RED, BLUE, YELLOW, AND GREEN

Today my Facebook feed is full of pictures in red and blue. The last few days I have been seeing lots of cars with red and blue flags, and some with red flags and yellow letters. Last night loud music filled Plan Grande, accompanying the group with red and yellow flags.

No, it is not a new artistic event here in Honduras. It’s the official end of electioneering.

Next Sunday Honduras holds elections for the President, for members of Congress (deputies), and mayors. The three major parties seeking votes are the National Party (blue), Liberal Party (red), and Alianza (red and yellow) which is a coalition of several opposition parties. Tomorrow, at midnight, is the beginning of the electoral silence period when no electoral propaganda is permitted.

I have not been as careful an observer of the campaigns as I probably should have been but here are a few thoughts.

Last week the Venezuelan music group, Los Guaragua, which has written many very pointed political songs, such as “Casas del Carton” (Cardboard Houses) was denied entry to Honduras by emigration authorities in the San Pedro Sula airport. They were coming to play for the Alianza party.

Several times in the last few weeks I’ve seen people with plastic bags with food items, the bolsas de solidaridad (Solidarity bags) which come from the national government and contain some food elements. These are part of the government’s poverty easement program.

The national government which controls migration and gives out bonos as part of its Vida Mejor (A Better Life) is controlled by the National Party.

In October, passing through a town, I saw people carrying tin roofing and wood boards. I asked a friend whom I picked up to go with me to the confirmation Mass what this was about. Government bodies were giving out building materials.

In one municipal center a few weeks ago there was a rally for the ruling party. I was told that cars were lined up on the road into the town. Also, vehicles were paid about $50 to carry supporters of the National Party to the rally; some other vehicles were given $5 to put National Party political posters on their vehicles.

I have heard of people who have government jobs having to be involved in political campaigning, adding to their employment responsibilities.

There’s probably a lot more going on, but this is enough for me to be discouraged about the political situation here.

Yet I am not without hope. Today our parish, Dulce Nombre de María celebrated the feast of Christ the King with a parish-wide Mass in El Zapote Santa Rosa. The actual feast is next Sunday but because it is election day and open air public meetings (even Masses) are prohibited, we celebrated a week early – which providentially is also the first celebration of the World Day of the Poor.

 Hundreds came from all parts of the parish. Some places rented busses, others crammed into pickup trucks, others walked. It was a celebration of faith – but it was more.

The people came carrying green banners – reminding us to care for the earth, our common home. This is a theme dear to Pope Francis - the subject of his encyclical Laudato Si’ – and the theme of pastoral work here in Honduras this coming year.

I prepared various stations that we prayed as we walked to the place where we celebrated Mass. If you read Spanish, it is here.

During Mass, Padre German gave a moving sermon combining the Gospel from St. Matthew (25: 31-46), the Honduran Bishops message on the elections, the Pope’s message on the day of the poor, and the call to car for our common home.

In particular, he cited these words of Pope Francis

Blessed, therefore, are the open hands that embrace the poor and help them: they are hands that bring hope. Blessed are the hands that reach beyond every barrier of culture, religion and nationality, and pour the balm of consolation over the wounds of humanity. Blessed are the open hands that ask nothing in exchange, with no “ifs” or “buts” or “maybes”: they are hands that call down God’s blessing upon their brothers and sisters.

At the end of Mass, Padre German processed throughout the crowd with the consecrated host in the monstrance. After Mass, people were invited to share the tamales which had been prepared and were reminded to share them if there were not enough.

I thought of another section of Pope Francis’ message:

If we truly wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch his body in the suffering bodies of the poor, as a response to the sacramental communion bestowed in the Eucharist.

I returned home tired but filled with peace. This is what life should be about here – especially for the poor: not the often divisive partisan politics of red, blues, and other colors, but the green of a hope founded in a God who cares for the poor and for our common home and calls us to do the same.

Letter to St. Thomas Aquinas from Dulce Nombre

Letter to St. Thomas Aquinas Church from Padre German Navarro, pastor of the church of Dulce Nombre de María, Dulce Nombre de Copán, Honduras.

Dulce Nombre de Copán,

25 October 2017: “The Family; House and school of love”

We thank God that we share the same heaven of hope, the joys of the Gospel in the sorrowful lands, wreaked by mire of corruption, violence, drug-trafficking, among other things; pilgrims of peace amidst the debris of ecological disasters, contaminated rivers, mountaintops chopped off by human ambition. We proclaim our hymn of faith in the midst of migrants crossing walls and on death trains, leaving their children enveloped in hope but nourished in anemia with their households broken by anxiety, loneliness, and disintegration.

