Touched deeply by a death

This morning I got a call about 7:10 telling me of the death of a young man, Gerson Noe Rivas, 20 years old last Friday, in Agua Buena, Concepción. They asked me to come.

Even though I had a 9 am workshop, I knew I had to go. 

 He was becoming more involved in the parish, especially in the social ministry. In fact, he had gone with me and three others from the parish to a Caritas workshop on social ministry. 

He also has been one of our missionaries, visiting villages for a week, evangelizing.

It took about 35 minutes to get to his village. On the way, I saw a crowd in the road as I entered the village. They had gathered where Gerson had died. 

 At about 1 in the morning, he and a friend were returning home when they ran into a pile of rocks someone had placed int he road in the road. 

The young man with him, his good friend, is in the catechumenate, to be baptized in the Easter Vigil. He had been in the Celebration of the Word yesterday in Delicias where I had prayed the Scrutinies with him and two other catechumens. 

I gave him a short ride to the house of the young man who had died. On the way he showed me his right arm which was scraped, bloody, and inflamed. 

When I arrived at the house I entered and encountered Gerson’s body on a mattress on a table, with a sheet wrapped around him. Tears flooded my eyes. 

They removed the cloth covering his hear and I could see the wound in his temple. 

But what struck me was his smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a corpse with such a beautiful smile which radiated a deep peace. As someone said later, he received death with peace. 

I prayed a bit amidst my tears. And talked with a few folks.

His mother was away, probably arranging the casket and other details. 

After about a half hour, I left. I gave a ride to a few folks, relatives of Jairo, who were going to the workshop. 

 After the workshop I went with a a neighbor and the two relatives to the wake. 

As I entered the mother was talking on the phone with a daughter, leaning over the casket, overwhelmed with grief. All of a sudden she collapsed and people carried her to a chair. After the people moved back a bit, I approached her, holding her hands, saying a few things, but mostly listening.

This is not the first son who has died. Last year a son in the US was shot and killed. 

Her husband and a son (and perhaps a daughter) are in the US. So much suffering she has experienced and how alone she must feel.

I listened a lot. For me, sitting with a person and listening seems to be the best I can do. I don’t believe in talking much.

She mentioned how last night he was reading the Mass readings, as he often did. And that he just celebrated his birthday.

He was a young man who enjoyed life. He had a lovely smile, and he was very responsible – especially in his commitment to his community. I was looking to work with him in social ministry. But now he’s with the Lord. 

I stayed around there for a while. After a while, I went and prayed with the mother who was resting in her bedroom for a bit. 

I talked with some folk who shared what a good young man he was. That was my experience, the few times I was with him. 

Now he has gone to the Lord. May God receive him with open arms and a broad smile and may God comfort his family.

I think now of the beautiful hymn for the funeral, In paradisum. 

In Paradisum deducant te Angeli

in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres

et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem.

Chorus Angelorum te suscipiant

et cum Lazaro quondam paupere

aeternam habeas requiem. 

May the angels lead you into paradise;

may the martyrs greet you at your arrival

and lead you into the holy City of Jerusalem.

May the choir of Angels greet you.

And, with Lazarus, who once was poor,

may you have eternal rest. 

May the saints receive you, Jairo. 

 I have to choose the readings for tomorrow. Padre German suggested one of the Servant Songs of Isaiah since Jairo had the heart of a servant. I think the beatitudes would be the perfect Gospel. 

Blessed may you be, Jairo.

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This post was exited to give his age and his involvement as a missionary in the parish.

Hands full with the Gospel

A Facebook friend shared this photo of me with the heading: “And down in Honduras, GB John Donaghy has his hands full.”

My comment, “Yes, the Gospels are a handful.” I haven’t written on this blog for over a month – some for personal reasons, some for being busy with ministry.

Looking at the past month, thinking of the Gospels as a handful is a good way to help me discern the ways I have tried to live the Gospel and the ways I have failed – as well as the ways the world around us puts obstacles.

CONFIRMATIONS

The first two weeks of the month were filled with confirmations and preparations.

The confirmations were scheduled for February 12 and 13, but we had to schedule confessions beforehand. 

Other years we have had one day with several priests hearing confession in the main church, but this year the pastor didn’t find priests nearby to help and so we had confessions in six different locations, beginning January 29. This meant that we had to prepare a penitential rite as the confessions began and have music, reflections, and some silence, during the hours of confessions. 

I had worked with the catechists to prepare these as well as the confirmation Masses. We also prepared for a Mass at the end of the confessions since almost half of the confirmation candidates had not received their first Communion.

