Last Wednesday I spent a few hours going through my journals, trying to see what was going on in my interior life. Yesterday, I decided to look at the past year and the coming one, in terms of what I do.
Last year was not easy, but I realized that I really am called to accompany those at the margins.
I also realized that I am, in some ways a hermit at heart. It’s not that I don’t love to be with friends, but I am learning to live in solitude.
I also found myself doing a lot of reading and taking a few advantages of on-line study programs.
I got to learn a little about Zoom – with an online Spanish class, a four week seminar on Abuse in families, a clergy study week on sexual abuse, weekly meetings of an on-line base community (in Spanish) facilitated by Maryknoll, as well as a few other meetings. I also talked with some friends over Skype. I even managed to meet a few times with my spiritual director over Skype.
The pandemic and the lockdown started in mid-March. I had originally planned to attend a permanent deacon meeting in Germany in March, but it was canceled. I had also planned to visit Dachau and Chartres, two places of pilgrimage for me. But it was not to be. Supposedly, there will be a meeting in Barcelona in September 2021.
I stayed at home for the first three or four months, only going out for supplies or for essential ministerial responsibilities.
I had envisioned Holy Week as a personal retreat, but I spent three days going with young people working with the local municipality, taking provisions to people in the villages. I did spend the last three days in quiet.
Our parish usually has an all-night Pentecost Vigil in one of the parish communities, but, since this was cancelled, I spent several hours meditating on the Vigil readings.
In July, when the Honduran Bishops Conference had established guidelines for celebrations, I began presiding at Sunday Celebrations here in Plan Grande, but I avoided going to Masses (partly because of travel restrictions) until September.
Yet I found myself at several funerals.
The week before the pandemic lockdown happened, I was asked to go to a community for a funeral. As often happens here, the funeral was in the home of the family of the deceased.
During the pandemic, I ended up presiding at funerals at least seven times – one newborn, one three month old, a young man shot and killed, an older man and a few weeks later his son, an elderly woman whose daughter had been killed about two weeks before, a middle-aged man, and a 97 year old man. I also assisted at several funeral Masses, including a recent funeral of a 36 year old woman who died of cancer, leaving behind four children.
Surprisingly, a fair number of couples were in preparation for marriage before the pandemic started. I had more than ten pre-matrimonial interviews, many of which were in the couples’ villages, since transportation is a problem. I visited a number of the couples, including some who had not been baptized. I ended up baptizing four persons before their celebrations of the sacrament of matrimony. I assisted at several of the Masses.
In one village there were five couples who got married. They had been meeting before they began their preparation and it was a joy to accompany them
In another village, there was a couple that had begun preparations in March. The pandemic put this to a stop but, more seriously, the husband who had struck his head a few years ago, suffered serious cerebral complications and, unless he had Ensure he was not able to get out of bed. I visited them and we decided to go ahead with the wedding, but there was one complication. He was not baptized. And so, the pastor sent me out to baptize him. A few days later they were joined in Holy Matrimony, with their three children present.
We had a number of catechumens who would have been baptized at the Easter Vigil. I visited with seven of them in San Agustin and one in a nearby village and later baptized them. This is not the normal route, but in times of pandemic and hurricanes, the pastoral concern is primary. I also take masks along with me which I freely distribute.
I haven’t visited the sick as much as I used to, partly because I was trying to be careful, with my health and the health of others. This year I have to find a well to visit the sick much more.
As I mentioned, during the height of the pandemic I helped to take supplies to villages with the local municipality. Padre German and I went, partly to provide another vehicle, but also to try to make sure that the neediest were not neglected. We did this twice.
After the hurricanes, we have also been going out, with supplies donated by people in Dulce Nombre, Santa Rosa, Tegucigalpa, and Madrid, Spain. I have gone out with others several times and several times have brought supplies alone. At least once, I got stuck in the mud! I also went with others, including Fernando, the newly ordained (transitional deacon, to distribute provisions and clothing that had been donated.
There are several other ways I sought to help those in need.
After a terrible killing of a young woman in a distant village, I arranged for family members to visit with psychologists from the Santa Rosa office of Caritas. The first time I took the two young women psychologists to the village (about one and a half hours from Santa Rosa), but later we arranged for the family member to come to Dulce Nombre and I brought the psychologists in from Santa Rosa (only half an hour each way.) This experience only made it more evident to me that psychological assistance is a great need of people in our parish, partly because of the presence of violence and abuse in the Honduran society.
Our parish has a fund to subsidize medical costs when the families don’t have the resources. I’ve used this several times.
We have a parish car to transport the ill to hospitals and clinics and it is being well-used. But on Christmas eve, the driver was unavailable and so I ended up bringing someone home from the Santa Rosa hospital. I managed to get to the Christmas Mass, where I ended up preaching.
When our pastor went to visit his family in October, he left the seminarian and me to cover the Saint Francis day celebrations – I ended up with four on October 4, but I managed to slip out after the last one to meet with the Dubuque Franciscan sisters in Gracias. I only saw them three times this year, though we’ve been in contact by phone and e-mail. It’s been hard, since they are an important source of emotional and spiritual support – real friends. But we did have a great Christmas dinner at the home of Sister Nancy in La Entrada. (By the way, dinner is the mid-day meal according to Iowa usage.)
Three seminarians have been doing pastoral work in parishes in the diocese, including one in Dulce Nombre. They were ordained (transitional) deacons in December and I participated in the three ordination Masses.
I am now doing some visiting of villages for Sunday celebrations as well as trying to attend at least one of the Masses in the parish. When I go to Mass, the pastor almost always has me preach.
We have suspended much of our formation of pastoral leaders, though we hope to begin some this year, probably small sessions in each of the eleven sectors of the parish. Many people are anxious to begin again. They have had Sunday Celebrations of the Word for several months, but we have been very careful in terms of religious education in the communities. We will have to look at this carefully and perhaps make decisions related to the situation of the community.
COVID-19 has affected several places in the parish, though most of the countryside has been spared. But the hurricanes have affected many areas – with loss of houses, roads caved in or blocked by landslides, houses in danger, communities isolated, and infrastructure damaged. We’ve tried to respond, but the major effort will be rebuilding. I will be working on this, together with the transitional deacon in the parish. Next week we will meet with one community that has been devastated and may have to relocate.
I also ended up working for three months with Alejandro Carbajal, the artist who painted an incredible mural for our parish church. I plan to write more about this marvelous mural that graces the church.
As I look back I realize that, in all this, I have learned how much contact with the suffering and the marginalized is my calling. I am amazed how I so often, without thinking, find myself reaching out to those one the margins – the guys at the doors of the churches, the coffee pickers who show up at celebrations here in Plan Grande. I also find myself seeking out those grieving. I probably am violating protocols, but how often at funerals I find myself talking with and putting my arm around those who have lost loved ones.
As we remember this Christmastime the One who drew near to us, was born among the poor, and who walked with the neglected and marginalized, I find myself called to renew my commitment to serve them, to accompany them, and to help them grow into the persons and communities that God wants them to be.
I thank God I am here.
It’s a marvelous gift – that I never expected.
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