‘Grampo es un’ Bible expert
Those long weeks de este tiempo del año made Canutito think about many things. He was remembering la historia que su Grama Cuca had told him about una devout lady who lived behind the church que se llamaba Mana Tula.
It seems que ella era tan devota throughout the last season of Lent que she never ate meat en ningún día de la Cuaresma. She went to Mass todos los días and she dressed en un túnico purple for 40 days para hacer match los días de la season. People used to say que Mana Tula would wear su purple dress por cuarenta días pero the minute que Easter arrived and the church bells rang out the ‘Gloria’, she would slip out de la iglesia and come back unos cuantos minutos later vestida en un túnico white para matchear a las Easter lilies de la Resurrection.
Canutito was also remembering una vez que he was having trouble swallowing su Holy Communion. He thought about cuando su Grama Cuca told him que if la hostia got stuck to the top de su palagar inside his mouth, era porque he hadn’t made una buena confesión and the host would remain stuck to his palate until he did.
As he sat en la cocina thinking though, Canutito couldn’t remember una de las cosas that he had heard durante la Cuaresma. He wanted to ask Grama Cuca, pero she was out visitando a una vecina enferma. She liked to do nice things like visiting sick neighbors como la vecina.
Grampo Caralampio came into the kitchen and he saw que el muchachito was sitting, muy apenão about something. Still looking at the worried expression on the little boy’s face, se sentó next to him y le preguntó: “¿Qué te pasa, m’hijo? What makes your face look toda arrugada?”
“O grampo,” Canutito began, “I want to know something que I heard at church during Lent pero I couldn’t remember it and grama isn’t here para preguntarle.
“Well entonces, I’m sure que you can ask me, m’hijo,” Grampo Caralampio replied. “Yo también sé a couple of things about church; after all, I’ve been sleeping en el banco de la iglesia next to your grama por muchos años while she listens to the priest cuando está preaching. What do yo want to know?”
Canutito looked at Grampo Caralampio con una poca de desconfianza; he wasn’t so sure that sleeping in a church pew por munchos años quite made a grampo un expert in all the things que pasaban en la iglesia. He wasn’t sure que grampo estaba bien qualified para hacer answer church questions. He thought he’d try it de todas maneras so he asked him:
“Grampo, there are muchas cosas en la Bible that I understand. Por ejemplo, I know que Jesus walked on water pero cuando San Pedro tried de caminar en el agua he began to sink and so Jesus told him: ‘Oh you, de poca fe’, isn’t that right?” “Yes, le dijo: ‘you of little faith’, m’hijo,” grampo affirmed. “I also know,” continued Canutito, “que when there was a blind man que nació sin ojos, Jesus made him some brand new eyes by spitting de la tierra and mixing some mud y luego he smeared el zoquete en los empty eye sockets del ciego and said to him: ‘Ephatha’.”
“Sí, m’hijo,” grampo replied. “La palabra ‘Ephatha’ in Hebrew means ‘be open’.”
“Entonces, what did Jesus say to the bride and the groom cuando he changed agua en vino at the Wedding at Cana?”
El smartote del grampo had the answer: “After Jesus changed the water into wine, he told them, ‘Forgive them, Father for they know not what they do’!”
Canutito just stared at grampo. Somehow he was sure que ésas no eran las exact words que Jesus had said a los novios en las Bodas de Caná …