Thursday, September 12, 2019

Celebrating Dulce Nombre ... and more


Today, our parish celebrated its feast day, the Sweet Name of Mary – or, for more Anglo-Saxon sensitivities, the Holy Name of Mary.

Here celebrations of feast days of parishes, as well of patron saints of villages, are often preceded by nine days of prayers, a novena. Here different communities came to the main church to pray the rosary, followed by Mass.

Today, the celebration began with songs and fireworks at dawn. I slept in and stayed at home in Plan Grande and so didn’t participate, as I have in some precious years.

Before the Mass we had a procession, with a prominent place for the image of Mary from the Church.


People came from different villages in the parish, several with their images. I drove my car with bags of water for the people and so I had little chance to take photos. But I did take too of a new ritual. In the past a teacher from Dulce Nombre was responsible for the fireworks during the procession, but he is seriously ill. So one of the altar servers took over the responsibility. I guess there is a new ministry for acolytes: shooting off fireworks!


This was followed by a Mass in which six children from Dulce Nombre were baptized. Padre German asked me to baptize them. For me this is always a privilege, bringing new members into the Body of Christ. There were a few fidgety and crying kids, when I poured the baptismal waters over their heads.

Two weeks ago, we had confirmations int he parish. The bishop came and confirmed about 180 mostly young people in three places in our parish. Since I was responsible for coordinating the liturgies as well as serving as deacon at the Masses, I didn't take many photos. But here' are two from the Mass in Dulce Nombre. The first is of the bishop speaking to those who were to be confirmed.


The other is, if I may say so, awesome. As our pastor spoke to the confirmed after communion, I captured a moment when the sun came through the church door and was reflected on the new floor int he sanctuary. 

The past weeks have been hard on me. I’ve had two major repairs on the car – the axle casing (camisa) and one of the axle shafts (flecha), as well as the motor for one of the windows. 


I also had some continuing dental work (due to not going to the dentist for a few years). But the worst was serious stomach problems – including vomiting, acid reflux, and hiccups that had me worried one night. The next day I went to a private clinic and am recovering. Thanks be to God – and modern medicine.

One day last week two young priests came and we worked on the material for base communities for next year. This is the fourth year we’ve worked together. They are a delight to work with, though I think in a few things they defer to me (and suffer my poor Spanish.) This year I didn’t make lentil soup as I have other years. They had rice, broccoli, with gado gado sauce. (Gado gado is an Indonesian sauce with a peanut base, that I love. Though I often make my own recipe, this time I used a prepared block that an Indonesian friend who works at Villanova university gave me when I visited the east coast in March.)

This past Monday I had a training session for twenty-eight new catechists, mostly young people. They were good to work with and I hope they’ll persevere since many of the villages need more catechists and we need to welcome new young people into this ministry.

Last week I had two pre-marriage interviews back to back. The pastor does the initial interview; the couples receive their pre-marriage talks in their villages; I just do the interview with the couple and their witnesses – to try to avoid any problems. I am very happy that  we are experiencing more young people seeking marriage – some of them before living together!

I also had a funeral last Sunday. I had planned to visit the village of Agua Buena Dolores for a Sunday Celebration of the Word with Communion. I got a call Saturday evening telling me that a member of the community would be buried and so the celebration might be delayed. I mentioned that I’d be willing to do the funeral rites at the celebration early. At about 7 am on Sunday I got a call asking me to come as soon as possible to do the celebration and funeral rites. No problem.

For me, it seems rather strange that we sometimes have funerals on Sunday. But here there is almost no embalming and so the bodies have to be buried within 24 or 36 hours. But, in one sense, it makes sense that we have a funeral on a Sunday when needed, remembering that we are remembering the sharing of the deceased in the death and resurrection of the Lord and praying for the acceptance of the deceased in the Kingdom.

I was moved, as I often am at funerals, and make a special effort to connect with the family members – often just mentioning their names in the celebration. This time the challenge was to integrate some remarks on the passing of the deceased in the homily. I think it worked.

Next week we have a meeting of the social ministry. This time the director of the diocesan office of Caritas will be with us. We will also do some follow-up on our concerns about water and deforestation. Our idea is to do a major reforestation campaign for the first two weeks of October (connecting this with the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi on October 4). Some have told me that they have gotten saplings from various governmental bodies and are planning events. We’ll see how this goes. Another concern is the contamination of water. There are two major problems. The first is the water sources, usually springs. They often need to be protected and the reforestation will help this. The other problem is the contamination of streams by the run-off from the initial stages of the coffee production process. The de-pulped beans are soaked in water, but sometimes this water (called aguas mieles) flows into the streams. Some groups said they were going to evaluate the situation, talk with mayors, and try to generate projects to lessen the contamination.

Speaking of coffee production and contamination. Coffee has been sent to the US from the coffee association in El Zapote Santa Rosa. But I found out that, with the help of several international aid groups, they are finding ways to decrease the use of chemicals in production as well as to utilize the pulp and the aguas mieles for fertilizer.

The church in Dulce Nombre is being renovated. It needed to be painted but in the process of removing the stucco, we discovered that the two towers have some beautiful hand-hewn stones. The idea is to preserve them and treat them so that they can be seen – partly because these stones were gathered and hewn by members of Dulce Nombre fifty years ago.



We are also renovating the interior of the church, removing a large retablo and simplifying the sanctuary. I had an idea that I shared with the pastor to have a mural painted on the apse. Next week we will be speaking to a prospective artist.


One big event coming up, that I’ll write about later, is our sending of missionaries to another parish in October. For the last few years, parishioners have gone on mission to different communities in the parish, but this will be different. We’ve had some trainings and we’ll have another next week.

There is much more to write about – especially in terms of the continuing poverty and challenges that our people face, in the light of massive corruption, possible links between political leaders and drug trafficking, and incompetence in judicial affairs and in the infrastructure. Just a few days ago a major portion of the international highway between Santa Rosa de Copán and Cucuyagua caved in. That means that travel between the Guatemalan and Salvadoran borders and the major city of San Pedro Sula and the Caribbean port of Puerto Cortez was stopped and is greatly restricted, or had to be diverted through Guatemala.

More on this later. 

But, for now, a few more images of what I experience.

The kids at the school in Plan Grande celebrated the Day of the Child with a carrera de cintas.



The morning often brings incredible vistas:


And the flowers in the garden continue to amaze me, like this hibiscus:



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