Priest finds intact chalice after flooding of the Dana in Valencia

On the night of October 29 of last year it will be marked forever in the memory and hearts of the Spaniards, especially the Valencians. A Strong temporalnever seen until then, swept dozens of municipalities in the Levante area, leaving 224 fatal victims.

Fr. Salvador Romero was at that time in the church of San Ramón Nonato de Paiporta, one of the most affected municipalities and considered the “zero zone” of the tragedy caused by floods. “The best we could do was pray. I decided to move forward with the Mass and when I gave communion to the few people left, the water already reached us under the knees. ”

With serenity and integrity, the Spanish priest tells Aci Press the details of that anguishing night in which despite the tragedy he understood that Jesus “is with us every day, until the end of the world.”

Saved the lives of six women

When the faithful left, he tried The water level ascended “very fast.” Father Salvador then left the missal, the chalice and the body supported on a table.

“I didn’t have time to close the church door, because we saw that the water climbed and climbed,” he said. With the help of the Sacristana, they were able to get their mother out of the place and take her to the residence of the priest, on the upper floor of the parish. “When I opened the door the water threw me against the wall.”

Once safe at home, and although the mobiles began to fail, he received a call from Valencia. “They told me that there were six women perched on the walls of the parish, on a bank.” As he looked out the window, he listened to the screams and found that, indeed, there they were.

“I went down again, there was already the water two meters high. The truth is that I don’t know how I could open the door, but I opened it. We did a little chain and could climb the six, ”he explains.

Fr. Salvador remembers the anguish of those moments, added to the uncertainty of women for the situation of their relatives, especially for their advanced mothers. “There was a woman who was very worried about her mother, who was 92 years old. She finally died drowned at home, like so many other older people, ”he laments.

“It was a very hard, very distressing moment. We saw how the water went down dragging several cars that had the lights on and how they hit the houses. ” At three in the morning, when the water level began to descend, Fr. Romero went down to close the church door, since from the first night “people who came to steal were seen.”

“The chalice was intact”

The next day, the presbyter continues, “I found everything shattered”, it was a “very apocalyptic” scene. “Everything was full of mud, cars inside all places and of course, the church was all shattered inside. The banks were all stacked in one place, the images on the floor thrown… ”

“Then, when I entered the sacristy, I saw the table where I had left several things, the chalice, the body, the missal and even a carpet, thinking that the water was not going to get there. And well, the carpet was all full of mud and the missal too, however, the chalice was intact and the entire white body. The truth was a surprise, ”says the priest.

He affirms that at that moment he remembered Jesus’ words: “I will be with you every day, until the end of the world.” “For me it was a confirmation of his presence in the Eucharist,” he adds.

Father Romero does not ask if it is a miracle, but conceives what happened as a sign. “With the water level so high the table floated, right? It is curious that all the rolled carpet, which was on the table and was taller than the chalice, was all clay stained and that the chalice was unpolluted, because I neither cleaned it nor touched it. I lost everything, all liturgical clothes, everything. Everything was completely muddy. ”

“In fact,” he adds, “we celebrated Mass that day in a kind of shelter in front of the parish with the chalice as I was, just as I found it. After that, we knew that God does not avoid sufferings, but he does present and shows us signs of his presence. ”

Conversion of volunteers

Father Romero, who has turned six years old in Paiporta, says that, due to the “shock state”, he does not clearly remember the first days after the catastrophe. “It was all very dantesque; They began to find corpses stacked everywhere, in the houses there were people killed and also alive. ”

Successive days began to arrive volunteers from all corners of Spain to help those affected. “Providentially, the first young people who arrived were from the parish of my neighborhood, in Valencia, where I had been a seminarian. That filled me with joy and my tears almost skip, ”he tells ACI Press.

Fr. Romero highlights the gratitude that all the people felt for selfless help. “Many people have come, many young people from church, many religious, many priests, to remove mud with people. They came to help with a smile, bringing joy and hope. Many told me that they had seen a new face of the Church, but that is the face it has, what happens is that many times we do not see it because we see it from the outside, ”he says.

The Spanish priest exalts the help of volunteers, an experience that “has touched the hearts of many.” His parish became a distribution warehouse, where all help was welcome. “People from all sites came. You didn’t even talk to people, you just got to work and you didn’t know where it was, where it came from, or if it took place to sleep. That was terrible. ”

The Eucharist that he celebrated during those days is treated in her memory. “They were very strong, with a great spiritual sense. They were moments of delivery with people from everywhere, all clay stained. ” Remember in particular a young volunteer who told him that when he returned home he wanted to ask for baptism.

“He saw how Christians live. For those who have lost everything, but they don’t have Jesus, they have nothing. But for those who lose everything, and have Jesus, they have everything. And it is not a simple phrase, I have seen it. Faith is that firm support that sustains in moments of loss. ”

Four months from the tragedy

Shortly after four months from what happened, Fr. Romero comments that the works continue. “You see in people a lot of despair, because everything is very slow. When you pass through the area of ​​low homes it is a drama to see it, because many businesses are not going to open and many homes will not be rehabilitated again. The identity of the people has been lost a bit, ”he laments.

“This is for long, there is still a lot to do, in every way, and also from silence, because obviously it is no longer news. Outside doors it seems that everything is fixed, but what is going. Here is a lot to do yet, ”concludes the priest.

Update