ASH WEDNESDAY IN DULCE NOMBRE

What do you do on Ash Wednesday when you have more than 45 places where people gather for worship in a parish?

Padre German, our pastor, has five Masses in four different locations. But that leaves out more than forty communities.

I was going to go to a distant village, but I thought it best not to go at this time, since my body’s defenses are low, due to last Thursday’s chemotherapy.

So almost all the villages sent a Delegate of the Word or someone else to the 10 am Mass in the main parish church. Ashes were blessed and distributed to those attending.

After Mass, little plastic cups of ashes were given to those who would distribute them at a Celebration of the Word in their communities. In some communities, where there is an extraordinary communion minister, they would have a Celebration of the Word with Communion.

I attended the 10:00 am Mass in the parish and served as deacon, in a limited way. I did preach but I decided not to distribute the ashes, nor communion, nor purify the vessels.

It was a blessing to be with the delegates and some others who came for Mass.

After Mass, I went back into the church to pray – and was awed by the beauty around us.

Mercy upon mercy upon mercy

Sunday, the feast of Christ the king, we ended the Year of Mercy with a parish-wide Mass in Concepción.

A thousand or more gathered in Dulce Nombre and we walked in the mud and the cold light rain to Concepción. On the way we stopped three times to pray for peace and we also stopped at the city cemetery to commend to God the body of a woman from one of the villages.

In the Mass, we commemorated the Delegates of the Word in the parish. The delegates were formed fifty years ago and are a special way the Honduras Church responded to the lack of Sunday celebrations in the thousands of rural villages. Before his homily, Padre German had one delegate read the letter that Pope Francis had sent to the Honduran bishops praising the delegates. After Mass 4000 tamales were distributed and the people left for their home.

Mateo, delegate of the Word, reading the letter of Pope Francis to the delegates

The Sunday before, the parish had gone to close the Holy Door at the shrine of the Crucified Christ in Quezailica. Parishioners from the parish of Fatima in Santa Rosa and from Dulce Nombre participated.

But that Sunday began auspiciously for me. At 4:30 am, I heard loud cries of lament from the house just below mine. It lasted for at least half an hour. After washing up, I asked another neighbor what was happening. He told me that the father of the family had been killed. I accompanied him and two others to the site of the murder, in another part of Plan Grande. We stayed until the police took the body to the morgue.

Monday, I had to go to Santa Rosa to get my brakes fixed. But first I went to the neighbor’s house and prayed at the coffin. Using the ritual, I blessed the body and sprinkled it with holy water. I hoped to return for a celebration of the word and the burial, but was unable.

I later discovered that his brother, who had also been shot, had died. Last night I attended the last evening of the novenario, the nine days of prayer for the dead in their homes. After others led the rosary, I led a prayer.

Last Wednesday I went to Gracias, to prepare for a workshop on Thursday and Friday on Alternatives to Violence in the prison. It was a very good group, very responsive to the theme we had chosen: anger. But in the time there I was several times face to face with the injustice of the so-called “justice” system in Honduras. As I knew, there are people who have incarcerated for more than a year without a trial; there are others who are unjustly imprisoned; there are others who are imprisoned for what seems to be what would be called “legitimate self-defense” in the US.

Yesterday, I was called to visit a sick young woman in a village about an hour from Plan Grande. Our pastor is away on a much-needed vacation and so I went.

I was surprised to find out that the sick woman was only seventeen years old. She has been ill for over four months and had had a surgery; she was waiting for an appointment in San Pero Sula. But she had been bed-ridden for several days and was not eating. She was also suffering from anemia. I found out that she has kidney problems but, because of an inflamed liver, a doctor who visited her advised against sending her to San Pedro Sula. The doctor also noted that there was no medicine available in the clinic or the nearby hospital for her. She also had a nine-month old boy, who was – thanks be to God – in good health.

I prayed at her bedside with her mother and a few others nearby. She is living with a young man and wanted to go to confession but Padre German is out of the parish until next week. I told her about God’s merciful forgiveness. Though I didn’t give her Communion, I placed the pyx with the Blessed Sacrament on her chest. How I longed to give her Communion…

Today I’m off to Gracias to share a noon meal with the sisters there and with a Common Venture group from Iowa that is helping the Gracias parish in building their retreat center. But I’ll have to get back to do a Celebration of the Word with Communion at the main church in Dulce Nombre.

