NORRISTOWN >> Healing through prayer was the unspoken theme of a special Mass at St. Patrick Parish Thursday for the victims of an earthquake near Mexico City and a hurricane in Puerto Rico.
The parish is home to hundreds of Mexican immigrants, many of whom are from Puebla, the epicenter of Wednesday’s earthquake, while other parishioners are from Puerto Rico, which currently being devastated by Hurricane Maria, noted the Rev. Gus Puleo, St. Patrick’s pastor.
“We have a parishioner, Vincente Peregrina, who is from Puebla, the epicenter of the earthquake, and his family is still there. He has a daughter there, and her husband, and two grandsons,” Puleo explained. “When the earthquake hit, the older grandson was in school, and there’s a man who picks the boy up every day for school, and Vincente had been calling to find out if they were safe, but because of the earthquake the cellphones weren’t working.”
The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit central Mexico on Tuesday killed at least 120 people as buildings collapsed and thousands fled into the streets in panic, and many stayed behind to help rescue those who were trapped.
“What you see on TV is terrible, but the real epicenter was in Puebla, which is about two hours away,” Puleo said. “I’ve been to Puebla, and it’s a big city, but not as big as Mexico City.”
Eventually, Peregrina was able to get through to his family in Mexico.
“He found out that everyone was fine, thank God,” Puleo said.
The quake is the deadliest in Mexico since 1985, when an earthquake on the same date killed thousands, and it came less than two weeks after another powerful quake caused 90 deaths in the country’s south.
Officials in Mexico said at least 30 died in the capital; 54 in Morelos state, just to the south; and at least 26 others in Puebla state.
Peregrina was still living in Mexico when the 1985 earthquake struck, Puleo said.
“Back then, he said you could see the ground swaying and buildings tumbling down, and it was just horrible. But he said what’s they’ve tried to do more recently is to build buildings that can withstand earthquakes,” Puleo noted.
Hurricane Maria, which pummeled Puerto Rico on Wednesday, tore roofs off buildings and shut down the power company’s crumbling infrastructure.
Maria, which has killed at least nine in the Caribbean, made landfall in the southeast coastal town of Yabucoa as a Category 4 storm with winds of 155 mph, and then devastated the island with life-threatening winds for several hours.
Puerto Rico had long been spared from a direct hit by hurricanes that tend to veer north or south of the island. The last Category 4 hurricane landfall in Puerto Rico occurred in 1932, and the strongest storm to ever hit the island was San Felipe in 1928 with winds of 160 mph.
“We have parishioners with families in Puerto Rico too, and they’ve very nervous but it’s too soon to really know anything,” Puleo said. “The electricity is still out. Only the hotels there that have the generators have electricity.”
A special collection was taken up at St. Patrick Church on Thursday for the earthquake and hurricane victims and the continued relief effort.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
