Stations of the Cross in Dulce Nombre, 2018

The Sufferings of Christ, 

the Sufferings of the Poor and the Sick, 

and the Sufferings of Creation

It has been a long tradition in the Catholic Church to celebrate the Friday before Holy Week as the Friday of Sorrows, remembering in a special way Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of Sorrows.

For many years, the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán had the tradition of a diocesan Stations of the Cross on this day. This no longer happens but in the parish of Dulce Nombre de María and in some other parishes we celebrate a parish-wide celebration of the Stations.

This year the diocese and the entire Honduran Catholic Church has taken as its theme: “La Iglesia cuida la casa común - The Church cares for our common home.” Thus our Stations had a very definite ecological theme in most of the stations, with many quotes from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ as well as a January 2018 pastoral letter from CELAM, the Conference of Latin American Bishops, entitled Discípulos, Misioneros, Custodios de la Casa Común; Discernimiento a la luz de la Laudato Si’- Disciples, Missionaries, Caretakers of our Common Home: Discernment in the light of Laudato Si’.

In addition, the coordinators of the varied sectors of the parish, as well as the pastor and I picked up trash along the path of the Stations. We ended up with about two truck-loads.

There were some parts of the Stations that were particularly moving.

                

At the first station, I marveled at this woman, kneeling in the street.

As we left, I caught a photo of our pastor in a ditch, picking up trash.

The second station was at the home of a poor family with a gravely-ill twenty-four-year old woman. They had prepared an altar with a saw dust carpet.

I had visited this family with Padre German in December when he anointed her. The house is pretty run down – and it is not even their own; they are renting it. But they had prepared a beautiful spot for us to contemplate the Way of the Cross.

At the end of the formal prayers, Padre went inside and prayed the Our Father with the young woman – and, with the help of a remote microphone, we prayed with them.

We stopped at some other places of suffering, including the home of a young woman who died of cancer, leaving a young child, as well as the homes of others suffering, several from cancer.

Our Way of the Cross embraced those suffering – as well as the suffering of creation.

It also included beauty. All of the Stations had an altar, fashioned by those who lived there. A few prepared sawdust carpets, such as this one for the station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

We concluded with Mass and sent people on their way with the text of the stations. We hope they use them in their communities on Good Friday.

The text of the Stations, in Spanish, is available on my Spanish blog, here.  

Coming to the end of Lent

Holy Week is upon us. Summer, the dry season, is also beginning. It has been dry and hot, and there is plenty of dust. But that doesn't mean that the land doesn't bring forth beauty. Almost every time of the year has its flowering trees and bushes. Here's how it was a few days ago from my home.

But I've been busy, as usual.

Last Thursday our pastor went to San Agustín to celebrate the feast of La pastora, Mary the shepherdess, a unique feast of Mary found in Spain and here in San Agustín. He left me to work with the missionaries who will be visiting several communities in the parish during the first half of Holy Week.

On Friday Padre German presided at a Mass here in Plan Grande to mark the end of the novenario for Miguel Ángel, nine days of prayer in the home after the burial. Miguel Ángel was nineteen years when he died. He has had many health problems. But in January, he disappeared. He did not recognize his parents and wandered off. His family began an extended search – which ended finding his body in a morgue in San Pedro Sula about March 8. He had died near Copán Ruinas on January 30, from a head wound. It isn’t clear whether he fell from a truck or was hit by a truck. He carried no ID, but thanks be to God they identified him by his fingerprints. Otherwise, he would have been buried in an unmarked grave.

I went to one of the nights of the novenario in the home of his parents. I noticed heads of garlic braided hanging on a beam. His father told me how he was very good at selecting garlic for planting and harvesting. It was good to hear Don Pedro talk about his son, with affection.

I remember him. He had prepared for confirmation one year but got very sick and couldn’t get out of bed. The next year he was confirmed. He was a simple young man – with special problems.

Saturday was Parish Council. Our pastor left me with several tasks since he had some meetings. But gratefully he came at the end to deal with some difficult situations.

Later Saturday afternoon I went to a meeting of some people with the pastor in Dulce Nombre preparing the liturgies and popular devotions for Holy Week.

After the meeting I headed to Dolores with the pastor for Mass. I preached and stood by as he prayed the third scrutiny over six young people who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil.

Sunday morning, I went to Vertientes for a Celebration of the Word with Communion. I purposely went there because they have five elect who will also be baptized at Easter. I presided at the Third Scrutiny.

After the celebration I went to visit the sick, bringing Communion to an old woman confined to bed and to a blind old man. One of those to be baptized is the grandson of Don Gustavo and lives where his mother cares for his grandfather. I tried to impress on him the importance of showing love to his grandfather and also telling about his upcoming baptism.

The feast of St. Joseph, March 19, is Fathers’ Day here in Honduras. Being neither a father of family or a father in the church was not an impediment to celebrating it with the people.

