Writing her speech for the Pope was another matter.
"They told me you've got to tell him what was it like going to prison, your time there, your feelings as a mom, how you're getting through it, how you feel, what a visit is like for you. They gave me three topics to talk on and I had to develop them, and I said, 'how am I going to relate to a holy person?'" she told Presencia Digital.
The young mother could not find anything to write about. Then she remembered that when she was arrested in Mexico City, she read a Bible verse she paraphrased as saying, "you need to talk to the prisoners, as if you were in the jail with them."
"I think this is what I'm going to base my speech on," Évila Quintana thought.
More than material things, she emphasized, prisoners need "a phone call, and occasionally asking you how you're doing. Those things are important."
In Pope Francis' travels as "a missionary of mercy" he is "emulating the footsteps of Christ," she said. "He's trying to be with everyone who has a spiritual need."
"I'm part of his people, and so he serves as a pastor who starts to gather together his little sheep to get them back on the path... we're part of the people of God, we're part of society, we need a period of time to rejoin society, but we're not outside of God's people," she reflected.
To prepare for her speech, Évila Quintana tried to think of what she had in common with the Pope. Help came in the form of a phone call from Camilla.
"My daughter told me, 'you and the Pope have the same birthday.'"
Évila Quintana was still concerned that children will be cruel to her daughter if they learn her mother is in jail. She tried her best to keep the news quiet that she was going to speak in front of the Pope.
However, her daughter had a different view.
(Story continues below)
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"Mommy, I'm not going to be ashamed at all. What's more, I want to be with you," were Camilla's words. She will be next to her mother on Feb. 17, when she addresses the Pope.
Évila Quintana said that Pope Francis' visit will help all of Mexico. Ciudad Juarez, as a border city, has been "very much harmed by violence."
"I believe that he is bringing a message of peace," she said.