Bless Me Ultima

765 Words4 Pages
Bless me Ultima synopsis When young and ambitious Antonio Márez is nearly at age seven, a healer by the name of Ultima comes to live with him and his family in their house in Guadalupe, New Mexico. Although they have great respect for Ultima’s spirituality, the family is Catholic. Antonio’s father is a former vaquero, who wandered the llano, the great plains of New Mexico. Antonio’s mother is the daughter of farmers. Antonio’s parents are unsure of their son’s future. His father hopes he will become a vaquero like him, and his mother hopes he will become a priest. Antonio is happy with the amount of time he gets to spend with Ultima. One night, he witnesses the death of Lupito, a soldier who recently returned from World War II. Lupito is shot to death by a mob after he kills the sheriff in a moment of post-traumatic delirium. After seeing Lupito’s death, Antonio begins to wonder about hell and demons. Antonio walks to church with Ultima the next morning, she tells him that each person must make their own moral choices and must choose a set of values to use to understand the world. That fall, after helping his mother’s brothers with their harvest, Antonio begins school. Antonio’s mother pressures Ultima to unveil Antonio’s destiny, and she replies that he will be a man that learns. The war ends, and Antonio’s brothers return home. Antonio’s father is very excited because he hopes the return of his older sons means that the family will be able to move to California, as he has longed to do. But the brothers are surly traumatized by the war. They soon each leave home to pursue independent lives. Antonio struggles to understand the conflict between his father and his brothers, but like so many of the moral questions that trouble him, it is too complicated for him to understand. His mother tells him that he will understand when he begins to take Communion, and he

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