Esteemed sister parish of St. Thomas, thank you for your solidarity; with your generous help we are a parish which promotes the mission of evangelization and of charity with those most in need. You are Good News and from a humble silence you make present the Reign of God in our midst. And more: the manner you have of sharing and serving arouse in many of our parishioners the desire to give themselves. The tenderness of God is flourishing, as from their poverty they give part of their lives to assist the sick, the elderly, and the widows. Thank you, sisters and brothers, for evangelizing us through your charity.

You, in the person of Deacon Juancito [John Donaghy], are missionaries. St. Thomas as a parish reaches the farthest crossroads of the parish. There [our parish] is embraced and animated by the face of God; it is supported with the healing and liberating embrace of mercy; there the tears of those who are mourning are wiped away, helping them to contemplate the heaven of the resurrection in their passage as pilgrims from death to life, from violence to the ways of peace, from the walls of squalor and egoism to the bridge of fraternity where we celebrate together and share the table, with the tablecloth of solidarity and the providence of God. You are here with us, singing in our choirs, going with our missionaries of mercy, with our catechists and the children who share with us their desire to grow. Thanks for your part in our family.

Let us continue evangelizing – Christ crucified, who has been raised, waits for us in the Galilee of our families, who live in loneliness, abandoned, in young people without a future horizon. Jesus waits for us in the monotonous roads of everyday, which makes us easy prisoners of depression, violence, alcohol, drugs, and human trafficking. We keep quiet, not communicating to our parishes that in the desert of our hearts, nettled by egoism and greed, there is still present the New Heaven and the New Earth which can put us on the path to the peace to the peaceful sources, even though we happen to pass through the bludgeons of pride, indifference, corruption, and even hypocrisy.

My esteemed sisters and brothers, the parish of Dulce Nombre de María – from its commitment and hope – we await you. We can count on the shelter of friendship, with hearts beating in many homes with a rhythm in harmony with the heartbeat of our Creator; we can count on the hands of the worker who offer you hot tortillas and refried beans as well as the fraternal coffee of sharing and celebration.

Don’t let the news in the mass media hold you back; many times the means of social communication don’t manage to understand the life of our people which doesn’t interest them at all. Let us continue walking together, evangelizing, passing through the mire of pain, sorrow, and darkness, leaving on every face the divine spark which regenerates – which God alone can do. God counts on you and us.

I send cordial greetings to Father Jon and every one of our brothers and sisters who have visited us. We hold your faces and your gestures in our hearts. Again thank you for having been here with is and teaching us to evangelize with a silent evangelization.

May we, as pilgrims in this world, share very soon in the wedding feast of the Lamb, where there are no one and no one needs a visa – all we need is to wear the festive garment, that is to say, clothed with humility, mercy, and seeing us always as sisters and brothers, children of the same Father. There where we will be illumined by truth and justice and where we dance to the rhythm of the joy with the fragrance of eternal love.

Many thanks for everything.

Attentively,

German Navarro

Pastor, Dulce Nombre de María

Honduras

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Loosely translated by John Donaghy.

The photo is of Padre German giving a rosary to one of the missionaries. Each missionary was given a cross and a rosary to be given to people they visited during their visits to homes in the villages where they were sent.

Evangelizing: loving and listening

Notes for my homily November 4-5, 2017, Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Tome, Cycle A

Malachi 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10

1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13

Matthew 23: 1-12

Clare washing the feet of her sisters

How often have we heard complaints against the church? We may have even made some ourselves. Some church leaders react very defensively, even if the complaints have some merits. I wonder how they would react if they took today’s readings seriously.

The readings, especially from Malachi and Matthew, are pointed critiques of religious leaders. Malachi castigates the priests for not promoting the glory of God and for being partial in their judgments. Aren’t we all equal before God, he notes, with the same Father?

Jesus condemns the religious leaders of his day for their heavy-handedness and their seeking power and prestige. They say one thing but do the opposite. In addition, they like to be called teachers and masters. Don’t be like them, he urges. Don’t call them masters; you are not their slaves; we are all brothers and sisters.

Paul, however, gives us an image of a true religious leader. “We were gentle among you, as a nursing woman broods over her children.”

 “With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well.” We religious leaders must be willing to give of ourselves, even giving up our lives.

To be great we must, as Jesus notes, “be the servant.”

But these admonitions are not just for religious leaders; they are for all of us. Pope Francis insists that all of us, by our baptism, are “missionary-disciples.” We are evangelizers, each in our own way – some as ordained ministers, others exercising other ministries in the church. But all of us in our daily lives are all called to be signs of the Good News of Jesus in the world.

I have seen this in the parish I serve in Honduras of Dulce Nombre de María, the Sweet Name of Mary, your sister parish in Honduras.

There is Marco Tulio, an extraordinary minister of Communion, who takes the Eucharist each week to a village for a Holy Hour, walks an hour each way, no matter the weather or hour.

