Angelus News | January 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 2

Miracles are nice but, truth be
told, all Atticus Maldonado
really wanted for Christmas
was to be just another kid.
Though it’s wonderful to know he’s
been on so many people’s minds —
and in their prayers — now all he wants
is to blend back into the St. Pius X-St.
Matthias Academy (PMA) community
that helped to sustain him and his
family for more than a year.
“I’m good with not being in the
spotlight,” he said. “I’d like to be just a
regular student again.”
In December 2022, Maldonado was
diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a
rare and unusually aggressive form of
cancer of the soft tissue.
What was more, and worse, doctors
told him that he was at stage 4 of the
disease, a stage with about a 20% rate of
survival.
The news of his illness spread quickly
through the tightknit community of St.
Pius X-St. Matthias in Downey. Masses
were offered for his health. Friends
made visits. Gifts were given. And an
unknowable amount of time was spent
thinking about him, his family, and
what their struggle meant for the rest
of us.
In that time, he went from the sweet
kid who loved baseball, Hot Wheels,
and being an altar server, to a young
man a whole lot of people were praying
for, rooting for, and shedding tears for.
His fight was theirs now.
“There were moments when I was so
angry about why this happened to my
child, that I couldn’t pray,” his mother
Evelyn Ochoa said. “And when I
couldn’t pray for my own child, they
did. This tribe that came together for
us. I birthed him but, through that
time, he was ours.”
Anna Granados, in many ways the
leader of that tribe, said that whenever
the prayer group she helped found
would turn their attention to Maldonado,
“he became everybody’s kid.”
Fitting since, before his diagnosis,
Maldonado was as typical a Catholic
kid as one could imagine — save for an
exceptionally developed level of faith.
Evelyn admitted her son’s faith has
“always been greater than mine,” and
said that when informed of his cancer
diagnosis “it felt like my whole world
came tumbling down. All I had was
questions, no answers. You know, why?
Why my kid? He’s such a good kid.”
And yet, moments after the diagnosis,
she looked at her son to find him
smiling, seemingly as unconcerned as
if he’d just been diagnosed with a cold.
Confused, she asked him how he was
feeling to which he replied, “OK. God
loves me.”
Around the same time, Granados had
helped start the Parents in Prayer group
Maldonado works during
class. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
at PMA, having felt a calling from the
Blessed Virgin Mary to do so.
“These times are hard for kids, for
our families,” she said. “The rosary is a
weapon for these times. Our youth is
going through so much and we felt the
need to help out, especially because we
are so close here.”
With a student population that hovers
around 500, PMA is the kind of place
where students know not just one
another, but one another’s families,
too. Many arrive in packs from local
parishes and have known one another
since they were young children. Not
only is Maldonado friends with Anna’s
kids, but her husband, Jaime, coached
him in sports at a local park.
The prayer group would always dedicate
the first mystery of the rosary to
Maldonado. Anna, whose own mother
was battling cancer, was always there,
rain or shine, along with about 17 core
members of the group. Sometimes
they were joined by Evelyn, who found
herself both strengthened and overwhelmed
by the group’s devotion to her
son and family.
“Many of these women were just
people I’d said hello to and now they
had become a force, a prayer force,”
she said. “Praying for my son like it was
their son.”
None of which surprised PMA’s president,
Christian De Larkin. Along with
Parents in Prayer, a student campaign
to send Maldonado direct messages got
underway so that he knew he had not
been forgotten. When it was mentioned
how much he missed baseball, he was
invited to sit in the dugout during a
PMA game. When it was discovered
that he was a serious collector of Hot
Wheel cars, Christine Godoy, part of
the prayer force and whose daughter
Eva is a classmate of Maldonado,
mentioned that her husband actually
worked for Hot Wheels.
“So he put together this really cool
collection of limited edition cars and
we took it over to Atticus and when he
saw what it was he almost burst into
tears,” De Larkin said. “This is what
January 26, 2024 • ANGELUS • 11