How can I preach the Passion among the poor?

This afternoon I will go to an aldea where I have often spent Good Friday, Debajiados.

To get there you have to go up a mountain and then down the other side. It’s about 50 minutes from here in Plan Grande and so I asked a neighbor to help with the driving. 

It is a small poor remote community that at this point does not have a Delegate of the Word to lead celebrations (though there is one in formation.) There was a young man who was in formation to be a communion minister, but he died of pneumonia, leaving his wife and four kids. Recently, the only delegate suddenly left the community,

But they are trying to live their faith. A young woman is in formation to become a catechist. Two young men (including the oldest son of the man who died of pneumonia) were confirmed this past February. 

I visited several times before I was ordained a deacon, the first time on a rainy December Sunday, going down to the church – on a “macho”. The second time, Good Friday, 2016, I took communion to a couple who lived far from the church, riding on a donkey.

I also helped with the funeral of a young girl from the community, accompanying the community to Mass and burial in a village the other side of the mountain. 

How to preach here is a serious question. 

As I prayed this morning one image came to me – suggested by the first two readings of the Good Friday Liturgy: the powerful fragility of Jesus crucified, the weakness of the Cross. 

Is there any image that better reflect the sad reality of the poor and that also give hope by reminding us of the transformative power of the Cross of Jesus and the resurrected Jesus, with his wounds?

 

from Esquipulas

This image of the suffering God reminds us that Jesus identified himself with the suffering and when we look on the faces of the poor we are looking on the faces of Christ Jesus who suffered and died with and for us. 

Many years ago I learned a famous crucifixion retablo of Mathias Grüenwald in the chapel of a hospital of people suffering from a disease that felt pustules on the skin. Jesus on the cross bears the same wounds.

There are other images of the crucified Christ identified with the suffering and persecuted. Most notable is Marc Chagall's the White Crucifixion where Jesus identifies with the Jews suffering pogroms in Russia. 

There is also Fritz Eichenberg's The Black Crucifixion

All these point to the reality of the identification of God with the suffering of this world.

This is very clear in the Holy Week liturgies. 

As Saint Óscar Romero, reflecting on the Suffering Servant Songs in Isaiah that we have been hearing this week.

The Servant of Yahweh is so closely identified with the people that biblical interpreters cannot really tell whether the Servant of Yahweh announced by Isaiah is the suffering people or the Christ who comes to redeem them.

Jon Sobrino, SJ, Salvadoran theologian and friend of Monseñor Romero, also notes this identification. of the crucified Christ and the crucified of this world.

The crucified peoples of the world are today’s Suffering Servant, innocent but hidden away, “though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood.” If the Servant does not merit such treatment, then it means that we have unjustly inflicted it on him: “He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins.” The Suffering Servant proclaims the truth about the crucified people, and the truth about their executioners. In the crucified people, we can and must see ourselves. As in an inverted mirror, we can see who and what we truly are by looking at what we have produced. Today the crucified people embody the scandalous and prophetic presence of Jesus among us.

So, what can I do today but remind the people (and myself) that we have a God who suffers with us so that suffering can be transformed by the power of God – both in our personal lives and in our world.

The Passion amid the palms

Yesterday I read a blogger wonder why the Passion is read on Palm Sunday.

I know there must be liturgical reasons, but I think it’s because we need to be reminded of the reality of the passion, especially in the lives of persons.

The Palm Sunday processions here, on the streets of cities, towns, and villages, are often great manifestations of Catholicism, which – I fear – may sometimes verge on triumphalism.

Christ is acclaimed as King. But sometimes he is made to look more like the kings of this world who use violence to enforce their will and their decrees.

Sunday in Dulce Nombre we had a procession through the streets – with palms and songs.

The blessing started in a field about a kilometer from the church.

 

Then we marched, amid songs to the church, many of them proclaiming Christ as King.

At Mass the Passion was read and Padre German gave a short homily (only about 15 minutes).

“When a man or a woman suffer, Christ is still suffering his Passion,” he said. Where there is bloodshed, where people are made fun of, when the just are beaten down, there we find Calvary. The passion of the people is the passion of Christ.

This reminded me of a quote from Thomas Merton in A Vow of Conversation:

We have to see history as a book that is sealed and opened only by the Passion of Christ. But we prefer to read it from the viewpoint of the Beast. We look at history in terms of hubris and power — in terms of the beast and his values. Christ continues to suffer his passion in the poor, the defenseless, and his Passion destroys the Beast. Those who love power are destroyed together with what they love. Meanwhile, Christ is in agony until the end of time.

When we concentrate only on the Hosannas, we miss the suffering around us. We can look to a “god” who really is not the God who loves the poor.

But when we recognize God in the humble one, seated on a donkey, a burrito in Spanish, we can recognize God in the poor and respond in love.

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More photos from Palm Sunday in Dulce Nombre can be found here.