PROSPECT HEIGHTS — In the midst of the devastation of the California wildfires, one family has seen a sign of heavenly hope that has deepened their Catholic faith.
A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that has stood in front of Peter and Jackie Halpin’s home in Altadena, California, for a year was somehow barely touched by the wildfire, even though the house where the couple has lived for 37 years was destroyed when flames engulfed it on Jan. 7.
The statue was somewhat scorched but is otherwise in pretty good shape. Most of Altadena, a town 8 miles north of Pasadena with about 45,000 residents, was devastated by the wildfires. “And yet, this little concrete statue is fine. It’s a little browner, that’s it,” Jackie told The Tablet on Jan. 13.
“It just reinforced my faith that … it’s going to be OK,” she said. “We have to have hope.”
As of Jan. 13, the Southern California wildfires have killed at least 24 people, destroyed 40,000 acres of land, and forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes, according to state officials.
Jackie, a teacher, and Peter, a private contractor, had already fled to safety when the flames reached their neighborhood on Jan. 7. The couple grabbed a few items and left behind the house where they had lived since 1988 and raised their six children.
Since evacuating their home, Jackie said she and Peter have been “couch-surfing.”
The couple, who said they attend weekly Mass at St. Andrew’s Church in Pasadena and regularly pray at home, purchased the Virgin Mary statue from a nursery last year. Peter built the concrete platform to display it on their property.
Jackie and Peter learned of the statue’s resilience when their son-in-law sneaked past police lines after the fire to get into Altadena and see the destruction. He was astonished to discover that while the Halpins’ home was reduced to rubble, the statue of the Blessed Mother, along with a smaller statue of St. Joseph, was intact.
He took pictures and sent them to Peter and Jackie. “It’s utter devastation, except for this beautiful [Virgin Mary] statue, and I just fell to my knees. I was just so emotional, and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, she’s still there.’ She’s still watching over us,” Jackie said.
The Halpins decided they wanted to see the statue for themselves, so they returned to their property with their entire family. They were so overjoyed by what they found that they prayed and sang hymns of praise. Their reaction was captured on a video and went viral on social media.
While the couple is saddened to lose their home, Jackie said they are grateful they made it out safely. “We still have our family,” she said, adding that they eventually plan to move back to Altadena and rebuild.
“We absolutely do [plan to move back],” Jackie said. “I actually want my exact little house. I don’t know if that’s impossible, but we are going to rebuild.”
In another act of faith, a deacon was able to save his Church from the devastation.
As he drove frantically past charred buildings along the smoky streets of Altadena in his SUV early on the morning of Jan. 8, Deacon José Luis Díaz had one prayer on his mind: God, please spare my church.
A few hours earlier, Deacon Díaz and his family were roused from their beds by a cellphone alert ordering them to evacuate as fierce, dry Santa Ana winds pushed the Eaton Fire into their Altadena neighborhood. They packed up a few belongings and went to the Pasadena Convention Center, one of several public shelters.
At the shelter, Deacon Díaz was awakened by his wife shortly after falling asleep in a cot.
“José Luis, they’re saying the church is on fire!” his wife, Maria Esther, told him.
If it weren’t for those fateful wake-up calls — and quick thinking by Deacon Díaz a few moments later — Sacred Heart Church in Altadena would not have survived one of the many wildfires that have decimated Los Angeles.
By the time Deacon Díaz pulled up to Sacred Heart with his son-in-law around 7:30 a.m., he had found two other parishioners trying to put out a patch of flames burning the wooden roof near the church’s boiler room.
“There were houses next door, in front, and behind the church that were already on fire,” said Deacon Díaz, who has served at Sacred Heart since he was ordained a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2015.
Deacon Díaz quickly unlocked a maintenance room and pulled out a ladder and an iron pipe. Then the team got to work: Two of them propped up the ladder so that the deacon could use the pipe to break shingle tiles on a side roof of the church, while another poured water from a garden hose on the flames.
“We almost didn’t have water pressure in the hose,” said Deacon Díaz. “So, we had to do everything we could to put it out.”
Their efforts prevented the roof fire, sparked by embers flying from burning homes down the street, from spreading to the rest of the church.
The four men stayed on the scene for most of the morning, breaking tiles and finally extinguishing the last of the stubborn flames. When Deacon Diaz opened the church to look for any damage inside, he was relieved to find the sanctuary in good condition, besides some heat damage to a church door and likely smoke damage throughout.
“We have a lot of debris but no real damage,” Sacred Heart pastor Father Gilbert Guzman told Angelus hours after surveying the grounds. “All of the buildings are fine, the rectory is fine. We’ll just have quite a bit of cleanup afterward.”
With OSV News
