Holy Week in Honduras - Breaking Down Barriers

Holy Week is always special in Latin America – even though many spend it at the beach.

This year, a delegation of four students and one resident parishioner who recently graduated from Iowa State University came to visit – to meet people here, to understand the reality of life here, and to experience the holiest week of the Christian year with a poor, but very pious people.

Very early Sunday morning – about 5:00 am – we joined my base community to make alfombras, carpets of colored sawdust, for the Palm Sunday procession, on a street in our neighborhood. While making the carpets a little girl from a poor family, who live in a house without electricity on the block, came out and joined us. She even brought us snacks to share.

On Monday we visited the kindergarten in the Colonia Divina Providencia where I go about once a week. We paid for breakfast for the kids since this was not regular school day and spent a lot of time playing with them. In the afternoon we went to Hogar San José, the home for malnourished kids run by the Missionaries of Charity. The kids were delighted to have more attention. I was touched at how one of our group, Mitch, spent a lot of time with Valentín, a very emaciated nine year old who cannot talk or walk and whose body is twisted. Valentín at times seems to reject affection, but Mitch held him for quite some time and Valentín even reached out to hug Mitch, at least once.

On Wednesday we went to Plan Grande in the parish of Dulce Nombre de María to help them build their new church. We hauled stones for several hours with the members of the community, When we got there men and boys were working, but a little later the little girls, in their dresses, came and helped carry stones for the foundations of the walls of the church. They probably saw the women of our group and decided that this was not just men’s work. Two of our group also helped a little in the kitchen preparing lunch. The women taught Nora how to make tortillas, though Nora wondered about the quality of her work.


Thursday, after Chrism Mass in the Cathedral in Santa Rosa in the morning, we went to the town of Dolores in the parish of Dulce Nombre where we participated in a meeting of base communities in the afternoon and in the evening celebration of Holy Thursday. Two sisters from the community Oblates of Divine Love were doing a mission in the community and involved us in the base community meeting. The community was very welcoming.

Good Friday we spent in Santa Rosa, so that the group could experience the many expressions of popular piety. In the morning there was the Stations of the Cross. We stopped for two of these in the upper part of town before going to spend a little time in the Hogar San José. We got out of the Hogar in time to experience the last stations in the parish of Our Lady of Fatima in the lower part of town.

After lunch and a rest, we went to see the procession of “Santo Entierro,” the Holy Burial. At 3:00 pm, a procession left the church with a glass coffin with an image of Jesus, followed by images of Mary, St. John, and Mary Magdalene.

After watching the procession for a bit we went down to the church of Fatima where I hoped to meet with Erlin, a student from the Catholic University, after the service of sermons on the seven last words of Christ. We arrived as they were beginning the Seventh Word – “Into Your hands, I commend my spirit.” As the group waited outside I listened at the door of the church as Fr. Roel spoke. What touched me is that he prayed Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s Prayer of Abandonment.

After the service, Erlin came out and the group talked for two hours with Erlin and his cousin Albert. It was great to see the interchange. In the midst of our conversation a little elderly lady came toward us and began throwing small hard candies to us. Marita joyfully ran away after regaling us with these gifts.

Finally that night we arrived late to the evening service, which was followed by another procession, of la Virgen de Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude. We watched as the procession left the church and then went home.

Holy Saturday we did a reflection by a river on Mount Celaque, outside Gracias, and had dinner with Nancy. We went to the Easter Vigil that began at 8:00 pm (and ended at 1:40 am). The service was so long since it began with a blessing of the fire outside, followed by a procession, all the nine readings were used and all the psalm responses were sung, and there were about fifty baptisms. It was a very well done liturgy.

The baptized approached an improvised font in the front of the church which they climbed into to be baptized. I noticed that some were dressed fairly well but that at least some wore tattered jeans, obviously poor people from the countryside. But after all the baptisms, they entered the church in white shirts or blouses with dark pants or skirts – their baptismal garments. The economic differences were erased, for a time, by their integration in the Body of Christ, by baptism. There are no poor or rich in the Kingdom of God.

As I reflect on the week, I see how God has worked to break down barriers. A poor girl joined us making alfombras; the kids at the kindergarten and Hogar San José swarmed over us and Valentín clung to Mitch; the people of Plan Grande let us help them build their church and the little girls joined the men and boys in the hard physical work; in Dolores we experienced solidarity and welcome at the Holy Thursday activities; there were long conversations on the street outside the church of Fatima on Good Friday; on Holy Saturday the baptismal garments covered over economic differences.

This is the challenge of Easter – to live the reconciliation that Jesus has brought, breaking down barriers that sin, personal and social, creates. In some way Holy Week was for me – and, I trust, for the group - an expression of the Reign of God, where all are called to sit together and share at the Lord’s Table.

May that Kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven.

Prayer of Abandonment
Father, I put myself in your hands;
Father, I abandon myself to you.
I entrust myself to you.
Father, do with me as it pleases you.
Whatever you do with me, I will thank you for it.
Giving thanks for anything, I am ready for anything.
As long as your will, O God, is done in me,
as long as your will is done in all your creatures,
I ask for nothing else, O God.
I put my soul into your hands.
I give it to you, O God, with all the love of my heart,
because I love you,
and because my love requires me to give myself,
I put myself unreservedly in your hands with infinite confidence,
because you are my Father.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858 – 1916)