Feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

May I be able to pray this prayer with all my heart.

Take, Lord,
and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding, and my entire will,
all that I have and possess.
You have given all to me.
To you, O Lord, I return it.
All is yours,
dispose of it wholly according to your will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
for this is sufficient for me.
St. Ignatius Loyola, S.J.

Openings

Six weeks in Honduras. I’m still trying to find my way, to get to know more of the people here, and to figure out how I can best serve. But the last week there have been a number of openings.

At the July 17 mobilization I met or re-met a number of people. I met one person involved in organizing communities to demand some transparency in finances from their local officials and two women involved in fair trade coffee. Francis, a Honduran community development worker with Fundacion El Polígono, invited me to go with him to a rural community. A priest from a nearby parish asked me when I was going to come out and visit his parish. (I think he’d like me to work with him.)

Thursday after meeting briefly with the director of the Catholic University a student approached me to ask if I’d be willing to help with a group of young people he helps facilitate in his parish, doing a workshop or something.

Friday I went to Gracias, Lempira. sister Nancy had suggested that I come for the festival of Lempira, the Indian resistance leader who had been killed by the Spanish in 1538. There was a very impressive parade with students from the local schools, most in costumes of the indigenous peoples or the Spanish conquerors. After there is a dramatization by students of the death of Lempira – which we watched on television in the house of a friend of Nancy’s.

I got a ride to Gracias from a professor in agriculture at the National University campus here and his wife. We spoke at length on a number of topics, including agricultural development, He’d like to develop a program at the campus on local development. I look forward to finding ways to work with him.

Sunday I went with Francis from Polígono to a rural community. He brought a woman who has been working with the women in this community in a cooking workshop to help the women develop greater skills in making sweet breads and pastries which they will be able to sell. While the women were working I accompanied him to a community further up where he was exploring with the community the possibility of bringing a workshop on the making of piñatas. After we got back to Santa Rosa he took me out to the campus of Fundación Polígono where I got to drop by a few of the classrooms where they hold weekend classes for students in what would be the equivalent of junior high and high school. Many of the students study during the week at home and then come for the weekend sessions with teachers. All this is part of the work of the foundation which the bishop helped start years ago with the mission of education and the development of projects for local people, especially the youth.

Where I end up actually helping I don’t know, but doors are opening.

Greg McGrath, a student from Iowa State, arrived on Monday, July 23, to visit here for about 17 days. It is great to have someone here, especially someone so inquisitive. It also offers me a number of opportunities to connect with some other groups here.

Wednesday afternoon Greg and I accompanied Sister Inés to the jail. Only later did I remember the judgment scene in Matthew 25: 31-46, where the Lord welcomes into the Kingdom those who visit him in prison. Jesus identifies himself with the prisoner. The first inmate that Greg spoke to was named Jesús!

This doesn’t mean that the prisoners haven’t committed crimes and may be capable of vicious acts, but I does mean that they are human, made in God’s image, like us. Even more, to quote Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Each one is Jesus in his distressing disguise.”

Revealed to the simple

A day after the major mobilization for a new mining law, I stopped by my neighbor's corner store and spoke with her and her nephew, Franklin, a university student who occasionally works there. We spoke about the demonstration and Franklin noted that he saw only one other from his parish’s youth group. We all noted that there weren’t many people from Santa Rosa de Copán but that most of the people were from the rural communities, the aldeas.

As they noted, there were very few of the cultos, the educated class there; most were incultos, without a lot of education. But they didn’t say this disparagingly for they noted that often those who’ve studied a lot are not really “educated.”

After I returned home, I remembered the Gospel of the Mass that day:

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to simple people.” (Matthew 11: 25-27)

Again, where can we find the wisdom of God?

Prayer in action

About thirty years ago I took part in a Holy Week protest against torture in Washington, DC, sponsored by Sojourners and Christians against Torture. It was a week of prayer, lobbying, prayerful public protest, and education, But not until this Tuesday have I ever experienced a protest like that.

On Tuesday, July 17, Hondurans gathered at eleven sites throughout the country and blocked the roads in support of a new mining law. The mobilization was sponsored by Alianza Cívica por la Democrácia – the Civil Alliance for Democracy, with the support of the bishop of Santa Rosa de Copán, the priests of the diocese, and many people here and throughout the country.

Here the people were going to take the road and block traffic on the major highway near the turn off to Gracias, Lempira. I arrived there about 6:00 am with a Spanish Franciscan sister. But the day had begun earlier for some Honduran Mennonites who had gathered at 4:00 AM to pray for the success of the mobilization.

