The Paschal Mystery

The Triduum – Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil – are the most solemn days of the Church Year, when we Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, the mystery of the triumph of life over death.

I had the privilege to spend Holy Thursday and Good Friday in the town of San Agustín. The town of about 3000 is about 45 minutes from Dulce Nombre by car. Because Padre Efraín celebrates the liturgies in the parish center in Dulce Nombre, they like most of the 45 plus villages in the parish celebrate with various lay-led liturgies and popular devotions.

Thursday began with exposition of the Eucharist in the church. The seven base communities in town took an hour to pray before the Eucharist, from 9 am to 3 pm.

In the evening they celebrated the “Santa Cena,” the Holy Supper. They read the readings from the day, a delegate preached, and then they reenacted the Last Supper. They couldn’t get enough men to volunteer so they had four women and eight men. They shared bread and grape juice which I supplied. (Last year I noted that in the town where I went they had Coke and crackers; I decided to supply something a little more appropriate.) After this the delegate leading the celebration washed the feet of the twelve.

Friday began with Stations of the Cross throughout the town, beginning at the church and ending at a cross at a hill, a place they call El Calvario, Calvary. At that last station, Jesus is laid in the tomb, I could see the San Andrés gold mine, not too far away. The San Andrés Gold Mine, which has been a point of contention in the diocese, uses cyanide leaching to separate the gold from the earth that it scrapes off away. Recently cyanide was released into a stream and killed fish. The company said that they controlled the outflow but many doubt it. But as I looked out I couldn’t but think of the pain that mine has caused in pursuit of gold.

Good Friday afternoon there was a service on the Seven Last Words. At five there was another procession, the Holy Burial. A small casket was carried throughout town, from the church to El Calvario, and then back to the church where it was placed in a improvised tomb.

At night we had a service of the reading of the Passion and veneration of the Cross. They asked me to read the part of Jesus in the Passion.

I didn’t do much but the people were glad to have someone with them. But I saw a lot of the popular piety of the people, especially their reverence of the Eucharist, their identification with the suffering Christ, and their love of Mary, the Mother of Christ. I am glad I could be with them.

I had decided to return to Dulce Nombre on Saturday for the Easter Vigil. I spent part of the morning visiting the farm of one of the delegates with two of his sons.

I got into Dulce Nombre about 12:30 and went to the parish. Padre Efraín and I talked for awhile after he ate lunch. He then invited me to go with him for a pastoral visit in town.

He was going to marry a couple in their home. The wife was very ill, dying. She had come to the church on Holy Thursday for confession and wanted to receive communion. He advised her to ask her husband of more than 35 years if they would get married by the church. He agreed and also went to confession. And now they were going to be married, in their home, accompanied by a few friends and relatives.

We went, with some other people, and stopped at a small two-room house, a place of great poverty. We entered and I could see that some women were helping the bride put on her dress in the sleeping alcove.

She emerged with a white wedding dress. Her husband went and sat next to her on a stool, with his black pants and white shirt. Just like a young couple about to be married! Padre Efraín anointed her with the Sacrament of the Sick, ceelbrated a simple marriage ceremony, and then shared the Eucharist with them.

I held the ciborium while Padre anointed the woman, Bernardina, and married her and her spouse. Padre Efraín read the marriage vows in which they promised to be faithful, in joys and sorrows, in sickness and health, all the days of their lives. I looked on and tears filled my lives as I considered how they had already lived these vows and now were consecrating themselves before God, even as the wife probably had not many more days to live.

Then they received the Eucharist, the Bread of Life. I may have been dreaming, but I saw a smile of deep contentment on the wife’s face as she received the Body of Christ. United with her Lord and with her husband, with probably few more days to live.

Tonight I will participate in the Easter Vigil here in Dulce Nombre, but I think I’ve already celebrated Easter in that poor, poor house, as the elderly couple celebrated their love in the presence of poverty and of impending death.

That’s what the Resurrection of Christ is about – the triumph of Life over death.

Christ is risen. He is truly risen.

He is risen in that poor house in a remote corner of a poor town in Honduras.

May He be risen in all of us, especially in those who suffer.