In retirement, Lily Garcia finds joy in volunteer work in Washington D.C.'s National Shrine
By Mila Glodava
My sister, Melecia Garcia or Lily to most of her friends, is a very busy person. Although now retired from her civil engineering job abt Bolling Air Force Base, Ate Lily is busier than ever traveling around the world -- she just recently came back from a pilgrimage to Poland and is planning a couple of trips to the Philippines -- shopping at her favorite malls, visiting the growing Garcia family in the D.C. area, or doing volunteer work in the Carmelite monastery and the National Shrine.
Often she uses her professonal skills as a civil engineer in her volunteer work, as when she coordinated repair work at the Carmelite monastery. Yet she finds equal joy in simply greeting people before or after Mass at the National Shrine. "I meet a lot of people from around the world," she says. In fact, one of my fellow parishioners at St. Joan of Arc in Arvada, Colorado, once told me of her short encounter with Ate Lily.
"I just met your Archbishop Chaput," she said. "He's very pleasant and approachable." Archbisohp Chaput was in town for the Kateri Tekakwitha National Conference for Native Americans.
Lily Garcia with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, OFM CAP, Archbishop of Denver and Msgr. Lenz, Vice-Postulator for the Cause of Blessed Kateri Tekawitha.
Among the notables she recently met were His Eminence Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Archbishop of Manila, who officiated the festivities in honor of Our Lady of Antipolo, and His Eminence Jose Cardinal Sanchez, who now resides in Rome.
So, if you're visiting the National Shrine in the D.C. area, you might just bump into my sister, Ate Lily. Do introduce yourself and reminisce with another kababayan. And I know she will give you the best tour of the Shrine.