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.

A deacon candidate

Yesterday, May 16, I was accepted as a candidate for the permanent diaconate in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras. 

The rite took place in the parish church of Dulce Nombre, at the Mass where Padre German Navarro was installed as pastor.

The rite is very simple, but as I stood before the bishop, I had a sense that this is serious stuff.

There are two questions, both of which might seem a bit innocuous:

My son, the pastors and teachers in charge of your formation, and all those who know you, have given good testimony [a favorable account] of you, and we have fill confidence in their thinking.

Are you willing to respond to the call of the Lord, carrying to completion your preparation in such a way that you become fit to receive, when the day comes, sacred ordination and to exercise that ministry in the church?

I am willing

Are you willing to go forward preparing yourself in spirit in such a way that you can serve faithfully Christ, the Lord and his Body, the Church?

I am willing.

The bishop responds:

The church receives your decision with joy. May God, who initiated this good work in you, bring it to completion.

This is serious stuff. It’s not merely study; it’s formation – conversion.

It’s not a question of having an official function in the church.

It’s about taking on the calling of Christ as servant and letting oneself be open to the God who wishes to form us and the church in the image of his Son, Jesus, the servant, the diakonos, the deacon.

To begin to respond to this call, I am off this morning with the Eucharist for a Celebration of the Word with Communion to the village of El Zapote Dulce Nombre.

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The Spanish ritual for the admission of a candidate for the diaconate reads:

Querido hijo, los pastores y maestros a quienes se encomendó la tarea de tu formación y todos aquellos que te conocen han dado de ti buen testimonio; yo, por mi parte, confío plenamente en este su parecer.

¿Estás dispuesto, pues, a responder a la llamada del Señor, llevando a término tu preparación de tal forma que llegues a ser apto a recibir, cuando llegue el día, la ordenación sagrada y ejercer así el ministerio en la Iglesia?

Sí, estoy dispuesto.

¿Estas dispuesto a ir formando tu espíritu de tal forma que puedes servir fielmente a Cristo, el Señor, y a su cuerpo, que es la Iglesia?

Sí, estoy dispuesto.

La iglesia recibe con gozo esta tu decisión; y Dios, que comenzó en ti esta obra buena, él mismo la lleve a término.

The English reads a bit differently:

My son, the pastors and teachers in charge of your formation, and others who know you, have given a favorable account of you, and we have full confidence in their testimony.

In response to the Lord’s call, are you resolved to com­plete your preparation so that in due time you will be ready to be ordained for the ministry of the Church?

I am.

Are you resolved to prepare yourselves in mind and spirit to give faithful service to Christ the Lord and his body, the Church?

I am.

The Church receives your declaration with joy. May God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment.

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More photos can be found on my photo site here.

Joys and sorrows

Thursday I accompanied Padre German to two villages in the Dulce Nombre parish. It’s a chance to get out to places I don’t often get to as well as a chance to talk with him in the truck as we drive out.

Padre German is trying to visit every one of the 46 towns and villages at least once every two months. He often spends time with the community council.

In the morning we went to the village of Descombros, outside San Agustin.  When he arrived he first heard confessions for about an hour. Then the Mass began with 30 baptisms of children under seven.

A choir came from San Agustin and sang with a lot of enthusiasm even though they slaughtered some of the music, substituting “new” tunes for several of the hymns. 

The parents and godparents were very enthusiastic when they responded to the questions of the baptismal ritual - they are renouncing Satan in the above photo. 

Some of the little kids resisted when they were baptized. I wondered if the waters of baptism were really exorcising some loud evil spirits.

During the Mass Padre German made a remark that struck me as extremely important: we are all equal, in the Body of Christ. There is no one better than another. That call for radical equality is refreshing and what, I think, the people here need to hear.

After Mass, we had a quick lunch and then headed to the other town. For several reasons I will not name the town.

We were going for the end of the novena- nine days of prayer for someone who had died. 

A good sized crowd from the village and several others nearby nearly filled the new large church in the village.

The man had been killed with two shots. His family and another local family had been at odds for years. Also, probably years ago, one of his sons had killed someone from the other family. And, for some reason, he was now shot and killed.

Interfamily rivalries as well as crimes that are not brought to justice are responsible, I believe, for a good part of the violence in the countryside.

But, why now, especially since the man killed was over eighty years old?

Padre German gave a pointed homily on the texts he had chosen for the Mass – the Genesis story of Cain and Abel and the account of Jesus death.

I was moved by his words and took some notes. Here are a few of his remarks. (I have combined some of them that seemed related).

• No one has the right to take another’s life. For it is taking the place of God.
• We need to end the circle (spiral?) of violence.
   
• All who kill ask, like Cain, “Am I, by chance, my brother’s keeper?”
   
• To break the cycle of violence we need to contemplate life, and care of the life of our neighbors and our enemies.
   
• There will never exist a person like Abel, like the person who was killed.  They are unique. Each person’s life is irreplaceable. Even the worst person is important. For God wants the sinner to live.
   
• He said that when one takes the life of another, the life of that person is “depreciado” – belittled, scorned, despised, looked down upon. But every life has value.
   
• Avoid the desire for vengeance; one has to forgive.
• Sin has power. But, recalling the death and resurrection of Christ, life is stronger than death.

He said more that I missed – since I almost fell asleep from exhaustion. But the message of love, forgiveness, and letting go of the desire for vengeance was clear. But also clear was his insistence of the value of every person – even our enemies. In a society that despises the poor, hearing this message is extremely important.

During the prayer of the faithful, Padre German prayer for the justice system of Honduras, which he called “collapsed” and he prayed for justice.

He realizes that violence experienced in the villages is not merely related to vengeance and inter-family rivalries. It is related to the lack of a justice system that responds to crimes.

How many crimes are never investigated? How many of those who kill ever proceed to court? How many are jailed with insufficient evidence? The system allows injustice and violence to flourish and, I believe, even contributes to it by its failure to function.

The Mass was somewhat subdued, but I found that Padre German’s words provided a beacon of hope.

One person I know who was a niece and godchild of the man who was killed remarked on his words.

I told her that he said what we need to hear.

He did what the Church should be doing - saying a prophetic word of hope as we accompany those who are suffering and mourning.

  In some ways I think what he was doing can be summed up in the first sentence of the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World - Gaudium et Spes:

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the [people] of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.

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More photos of the baptisms in Descombros can be found here.