This weekend will be busy. Saturday morning I have a Celebration of the Word with Communion in Dolores for those graduating from ninth grade. I’ll return that night for a 7:00 pm Sunday vigil Celebration with Communion. Sunday morning I’ll head out to Concepción for a 7:00 am Celebration of the word with Communion. Later at 10:00 am we’ll have the parish wide celebration of those over fourteen who are entering the catechumenate in order to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. Padre German won’t be back until Sunday night and so I’ll be presiding over the Rite of Entry into the Catechumenate as well as the Celebration of the Word with Communion.

I’m also trying to finish up some writing for a project that some young priests of the diocese have to provide material for base communities, based on the Sunday readings.

And the internet has not been dependable.

But today, Thanksgiving in the US, I feel grateful for God – in the midst of the joys and pains of God’s people, here in Honduras. For God is merciful.

Walking barefoot

Friday and Saturday morning the parish had a workshop for the delegates of the Word in two zones of the parish.

Delegates lead the Sunday celebrations of the Word in their communities when there is no priest. The challenge has been to have them go beyond the celebrations and work with the base communities structure in their communities. In some places, it’s working well; in others, work needs to be done.

Padre German began the workshop with a reading from Isaiah 52:7:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
announcing peace,
bearing good news,
announcing salvation…

We evangelize he said, not just by our words but also by our presence.  And to make a point the fifty or so of us walked up from the church to a place a little outside town.  As we passed, in silence, the people looked at this strange sight of people walking in silence.

At a point in the road with an outstanding view, we sat down. Padre invited us to take off our shoes and socks and to ask ourselves if our feet are beautiful.

Then he invited us to walk on the gravel road in bare feet – and to be humble enough to stop when we couldn’t go further.

In silence, we walked – though I stopped after less than 100 yards. They continued on and back, a witness to their endurance of the pain of the road on bare feet.

As I look back, I recognize how spoiled I am – a missionary who can’t take a gravel road in bare feet, weak feet in contrast to the strength and endurance of the people I am supposedly here to serve, living a privileged life when so many suffer and still go on the missionary journey.

A good reminder of what I’m called to be and of how far I am from the lives of these people.

Hectic times

Next Sunday afternoon I’m heading to San Pedro Sula to stay overnight in order to catch an early Monday morning flight to the US. I’m going to Iowa for a week , mostly to attend the ordination of two young men whom I know from my time at St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames, Iowa. It’s a whirlwind visit, but a little break.

Last Saturday I had a very good meeting with the youth in San Agustín. Some had just come back from visiting a poor sick woman in her home, bringing her a few necessities.

Before the meeting started I introduced them to the ice breaker called the knot. It was quite entertaining.

I wanted them to give us in the parish an idea of what themes they would like to treat. Since this can be a rather intimidating activity for some, I had them write what they’d like to talk about on sheets of paper. I gave them a few ideas, including leaving them the chance to talk about sex and relationships, if they wanted.

I was not surprised that friendship and relationships scored high – but there were several who wanted to talk about trust and honesty.  We decided to start next month with something on trust – probably using a lot of activities to help them grow in trust. I’ll also try to work with the young leaders of the group to train them to lead their peers. That’s much better than an “old fart” like me leading them.

I took Sunday off – just Mass, reading, and stuff around the house. Monday and Tuesday morning I spent in Caritas, but went out to the house building site on Tuesday afternoon and , after talking to the guy in charge of the building project, rushed back to Santa Rosa to buy cement and rebar.

But Wednesday started the ministry I really love. I went out to the most remote zone of the parish to do a workshop with base communities leaders. For prayer, I am using the Ignatian contemplation method with the story of Jesus calming the torment. I’m doing this since once a month the base communities are supposed to do a reading of the scripture during their meetings using St. Ignatius' imaginative method of reading scriptures. I wrote about this in an earlier post, here.

The workshops went well and we were finished early. I knew that Padre German and a group from one of the sectors of the parish was working on the parish's new coffee field in Plan Grande. They were weeding and putting up fences. 

The field looked rather good - and the plants are a new variety of coffee, called Ovata. This is one of the first fields planted with Ovata in the region. It is supposed to give a good yield.

ovata coffee plant

Today, Thursday, we had a meeting of the delegados de la Palabra, the delegates of the Word, those who are in charge of the Sunday celebrations in their villages. We reviewed the nature of the Triple Ministry (prophetic, liturgical, and social) of the base communities to make sure they are integrating their ministry with the base communities. Then we began the process of looking for the characteristics of a Delegate of the Word. We only got started, but we’ll be meeting again next month.