I started out accompanying our pastor to visit a 98 year old man in one of the most distant villages. He was sitting up in the dirt-floored kitchen of the house where at least one of his sons also lived. After confessing him, Padre German asked his wife about their state in life. He asked both of them if they would like to get married in the church. Yes, though it was hard to understand Don Fausto. They were married right there. He was anointed after the wedding ceremony. Father hadn’t brought consecrated hosts and so said a short Mass using a low table for the altar. So moving.

We then went to the nearby town of San José El Bosque to celebrate their feast day. Padre German heard confessions for about 45 minutes, followed by Mass in which I preached. What I found interesting was the large number of men in the congregation. In fact, I think almost half of those attending were men.

Before Mass, I was in my usual rare form – talking with people, joking with them trying to find a little about their lives. I sat down with a few men by the back of the church, talking a bit about fathers’ day. A young man mentioned that he was with a woman and they had a little girl. I asked him if he was married – as I also asked a few of the other men there. I then said, “Why don’t you get married?” They were surprised – but in a very good-natured way. I didn’t have time to pursue this with them since the Mass was about to start. But I still continue to wonder (and, at times, marvel) at the presence of men with a wife and family who are attending Mass but aren’t married. I hope my jocular way of asking about this stirs some to seriously consider marriage.

Tuesday, I had to go to San Pedro Sula to renew my permission to be in Honduras. I am in the middle of seeking permanent residency and so have to get extensions every two months or so. This time, Sister Nancy had asked if she could go with me. With great joy, I said yes. It’s always great to have time with one of the Dubuque Franciscan sisters. We arrived at the Immigration office at 9 am and were out by 9:45 – which must be a record! Then we had lunch, went shopping in a large grocery store (even by US standards), and drove back. A long but good day.

Wednesday, I worked on the parish Stations of the Cross. We’ll celebrate them in Dulce Nombre on Friday and I had to get them done so I can go to Santa Rosa on Thursday to get them printed. I should have done this way before – but I’ve gotten into the bad habit of procrastinating. (Does this mean I’m getting more Central America?) I did finish them and you can find the text in Spanish here.

Thursday I passed by the parish and Padre German reviewed the Stations. When I arrived he was working with about twenty men digging a trench by one of the buildings, since the basement has been flooding. 

After he reviewed the Stations, I took them to Santa Rosa de Copán to be photocopied since it’s cheaper there. I used the trip to get some food shopping done and to drop by Weekend’s for a pizza.

Back in Plan Grande, I led the Holy Hour. At the end of the hour, I blessed the small congregation with the Host in the monstrance. I’ve done this a few times, but each time I find myself praying that the blessings of Jesus in the Eucharist may pass to all corners of Plan Grande. I feel as if God is blessing all of us here, not just in church, with his presence.

Tomorrow, I’ll leave early for the parish Stations of the Cross in the streets of Dulce Nombre. Holy Week has begun.

Caring for our common home

Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’, on the care of creation, has been a breath of fresh air. Our bishop has made care for the common home one of the pastoral frameworks for the diocese and we’ll be considering this at the diocesan assembly in November.

In our parish, we celebrated the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi within this perspective of care for God’s good earth. It is not without significance that the title of Pope Francis’s encyclical is taken from St. Francis’s Canticle of Creation.

To celebrate this the parish organized three Ecological Stations of the Cross in three areas where the local church is dedicated to Saint Francis. I got to two of them, since I spent the evening of October 3 with the Dubuque Franciscan sisters and other associates in Gracias. A welcome change of pace.

For the first celebration, the morning of October 3, we  began near Camalote and ended with Mass in Dolores. A crowd gathered and we walked in the hot sun, up the hill. (I forgot to bring a hat!)

The second celebration was in El Zapote Santa Rosa, but I didn’t get there.

The third celebration was in Zone 4 of the parish – one of the most remote. I went to Delicias Concepción where we were planning to end the Stations with Mass. I had decided not to walk the whole way but met them as they began the seventh or eighth station.

I was very impressed by one poster made by a catechist from San Isidro La Cueva. I like how she put both the problem and a solution in the same poster.

Padre German was rather strong in his preaching – recalling the problems of the environment here, from cutting the forests to burning the mountainsides to plant coffee. He especially noted the problem of water and the rivers. There are major concessions open to private companies to use the rivers for profit. These are the roots of major social conflicts here. Very interestingly, he noted the death of COPINH indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, killed last year for her leadership in trying to save rivers in the department of Intibucá.

It will be interesting to see what comes of the diocesan efforts to respond to the environmental problems. We have a major Canadian mining company operating in the area, using cyanide leaching to extract gold from the rock and removing a cemetery to extract gold where the dead had previously rested. There are also major mining and river concessions in the area, most notably in the departments of Santa Bárbara and Intibucá. Monoculture is a problem in many areas and in the south of the diocese there are serious drought problems.

I plan to work with the catechists to help them incorporate some dimensions of the car of our common home in their religious education – not just in terms of theory. I am hoping we can offer them a spirituality of creation to sustain them and the children and youth as well as suggesting various ways to show care in their villages.

Photos from the procession between Camalote and Dolores.

Photos from the procession to Delicias Concepción.