There are the youth groups and others that regularly visit the sick in their communities and bring food to poor families. One catechist told me how the catechists have taken the young children to visit the sick – about 40 kids between 4 and 7. Both the sick and the children profit by this work of mercy.

Since October of 2016 our parish has sent missionaries out to the villages of the parish. These are not professional missionaries but members of the parish. They go out, two by two, to villages other than their own, without cell-phone, without money, dependent on the people they visit. They are missionaries of mercy, helping us discover the presence of the God of mercy in our lives, our families, our villages. They are more missionaries in the Gospel sense than I have been.

They do not preach. They are called to listen, to be the “ears of God,” as they visit homes in a village, especially the homes of the poorest, the ill, and the aged. They are servants of mercy, not teachers of doctrine.

We are beginning to see the fruits of these missionaries. The life of faith has been renewed in some villages.

But my favorite story comes from Plan Grande, where I live. During Holy Week the two women missionaries visited a couple who wanted to get married in the church. The couple was prepared and they were married outside their home in the company of many people who brought tamales and other food for the celebration, together with the couple’s children and grandchildren. They are both in their eighties and wanted to be right with God before they die.

Evangelizing is not standing on a street-corner haranguing people, though a public witness that shows the mercy of the God of justice has its place. Much evangelizing takes place merely by being there, accompanying people in times of sorrow and in times of celebration. We evangelize by who we are – children of a loving God.·

This evangelization offers the encouragement of a Christian hope – evangelizing not as masters or know-it-alls, but as nursing mothers serving others with love and tenderness.

In many ways, by your solidarity with our parish, Dulce Nombre de María, you are evangelizing.

As our pastor, Padre German writes in a letter to you, “thank you for your solidarity; with your generous help we are a parish which promotes the mission of evangelization and of charity with those most in need. You are Good News and from a humble silence you make present the Reign of God in our midst. And more: the manner you have of sharing and serving arouse in many of our parishioners the desire to give themselves. The tenderness of God is flourishing, as from their poverty they give part of their lives to assist the sick, the elderly, and the widows. Thank you, sisters and brothers, for evangelizing us through your charity.”

“You are missionaries,” Padre German continues. Noting my presence in the parish as deacon. “St. Thomas as a parish gets out to the farthest crossroads of the parish. There [our parish] is embraced and animated by the face of God; it is supported with the healing and liberating embrace of mercy; there the tears of those who are mourning are wiped away, helping them to contemplate the heaven of the resurrection in their passage as pilgrims from death to life, from violence to the ways of peace, from the walls of squalor and egoism to the bridge of fraternity where we celebrate together and share the table, with the tablecloth of solidarity and the providence of God. You are here with us, singing in our choirs, going with our missionaries of mercy, with our catechists and the children who share with us their desire to grow. Thanks for your part in our family.”

St. Thomas has helped subsidizing the costs of our parish where formation of volunteer pastoral workers is central to our evangelization. You have helped also with our Solidarity Fund which subsidizes the costs of serious medical and other needs. Buying El Zapote coffee helps an association of small coffee farmers. And in other ways you have been helping the Church be a servant of the poor. There is much more, but Fr. Jon wants me to limit this homily to ten minutes.

Our pastor, Padre German, welcomes your accompaniment of our parish of Dulce Nombre de María. Indeed, in his letter, he wants you to know you are welcome to come visit. You can count on a heartfelt welcome, “receiving, from the hands of the people, hot tortillas, refried beans, and the fraternal coffee of sharing and celebration…. Let us continue walking together, evangelizing, passing through the mire of pain, sorrow, and darkness, leaving on every face the divine spark which brings new life…. God counts on you and us.”*

In all this, we continue to pray for you and we ask you to continue to pray for us.

We continue to move forward in our mission of being servants of God’s people, not lording it over others, not laying heavy burdens on them, not failing to serve them because they are impoverished and without power.

All of us are called to be servant-missionaries, servant disciples, wherever we are. We are called to give of ourselves to others, especially those most in need – in whatever way we can. We are called to live as sisters and brothers in Christ.

Let this be our way of serving God, of being Good News, of evangelizing – here in Ames and with us in Honduras.

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· We evangelize by being holy. But, as Thomas Merton wrote, “the saint preaches sermons by the way he walks and talks, by the way [she] picks up things and holds them in [her] hands.

* “The parish, from its commitment and hope, awaits us.  We can count on the shelter of friendship, with hearts beating in many homes with a rhythm in harmony with the heartbeat of our Creator; we can count on the hands of the worker who offer you hot tortillas and ground beans as well as the fraternal coffee of sharing and celebration…. Let us continue walking together, evangelizing, passing through the mire of pain, sorrow, and darkness, leaving on every face the divine spark which regenerates – which God alone can do. God counts on you and us.”