For the most part, the catechists did a really great job. But in one case, the catechists in the town where the confessions were scheduled had not prepared a place large enough for the confessions. So at the last minute we had to scrounge for a place. People from a nearby town knew someone and we moved there. There were two problems. First, there was no room private enough for confessions and so Padre German heard confessions outside, behind a curtain. Second, it rained; if it hadn’t rained we could have had Mass outside; but with the rains people were smashed together in a small space.

We had asked the bishop to come for three days, but his schedule changed and he could only come for two. So we had to find ways to accommodate all the candidates in three locations. This was no easy task – with, finally, 427 confirmed. But we got through it, without a lot of hassles.

The catechists and people in their communities did a marvelous job in all this. Saturday, the morning confirmations were under a tree between the church and the village school. Thank God it didn’t rain. 

The second was in a community center. The problem here was that the water hadn’t been connected for the bathrooms. But, the day before the Confirmations some young guys were there digging the trench for the water line.

Sunday was in one way easier. We celebrated in the new auditorium in the parish center in Dulce Nombre.

After the confirmations, I had several  parish meetings – of delegates, of catechists, and of a team to help resurrect the base communities. 

LENT

Then Lent arrived - a little faster than I expected. 

Ash Wednesday, we had a Mass at 10 am in Dulce Nombre. Delegates of the Word came from most of the communities and they took the ashes back for Celebrations of the Word with imposition of ashes later that day. I went to two communities for Celebrations of the Word with Communion – and imposition of ashes.

Last Sunday, we had the Rite of Election and inscription of the catechumens. We had 30.

In some places in the world, the rite of election is celebrated with the bishop or his representatives. But here we’ve been doing it at the parish level. Also, in most of the world the catechumens write their name in a book. We don’t have a book and we have another difficulty. There are people – even young people – who cannot write and there are many who can sign their names but it takes almost a minute. So, we have them write their name on a card before Mass and place their card in a basket which is received by the pastor.

At the morning Mass, I left with the elect after the rite for a short session to reflect on their experience and on the nature of temptations. It went well, though many of them are reluctant to speak out.

They will celebrate the three Scrutinies in their villages. Where the pastor or I cannot be present, a delegate or catechist will lead an abbreviated rite of the scrutinies. 

Those "elect" will have a retreat in their villages with their sponsors and then will be baptized and receive their first communion at the Easter Vigil. 

They will not be confirmed until later in the year. I wish at least those over 18 years of age could be confirmed at the Easter Vigil, but the custom is to delay the confirmations. I may have to talk with the bishop about this.

During Lent there are numerous activities in the villages. Every Friday most villages celebrate the Stations of the Cross. We encourage them to celebrate the Stations in the streets.

We will have a parish Stations of the Cross on the Friday before Palm Sunday, traditionally the day of Our Mother of Sorrows. The pastor has asked me to prepare them – as I have done for many years.

The pastor will try to get to as many of the more than 45 villages for Mass and for confessions during this season.

In addition, the sisters in the parish will lead retreat days in ten sectors of the parish. I won’t be involved in this – though I have enough to do.

Catechists

I had a meeting of the catechists in February. In some places we are trying to restart the catechesis. Some catechists have dropped out since the beginning of the pandemic. Some have left, migrating to the United States. It has also been hard to start up again.

But there are a good number of persons wanting to start as catechists. I am hoping to design a process to do this in a systematic manner and at an accelerated pace so that they can be integrated into the processes in their villages. I will have the first meeting of new catechists at the beginning of April.

A few weeks ago, I started an online Diplomado program on the new Directory for Catechesis, sponsored by CELAM, the Latin American Bishops Conference. Though I am a little disappointed with the course, it has gotten me to study the document and I hope to do a proposal to help design our parish’s formation for catechists. 

Social Ministry

This Monday we had a meeting of Social Ministry. We invited each village to send at least one person. Twelve arrived – but, though the number was small, the energy, the experience, and the initiative were astounding. I left the meeting with hope.

This Saturday, the diocesan Caritas office will have a workshop on Social Ministry in the parishes.. I’ve been asked to lead a part on the spirituality of social ministry. I relish the opportunity, though I wish I had more time to prepare. I expect that my contribution will reflect my personal experience in my ministry as deacon.

WORLD EVENTS

There have been several world events that are quite important and affect my ministry. 

On February 15, the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), was arrested to face a hearing for a request for his extradition to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking, use of weapons for drug trafficking and conspiracy to use weapons in drug trafficking. The hearing is scheduled for March 16.

Whether he will be extradited is still in question, since the judges who will decide were appointed by JOH. In addition, JOH’s attorneys are trying to investigate if there are charges against him in Honduras (which would mean he’d have to face them before being extradited (a convenient way to put off or avoid prosecution in the US).