Tomorrow, I have a workshop with the base community leaders in one zone;  leaders from another sector are supposed to show up. Luckily, for me, it’s in Dulce Nombre and so I don’t need to go so far.

Saturday is the meeting of the parish council. But I will be getting up early to take a young engineer friend of mine out to the building site to see if he can help design the roof for the house. We’ll leave Santa Rosa at 7 am. Then I’ll try to get to a part of the parish council meeting, come home, and pack.

Sunday is Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Devotion to the Eucharist is very strong here – and there will be several processions throughout the parish. Also, several villages where they have the Eucharist will have the Forty Hours devotion – forty hours, usually continuous, of prayer before the Eucharist.

I will be leaving Sunday afternoon on a bus to San Pedro, but not until I get through a busy morning.

Corpus Christi will start out early, with a procession and Mass in the town of Concepción. After Mass, I’ll be going out to Plan Grande. The catechists of that sector are having a get-together for those preparing for Confirmation. We could have up to 130 young people. It starts about 8 am and goes to Mass and procession in the early afternoon. I’ll go out to see what I can do and to spend time with the young people.

It is really great to see the efforts of the catechists and young people in this sector. In some other parts of the parish we are struggling with religious education and sacramental preparation. That’s not unusual or unexpected – especially when we are expecting up to 600 confirmations this coming October, and there have been more than 2,000 baptisms since last August.

When I get back from my trip to Iowa, I will have lots more to do, especially since Padre German wants me to go out and see what’s happening in religious education.

I’ll be glad when I live in the parish – and will be able to do this much more easily.

Revealing they have value

I’m just finishing Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness, a little book with short essays by Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities, and the theologian Stanley Hauerwas. I recommend it, though Hauerwas’s second essay is a bit dense; he is a theologian, after all - and a good one.

In one essay, Jean Vanier writes:

…it is a revelation for people with disabilities if you say to them, "There is meaning to your life." We are not just doing good to them as professionals. That is important, but it's not just about that. It's about revealing to them that they have value. They have something to say to our society.

Recently I have begun to think about people with disabilities here. On Ash Wednesday I met two young people with Down Syndrome in a community. Both were functioning well, loved by their mother.

But yesterday, at a meeting of Celebrators of the Word in the parish, I saw something that touched me.

The Celebrators of the Word are the men and women who lead Sunday Celebrations of the Word in the rural villages, since it is impossible for a priest to say Mass in 47 villages on a weekend – though Padre German often presides at 5 or 6 between noon Saturday and Sunday night.

There was a wide range of celebrators – from some teenagers just beginning to people who have been doing it since the early 1980s.

Gathering of celebrators

Most of the people have had little formal education and some struggle with reading publicly. There are a few who cannot read or write. Often they get one of their children to read the Sunday scriptures to them to help them prepare.

As part of the meeting Padre German had them doing an extended and a little complicated exercise.

After writing their names and basic information, he had them draw something on the back of the sheet of paper. Then in groups they were to take a part of their drawing and combine it with others. Then they got together to explain their drawings. (The activity was more complicated, but I’ll leave that out for now.)

one of the drawings

When we all got together he had several people explain their part. One of them could not read or write – but had been a celebrator for several years.

Padre asked him to show his drawing. He replied that he was illiterate and didn’t draw anything.

Padre then took a sheet of paper, taped it to the wall and asked him to draw what he wanted to draw. Slowly he was able to draw a house, with a tile roof, door, and window.

He then identified that the door was the most important part of the drawing for him. Through the door, comes Christ.

As I reflected on this, after reading Vanier today, I realized that he was given a voice; he was given an opportunity to discover his capabilities.

Padre didn’t leave him with the sad tale of not being able to write – or even draw. He challenged him, lovingly, and help accompany him on the path to recognize that he could do something new.

The man didn’t have what we usually call disabilities. But illiteracy is in some ways a disability that renders people feeling useless.

It is a disability that is so often caused by a failure of society to respond to the needs of people.

On Ash Wednesday in Debajiados, I talked with a few young people and asked them how much they had studied in school. I was surprised to find teenagers adna twenty-year old who could not read or write. Probing a little, I found out that did not have a school in their village until four years ago. Thus there are many people who cannot read or write in Debajiados.

But there was one 16 year old young man who was going to school, starting this year in first grade.