The complications in the life of Madre Marina Prado — which are many — might as well be dandelion seeds in the wind.

Her eyes, which witness the poverty and injustice afflicting her native Guatemala after more than three decades of civil war, shine with peace.

The contours of her hands and face are as soft as those of a woman half her 75 years. They don’t show the toil of a servant who nurtures a community — a pioneer who created a religious order that opened doors for women from her country’s indigenous underclass.

Anyone who looks for hints of her bodily pain — heart problems, a lifetime of ulcers, the slipped discs she carried in her back for 15 years before surgery a year ago — will see only her effervescent smile.
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