This is an historic moment, not because he is the only Honduran extradited to the US for drug charges – his brother is in prison in the US. This could signal a real challenge to the rule of drug lords and their allies in the Honduran government at all levels. But that will not be easy. 

On February 24, Russian leader Vladimir Putin sent troops of the Russian Federation to invade Ukraine. The implications of this for us here are still unknown, though it could be disastrous. There’s a saying that when the US sneezes, the world catches a cold. But I think it could be more serious. When the US sneezes, the poor get pneumonia.

UPCOMING

Sometime in the next few weeks, stained glass windows will be installed in the Dulce Nombre Church. They will be placed in the main sanctuary and in the two side chapels. We are doing this, in part, to cut down the glare that comes f=through the plain glass windows. 

Alejandro Carbajal who painted the murals in the sanctuary of the Dulce Nombre church has done another mural at the back of the church – near the ceiling, above the door.

To emphasize that we are called to mission, to go forth to encounter others (in the words of Pope Francis, Jesus is walking out, with a woman and a man by his side. The scene is what one sees when one exits the church. We are sent forth in mission with Jesus.

Alejandro's work has had an impact here. In fact, the mayor of Dulce Nombre is working with him for a two week session of muralists arriving from around Latin America to paint the walls of Dulce Nombre. They will also be painting some walls on the church grounds. They will be here the last week of April and the first week of May.

PERSONAL

Today there was a deanery meeting of the clergy. It was in a balneario – a recreational park with several swimming pools. I ended up being able to do laps – the first time in almost fifteen years. I only did eight laps to-and-fro. I used to be able to do 30 or more. But then I’m almost 75 years old.

After two years, I finally went to the dentist on February 24. I had made an appointment a few weeks before the pandemic, but it was, of course, cancelled. Three teeth were filled and I have to have a root canal, beginning next Monday.

Next week from noon Monday to Friday, we have a diocesan clergy retreat, after my root canal! I will largely be incommunicado. Pray for us.

I am hoping to be able to get to the eastern US in May or June, to visit family and friends. More later.

Have a blessed Lent. I’ll try to write a little more often.

The confirmation rush begins - and more news

Wednesday, January 26, I met with the catechists of confirmation to prepare for confirmations next month, from February 10 to 12. There were about thirty catechists from about 36 towns and villages in the parish who have been preparing about 425 for confirmation. We were preparing the Masses in five different places as well as confessions in six places. I’ll be accompanying them in the next two weeks.

Last Saturday, we had the first round of confessions in the main church in Dulce Nombre. There were about 56 confirmation candidates and some adult sponsors who came; even though there was only one priest, the confessions were finished in about three hours. Among those to be confirmed there were 28 who had not made their first communion. They received the Eucharist for the first time at the Mass at the end of confessions.

The pastor also asked me to baptize a couple and their child. I had recently done the final pre-marriage interview with them and I felt privileged to baptize them last Saturday, while the pastor was finishing up confessions. The couple also received their first communion at the Mass.

What a day for sacraments – baptisms, confessions, and first communions.

January has been a bit different this year. Father Kyle Digmann, the pastor of our sister parish, St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames, Iowa, came for a short visit. He had Mass in two communities, including one of the poorest and most distant, Debajiados. He concelebrated at two of the Sunday Masses and presided at the Mass to dedicate a new meeting space in the parish center, named after St. Thomas Aquinas (since much of the funding came from a donation from St. Thomas). We made a quick trip to the Mayan ruins in Copán Ruinas, about 80 minutes from my house. He had a chance to meet some members of the association that exports El Zapote Coffee to Ames. He even helped a short time with the harvest in the parish coffee field. It was all too short. I hope he and others from St. Thomas will visit in the near future.

Since November people have been harvesting coffee throughout the parish. This will continue until February in most places, though a few who have fields at higher elevations will be harvesting until March.

This year the coffee prices are better than I remember. That means that some harvesters are getting significantly more than last year. Last year they got 30 lempiras (about $1.22 for a five gallon bucket of coffee cherries)’ now some are getting between 40 and 50 lempiras.

But the costs have gone up. Some have told me that in some cases a bag of fertilizer costs about twice as much as a few months ago. We’ll see how this leaves the small coffee producers.

My pastoral work has been a little limited these past months. I try not to schedule many formation meetings in January, since the coffee harvest is one of the few ways people in the countryside can earn cash.

There was a parish assembly to do some planning for the year and there will be two small groups working on parish organization and evangelization in the next few days. 

