Special New Year's saludo to Diocesan Seminarian Sr. José Benny Muñoz, presente...

And to his brothers Denver & Braulio, and all the family!



Benny, it was over 20 years ago -- in the fall of 1989 -- that we were privileged to meet you and all your family at a middle school's lagito de ranas in the heart of one of San Antonio's less salubrious neighborhoods.

In the years that followed our families came to grow pretty close; we shared a lot of experiences, too.

Yes!

And some were bad things, too!

Like the traumatic expulsion of that 14 year red - headed kid from the main building.

We got to see his name a couple of months later on the front page of the newspapers as "The first homicide victim of 1990."

Just another throwaway kid casually shot to death with a bullet to the stomach by some passer by as he huddled outside his mom's house in the cold shortly after midnight, and left to simply scream his wretched little life away however he could...

No, Benny, to get to where you are today, with your picture on the wall of the vestibule of Saint Mary Magdalene's Catholic Church here in Brackettville, Texas -- in a cassock and roman collar along with those other young men -- was most certainly a long, grueling 20 year - plus journey.

But you know what?

God's got a reason for everything He does.

You can well believe, it!

Like, maybe, too, someday you'll be able to help throwaway kids like Randy White... and so many more...:)

¡Adios, amigo....!