After enough people began to arrive, the people went into the road and unfurled their banners. A detachment of the police were already there and a burly menacing police official, with three tear canisters hanging from his vest, was none too happy. He met with a local organizer and a priest and tried to intimidate them. They refused to back down and said that we only want to take the road for a day!

More people kept arriving, mostly from the countryside, often accompanied by their parish priest. A musical group arrived and the people began to sing. The first song, found in their hymnals, had this refrain: “We will free people from the sin of oppression; we will free them by the strength of love.”

But another force was also at work. More police and even soldiers arrived, about 80 in all, some with large riot control shields. At one point they were about 50 yards across the road from the demonstration. What I remember most about that moment was the old man who knelt and raised his hands to heaven.

But throughout all this the people kept praying and singing, interspersed with some speakers and shouted slogans. But prayer was central to this protest. At several key moments the people knelt on the hard macadam and prayed, led on a loudspeaker system by Fr. Roel Mejía, the director of the diocesan radio station. They prayed for an end to mining and for the protection of people and the environment. They prayed for the bishop and other leaders as well as for their families. They prayed for the police and the soldiers and for their families.

At several tense moments, Fr. Roel’s remarks echoed the last Sunday sermon of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador. Calling on the soldiers, Romero told them, “You are part of the same people, you are killing your own brother and sisters campesinos; in the face of an order to kill which a man may give, the law of God should prevail: You shall not kill.” Fr. Roel appealed to the police and soldiers, reminding them of the soldiers’ roots among the poor as well as the presence of children and the elderly in the crowd, and said that, of course, they would not harm them. An interesting appeal. He also led the people in prayer for the police and soldiers and their families. At one point in a prayer to Our Lady of Suyapa, the patroness of Honduras, he reminded the soldiers that she is invoked by the army as their “capitana” – their captain.

Throughout almost nine hours the people maintained a deep sense of prayer. I was moved many times by the deep devotion of these people – even as they were facing a possible forced removal. They prayed the rosary, the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer of St. Francis, and many other very traditional prayers. But there were often prayers which were quite strong and pointed. I was thrown a loop when a priest prayed that the mining companies would experience a financial failure. But the people have experienced major physical and environmental damages from the policies of the open pit mines in the country.

This could be seen in some of the handmade signs they carried. One read “Let’s throw out the gringos as they have thrown us out,” referring to the forced relocation of some towns by mining company, many with Canadian ties, but some based in the US. Another was merely a quote from Amos 2: 6: “They sell the poor for some money, and the needy for a pair of sandals.” One, made by some Franciscan sisters, merely read, “Francis of Assisi is with us.” (St. Francis was invoked several times since he is the patron of the environment.)

In all this I felt the deep strength of the people, a strength rooted in a profound faith of the people and their willingness to put prayer into action. The people were ready to suffer for the cause of justice. At more than one point, Fr. Roel said that it is better to die struggling than to die from the effects of the mines.

But that was not to be. In fact, there are signs of change.

In the afternoon the members of the Alianza Cívica por la Democrácia, accompanied by Santa Rosa bishop Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos and diocesan vicar general Fr. Rudy Mejía, were meeting with the president of the Honduran legislature and others in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. At the hour the meeting was to begin the people knelt and prayed. Something happened – the power of prayer and the power of hundreds of people on the streets moved the legislators. An agreement was reached to not continue to seek a mere reform of parts of the mining law. They agreed that suggestions of the Alianza Cívica will be included in a new law which the legislature will consider. Where that goes is another question.

But all was not well. In at least two places the police and soldiers forcibly removed the people from the highways. At one site of a mobilization in the diocese, a number of people were arrested and injured including two priests. The people agreed that they would not disperse until the priests were released. When the news arrived the people again joined in prayer, this time praying for the release of those arrested. Bishop Santos, though, insisted that not only the priests were to be freed but also all the people arrested. He pressured the president of Honduras and eventually all were freed.

At this news the bishop was heard on the radio encouraging the people to leave the highways and return to their homes. The people prayed and then sang, with great gusto, the Honduran national anthem. And then they returned to their homes, with the hope that there will really be a change.

HONDURAN RESISTANCE

On July 17, the same day as a major national mobilization in Honduras for a new mining law, this quote appeared in Sojourners “Verse and Voice.” See http//www.sojo.net.

“We campesinos are used to planting seeds and waiting to see if the seeds bear fruit. We’re used to working on harsh soil. And when our crops don’t grow, we’re used to planting again and again until they take hold. Like us, you must learn to persist.”

Elvia Alvarado
from Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart.