth!"
At first, Father Mariscal struggled to believe it. However, upon closer inspection, he saw blood at her feet. She cried out:
"It's happening now! I'm doing it now!"
He dialed 911 and assisted the woman in lying down. Putting his phone on speaker mode and placing it on the ground, he followed the 911 operator's instructions. Within seconds, the woman gave birth to a boy. Father Mariscal handed the crying baby to the woman.
"There's another one!" exclaimed the woman, astonishing the priest.
Father Mariscal assisted with the delivery of the second boy. He informed the 911 operator that the child was still in the amniotic sac, the protective membrane surrounding a child in the womb. Father Mariscal observed the baby moving inside.
The operator instructed him to break it, which proved more difficult than expected. With precious time slipping away and no tools at hand, the priest finally managed to rupture the sac with his hands, discovering that the little child was not breathing.
His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. The operator told Father Mariscal to place the child on its side and gently pat its back.
After a few terrifying moments, the baby began to cry, announcing its arrival into the world. Father Mariscal placed the second child in the woman's free arm.
As the morning air was cool, he went back inside to fetch towels. Finally, the paramedics arrived.
Father Mariscal sent a message to the couple he was supposed to meet for marriage preparation. "Sorry I'm late for our appointment. I just helped a lady deliver twins," he wrote.
Thinking it was a joke to excuse his lateness, they replied:
"Father, no need to lie."
"What is God trying to tell me?"
The woman and the twins were transported to the hospital. The babies were born prematurely, at 30 weeks.
The priest visited them at the hospital, and they are doing well. He is not aware of the mother's exact situation. A few hours after her admission, she left the hospital and, apparently, did not return.
"It's a beautiful story on one hand, but heartbreaking on the other," confided the priest, whose own mother passed away earlier in the year.
"It was a surreal experience," he said. "It was like something out of a movie."
"I was there, holding a baby with my bloody hands, and the baby was just as bloody. I was dressed in clerical attire. As a priest before the shrine of Our Lady, I wondered:
'What is God trying to tell me? What are you trying to tell me, God? What is this about?'"
He shared this experience during the next day's Mass with parishioners, who also thought the priest was telling an "apocryphal" story with no basis in reality.
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But the reality is that there are two new babies who came into the world thanks to his responsiveness and quick action. And although they entered the world at a disadvantage, like Jesus, "with nowhere to lay their head," there is hope that these children will be raised with love.
So, what might God have been saying to Father Mariscal through this experience?
Perhaps that life is precious and fragile, and that a Church that mobilizes around the disadvantaged, the homeless, the naked, the defenseless, and the vulnerable is the kind of Church Christ intended to build.
Father Mariscal, ordained in 2018, believes this story should be "about the mother and the babies and their situation. The twins and the woman are the protagonists of God's love. They and people like them, on the peripheries of our own communities, are those whom God calls us to embrace with our service and our love for our neighbors."
This article was originally published by the National Catholic Register (Article Link). It is republished and translated with the author's permission.