Enrique Samson, originally from Mexico City,  lives in Atlanta, and has been a Regnum Christi member for over 24 years. He is married and has three small children. Right now he is fighting two diagnoses of cancer and, interestingly, he feels blessed by them. As could be expected, family life changes drastically, priorities are refocused, and hope becomes a virtue of the valiant. What message does Enrique have for all of us? “The members of my Regnum Christi team have literally been the friends who carried the paralytic man to Christ and broke open the roof of the house to lower the mat.”

Enrique joined Regnum Christi during Holy Week Missions in the year 2000. Whether because of his family, studies, work, or personal interests, his life has been that of a nomad—bringing him to live in various cities in Europe and the Americas from a young age—but his heart has always been in his Mexican roots.

He currently resides in Atlanta with his wife and three small children. In his own words:

I used to think that I was a citizen of the world. As I grow older, I realize that “the homeland calls,” and I try to educate my children in the values I learned in my country: the language, traditions, culture, and cuisine of our Mexico.

Although one cannot be “a citizen of the world,” I have realized that God gave me the grace of a universal family: that of his Church. It has been incredible for me to confirm over and over again that wherever I go, I have never felt alone or out of place within his Church.

Many experiences come to mind, such as when I was at college in Amsterdam and went with my friends to visit the local pastor. He opened the doors of the parish and of his heart to us, as did all his staff and parishioners, and beyond “going to Mass on Sundays,” it was a place to be part of a family. It might sound strange, but that’s how it was.

For me, that is a glimpse into what heaven must be: an indescribable sense of peace and belonging to what God certainly wanted for us from the beginning, the Church as a family.

This happened to me on another occasion with three of my best friends in those years, one from Spain and two from France. When one of my French friends brought us to his house to spend a weekend with his family, everyone, especially his mother, immediately treated us like members of the family. Though I should have felt like I was among strangers, it was the exact opposite; I felt like I was at home.

During these 24 years in Regnum Christi, Enrique has experienced different roles, such as team leader, director of missions, and Regnum Christi missionary. His vocation to this last stage could be considered “late,” since he fulfilled it at 33 years old, the result of a personal promise he made to God after an accident.

During this period, he worked in the Regnum Christi Communications Department based out of Rome, juggling projects in Mexico, Madrid, and Atlanta. After his time as a missionary, Enrique stayed united to Regnum Christi as a lay member, prioritizing his vocation and responsibility as a husband and father.

“I live for my children and my wife. I ask God not to allow me to have a long life just out of vanity, but to be able to see them grow and to form them in his love, if that is his will.

Cancer

“I’m not going to deny that the cancer was devastating news at the beginning. I think I experienced all the stages of grief: fear, anger, denial, acceptance. In a few words: not accepting the sickness in itself.”

For Enrique, getting the cancer diagnoses was a challenge of accepting reality, a very personal cross that “gave me the opportunity to offer it up for myself and for my family. It has been a beautiful process of purification. Before the cancer, I said that I was aware of my mortality, but I had no idea. From the cancer diagnoses onward, I feel more motivated than ever to remain always in God’s friendship,” Enrique remarks.

Something that has stood out during this time has been the support of “brothers and sisters in Christ that God has placed on my path to help me and my family: my Regnum Christi team, the families of Regina Caeli Academy—the Catholic school our children attend—and even my pastor, whom I consider a great friend,” Enrique says.

The cancer treatment has its challenges. “Right now, I am dealing a lot with throat pain due to the radiation, which makes it very difficult to eat or speak. I try to cope with it while still handling my work in order to support my family. All this has put me in a situation of humble and vulnerable acceptance. God has been there all this time to remind me that, if he ‘clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds, how much more will he provide for us, his children?’ I firmly believe that fighting against my own pride during this experience has been a great blessing and a purifying process that I hope not to forget, regardless of how many years of life God gives me going forward.”

Since Enrique’s diagnoses, his Regnum Christi team and many friends from the Atlanta men’s section have been praying day and night for him and his family. “They remind me often, and their prayers support me. For the difficulty of driving to my treatment, they organized themselves and made a calendar to take me and bring me back while my wife took care of the children. They set aside their work schedules and the distances involved to give me the generosity of their time. One of them, who lives five hours from Atlanta, drives here just to take me to treatment and back, then goes five hours back home. Sometimes they organize themselves to help us with housework. More recently, when our medical bills got out of control and my medical insurance stopped paying for important treatment, my Regnum Christi team started a GoFundMe campaign to help me fundraise for my treatment.

“We aren’t even halfway to the goal yet, but people have been extremely generous, and with the money raised so far, we are more at peace every time we have to cover a new hospital bill. It has been a humbling experience for me to see how very close friends from the parish, my children’s school, and Regnum Christi have helped significantly through GoFundMe, all to assure that my family and I are at peace during this treatment. I’m at a loss for words,” explains Enrique.

The families from the school Enrique’s children attend have organized a daily meal train so that they have less work of cooking, cleaning, etc. “The culture of the United States is very supportive, and it is organized for solidarity. The members of my Regnum Christi team have literally been the friends who carried the paralytic man to Christ and broke open the roof of the house to lower the mat. I often tell them that I hope to be able to repay their generosity someday… but they have set the bar very high!” states Enrique.

There is light at the end of the tunnel… with a monarch butterfly

“My doctors say this is curable. I have decided to believe them. I receive many “signs from heaven” that it can be.

Enrique shares his experience of these last months:

“My father died of cancer four years ago. He was my first role model of Christian life, my father as well as my mother. I remember that he always wanted to bring my wife and me to the monarch butterfly sanctuary in Mexico, but his attempts were always foiled for one reason or another.

Thanks be to God, before passing away, my father received Communion. It was a first Friday in May, the month of Mary, at the hour of the Angelus. The very day of his death, someone who didn’t know anything about my father or about the topic of monarch butterflies sent me a video clip of a Mexican news station, with the presenter saying, “And before signing off, we want to leave you with these images.” The video was a series of images of the monarch butterfly sanctuary in Mexico. God speaks to us in many ways.

From the time my cancer started, the topic of the monarch butterfly has appeared here and there. The day of my biopsy, I was very nervous. I prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that she would accompany me in the process. At that moment, the doctor began to chat with me:

• Where are you from?
• From Mexico.
• I just went to Mexico with my children! Do you know which was my favorite part? The monarch butterfly sanctuary.

On the day of one of my most important follow-up appointments, the doctor asked me to see him in a different hospital, in Atlanta. In the waiting room, there was a temporary photo exhibition, and the central piece was the monarch butterfly sanctuary in Mexico.

Of course, I don’t base my hope on this, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who saw mere coincidences in what are “God-incidences” for me. But the main point is that God speaks to us in many ways, above all in silence, if we pay attention. They say that the more we pray, the more coincidences we see.

On Holy Thursday of this year, 2024, they gave me my medical diagnosis announcing a relapse. It has been the most special Holy Thursday of my life. There is uncertainty, fear of aggressive treatment, and the loneliness that you feel in a personal pain, which no one is going to be able to bear along with you. I felt that only that company of the Suffering Christ could understand and console me in the most difficult moments of solitude.

It is so amazing that these are the kinds of moments that let us glimpse—even in a tiny proportion—the solitude that Our Lord experienced the night of Gethsemane! I don’t compare myself at all with Christ’s suffering, but his example prompts me to say every day, “Lord, I do not want to pass through this bitter cup, but your will be done in me,” Enrique concludes.