Our Brother Ricardo
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October 3, 2023Fr. Ricardo entered our lives not long after we arrived in Tucsonand met the Redemptorists at Picture Rocks, in 2013. Since then, many confreres have inspired us by their steadfast dedication to serve “the poor and most abandoned,” but no one approached the Redemptorist mission quite like Fr. Ricardo. His “gift” was his ability to be totally present to whoever was before him. It was never forced or a pretense: that person was always the “most important person in the world.” Their lives mattered; their needs mattered; they mattered.
It started with his name. Fr Ricardo’s “legal” name was Hugh Richard Elford. He became “Ricardo” to better serve migrant farm workers – who spoke only Spanish – as a Redemptorist novice in the early 1960s. Over time, “Ricardo” became the name everyone used.
When vision issues prevented Ricardo from driving, we had the privilege of being among many others who “got him to where he needed to go.” Here are just two examples of the kind of things that happened when you were with Ricardo:
On the way back to Picture Rocks after Ricardo celebrated Mass at Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, we encountered a homeless woman standing on the street corner. This happens often enough that we were prepared with a small cash gift. She was standing closest to Ricardo in the front passenger seat. When Diana handed the cash to Ricardo to pass along to the woman, it was one of Tucson’s cloudless, 100F+ days. Opening the window, he exclaimed, “She needs a hat!” So, I passed my baseball cap to him, and he passed it to the homeless woman. (Ricardo was already exchanging names with her.) “Anna” now had a hat to protect her from the sun and enough money to buy lunch. It turned out that I wasn’t hatless for long. All those hats I thought were lost started showing up at home.
Another time, we had just returned to Picture Rocks after Ricardo celebrated Mass at Casa Alitas Migrant Center when he received a desperate call from Maria. He had met her, a typical patient with advanced diabetes symptoms, at Clinica Amistad. She was short some money on the rent for her trailer park home. If she didn’t come up with the rest by the end of the day, she would be out on the street. It would all be okay, he assured her, he would deliver the money she needed in time. Ricardo finished the call, turned to me and asked, “Do you have anything in your wallet?” It turned out that, together, we had just enough cash. We got to where Maria worked in time, and she made the rent payment. And I got home to find I had received a totally unexpected gift for an amount greater than what I had contributed.
Both “Anna” and “Maria” left us their blessings. Ricardo received them gratefully: for God’s blessed had offered their blessings to us [Lk 6:20]. As Fr. Peter Connolly commented a short time after learning of his friend’s death, “Fr. Ricardo never let being a Redemptorist get in the way of being a Redemptorist.”