Let the Children Come — Even the One I Used to Be

 

At an Arizona retreat, we were given a Visio Divina image for prayer. It depicted Jesus in a dusty barrio, greeting children. Later, out of curiosity, I asked AI to render a similar image — but with the children wearing our school uniforms. The result was striking. Not perfect. But beautiful. Brown faces. Bright eyes. Jesus smiling as only Jesus can.  The image was a play on “Let the little children come to me.”

Only this time, the children were unmistakably Hispanic. Brown. Joyful. At home in the scene. When Jocelyn, our LEI director, handed out the original image, she gently warned us: “This might get uncomfortable.”

I was perplexed. Uncomfortable? It was beautiful. Who doesn’t love seeing Jesus being Jesus with children? As I prayed with it, I noticed the setting — a barrio. Still not uncomfortable.

Then something stirred. I remembered telling Fr. Nord how giddy I was about the growing diversity at our school — how my heart smiled seeing so many new brown-faced, beautiful children enrolled at SSP. I meant every word.

And then, out of nowhere, the question pierced me: So why didn’t you embrace your own roots earlier in life? What took you 60 years to become a proud Hispanic man? Are you a hypocrite?

That’s when the discomfort began.

There’s a Back Story… My grandfather, John Medellin, was a victim of discrimination in Kansas City, Missouri. In anger, his boss once called him — among other things — a “damn wetback.” Grandpa carried that wound. Out of shame, out of pain, out of a desire to protect his family, he forbade us to speak Spanish. We were not to openly practice the culture. We were to blend in. Assimilate. Survive. The Sturgill branch of the Medellins followed that directive. (Though Uncle John and his clan openly rebelled.)

So in high school, I chose French over Spanish. I was passed over for the Honduran mission trips I desperately wanted to attend — because parlez-vous français doesn’t work very well in Central America.

In college, at St. Mary University in San Antonio — surrounded by vibrant Hispanic culture — I sometimes looked past beautiful people who could have enriched my life. I was proud of my fraternity brothers who married wonderful señoritas. But I kept part of myself at arm’s length.

That distance followed me into my professional life. When I was at St. Joseph Manchester, and we were struggling to keep the school open, I had the privilege of speaking to hundreds of Spanish-speaking families at Mass through interpreters. Jose Azudia spoke competently on my behalf. But he could not speak from my heart. And my heart was aching as we eventually had to close that fine school for lack of enrollment. I often wonder how different those conversations might have been if I had spoken their language — not just linguistically, but culturally. Personally.

There’s a Back Story to the Back Story. Family lore complicates things. My grandfather insisted our roots traced back to Colombia via Spain — that we were El Reys, a royal line that migrated north. His brother, Uncle Frank, claimed the Medellins came as common laborers with Hernán Cortés. Perhaps some of my quiet bias preferred the “royal” version over the “commoner” one.

But here’s the irony: The Sturgills came as common laborers to Jamestown. The Medellins came — whether royal or common — to the New World centuries ago. Both stories speak of courage. Of migration. Of sacrifice. Both are honorable.

So why did I hesitate to claim one fully?

It took an invitation to the University of Notre Dame’s Latino Enrollment Institute — made possible by a generous grant from the Incarnate Word Foundation — for something to finally shift in me. There, surrounded by leaders committed to serving Latino families with intentionality and love, I stopped observing from the outside. I stepped in. I even began hyphenating my name: Medellin-Sturgill.

This doesn’t make up for lost time. It doesn’t undo boneheaded denials. But it does tell the truth. And truth sets us free.

My biggest concern isn’t the missed opportunities. It’s the why. Why didn’t I embrace my heritage sooner? Was I embarrassed? Was I protecting myself? Was I protecting my grandfather? Did I unconsciously believe “Mexicans” were “lower than” Spanish?

Was there something in me that preferred “Spanish” to “Mexican” because one sounded more European? Those are hard questions. But here’s what that Visio Divina image showed me: Jesus wasn’t uncomfortable in the barrio. He wasn’t ranking heritage. He wasn’t asking about royal bloodlines or common laborers. He was simply present. Welcoming. Loving.

And in that dusty street filled with brown-faced children, I realized something: Jesus had always been comfortable with my heritage. It was me who needed to catch up. Today, when I see the beautiful diversity in our school, my heart smiles without hesitation. Not as an observer. Not as an admirer from afar. But as a son of that story.

A grandson of a wounded man who did what he thought was best. A flawed, late-blooming, grateful Hispanic man who is still learning to let the child he once was come to Jesus — fully named, fully known, fully claimed. And perhaps that was the discomfort Jocelyn warned us about.

Sometimes the child Jesus wants to welcome… is the one we tried to hide.