Life and death - the second week of Easter

This past week I had three pre-marriage interviews. I have at least one next week. For some reason people are getting married in the church.

The couples who want to get married first have an interview with the pastor and then have a formation process in their villages, usually lasting about twelve weeks. Then they have an interview, most often with me, though the transitional deacon has done a few. This is an interview with witnesses to make sure there are no obstacles and that the couple has some idea of what their commitments will be as married Catholics. 

I have had many sorts of couples – a few older couples who have been together many years and have grown children; others have been together for a few years, sometimes with a few children; and there are the usually young couples who have decided to get married. Most often they are campesinos with the men working in the fields and the women working at home, but I have had a young agricultural engineer and a young man who is teaching six grades in a rural school and working on a college degree.

For me, it is a joy and a privilege to be with them. I often offer tell them how I admire their decision to get married in the church when the culture of short-term relationships or of living together is common. (I must acknowledge that for many of the older couples there was probably not much opportunity to get married in the church, since the priest didn’t get to the villages very often in the past.)  

This is one aspect of my diaconate that I never expected to do but which I usually find important and fulfilling. 

As I have mentioned often, another aspect of my diaconal ministry that is important is accompanying the families of those who have died.

This Friday I assisted at two Masses for the dead, though the pastor preached. In a previous blogpost, I shared accompanying a community that experienced a violent death on Easter Monday.

The custom here is to have a novena of prayer for nine days after the burial, with an altar of nine steps in the house of the one who died or a family member. At the end of the nine days, there is a special prayer, and people often request a Mass in the home.

The end of the novena in Las Pavas was Friday and Padre German said he would be there for Mass at 1 pm.

I got there a bit late – but not as late as the pastor who had to respond to some serious situations.

We used two non-traditional readings at the Mass, since the death was a homicide. The first reading was from Genesis, the story of Cain and Abel. The Gospel was part of the passion according to Saint Luke, in which Jesus asks God the Father to forgive them and Jesus promises the Kingdom to the Good Thief. 

The pastor preached on the important of forgiveness as well as the importance of denouncing the crime to the judicial authorities. 

There is a culture of violence and vengeance here, largely because the judicial system is not inefficient and corrupt and so many crimes against the poor do not receive a just trial. There is thus the importance of helping the people forgive, but still seek justice. It’s tricky, but we will try to accompany the family. 

The pastor had to leave for two more Masses and so left me to say prayers for the dead in the room where the altar had been erected.

I prayed there with two of the children of the man who had been killed. Then, at the request of a son, I blessed his tiny house – where he, his wife, and their three-year old live. This was not easy. 

But there was another funeral Mass that night, supposedly at 8:30 pm, in a nearby village. 

A Delegate of the Word had been suffering, from cancer I believe, for several years.

Last Saturday. I was in a meeting in the parish when one of his daughters came to the office and asked someone to come see her father at a nearby medical clinic. The pastor was gone and so I went. 

He was very weak and unable to speak but he was conscious and attentive as we prayed. 

He was not eating, since he couldn’t swallow. So, after praying and talking to Don Manuel, I took the daughter and her brother outside the room where her father was hooked up for what I presumed was intravenous hydration and perhaps more. 

I decided to talk with them straightforwardly and tell them that their father was probably near death. The doctor came out to talk with one of the family members and he concurred. I wondered whether this was a good thing to say to them but I decided that it was important that they were prepared.

On Friday morning about 5:45 am, I got a call from the daughter and she told me he had died. She was trying to get the pastor but couldn’t get through to him. I later sent him a WhatsApp message and he told me about the evening Mass. 

Three couples preparing for message and two families mourning the loss of loved ones – life and death – in the second week of Easter.

The mystery of life - and death.