For a number of reasons, exacerbated by the pandemic, the local community church councils have fallen apart in a good number of places; we hope to help revive them, but with an organization more participative than in the past. We also hope to revive the base communities and pastoral work in the towns and villages.

I have continued my custom to go on most Sunday mornings to various villages for Celebrations of the Word with Communion. Yesterday I went to Granadillal and next Sunday I hope to get to visit San Antonio El Alto; I plan to visit the sick after the celebration since they don’t have a communion minister to bring the eucharist to the sick.

One of the customs here is to have prayers in people’s homes on the night after a death, for nine days after the burial, and often for nine days a year after the burial. I was invited to two end of the nine days (novenario) here in Plan Grande. I also celebrated a funeral of an older woman here. 

Sunday a week ago, the pastor came for the funeral of a 97 year old man who is sort of the patriarch of the village, with many children (as well as grandchildren and great grandchildren) including two former mayors. I was also asked to be at the vigil on the night before the funeral. I had visited Don Máximo many times, once just before his death. But a local communion minister regularly brought him Communion, which sustained him. He will be missed.

I had two interviews of two couples who will be getting married. I have another one scheduled for February. I find it very hopeful that there are young people who are getting married in the church. Many have already been living together and have kids. They finally decide for one reason or another to get married. One of the more interesting cases is a couple who weren’t even baptized.

I hope there will be even more. The stability that may come from sacramental marriage can be a real blessing for families. this is important for these families, for our parish, and for Honduras.

Other more mundane concerns have taken up time.

I took the new parish truck for its 20,000 kilometer checkup. In less than 14 months I’ve driven more than 20,000 kilometers, mostly in the parish (though there were a few trips to San Pedro Sula). I also had to take another car to the mechanic in Santa Rosa and ended up buying a new battery.

I have reviewed scholarship applications for 159 young people for an alternative program for the equivalent of junior and high school. The students listen to radio programs, have home work in books, and get together with teachers about once a week. Help from St. Thomas Aquinas helps pay for half of the costs of books.

We had a clergy meeting which I attended. We have a deanery meeting in early February.

Such is life in the parish. I’ll try to offer a more reflective blog post after the confirmations are over.

I have not included any reflection at this time on the political situation in Honduras. The country's first woman president was sworn in at the National Stadium in Tegucigalpa in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Her inaugural speech was filled with hopeful signs of a new Honduras. Yet the National Congress is in disarray. Pray that this may be resolved in a way that furthers the good of the people and helps put an end to corruption and impunity.

I'll try to write more about this later.

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Thanks to Elias for the photos of the baptism and first communion. They were published on the facebook page of the parish.

Washing dishes: in memory of Jim Forest and Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peacemaker, teacher of contemplation, passed on in Hue, Vietnam, January 22, 2022. 

Jim Forest, Orthodox peacemaker, writer, husband and father, fell asleep in the Lord on January 13, 2022.

I met Jim Forest any number of times, including once when he gave a lecture in Ames, Iowa. The last time I saw him was in 2006, when I was a guest of his wife Nancy and him the November before I left for Honduras. 

In the Forest kitchen in Alkmaar, Netherlands.

I heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak a number of times.

When I lived in New York City, I read a short booklet of Jim Forest which detailed an experience that he had with Nhat Hanh when he was staying with him in Paris. To me, it speaks of the spirituality they shared – and which can teach us how to live. 

I will quote from Jim’s Eyes of Compassion: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh.

An animated discussion was going on in the main room just out of earshot, but I had been given the task that evening of doing the washing up. The pots, pans, and rice bowls seemed to reach half way to the ceiling in that closet-sized kitchen. I felt really annoyed. Stuck with an infinity of dirty dishes, I was missing the main event. 

Somehow Nhat Hanh picked up on my irritation. Suddenly he was standing next to me. “Jim,” he asked, “why are you washing the dishes?” I knew I was suddenly facing one of those very tricky Zen questions. Saying it was my turn wasn't adequate. I tried to think of a good Zen answer, but all I could come up with was, “You should wash the dishes to get them clean.” “No,” said Nhat Hanh. “You should wash the dishes to wash the dishes.” I've been mulling over that answer ever since—more than four decades of mulling. I'm still in the dark. But what he said next was instantly helpful: “You should wash each dish as if it were the baby Jesus.”

I often enjoyed washing dishes. 

I remember Christmas time meals at the home of Uncle Ed and Aunt Bernie, when I was in college. After the meal, I took over the kitchen sink and washed all the dishes.

Living in New York City for grad school in the early 1970s, washing dishes was a way to get warm in cold apartments.

Later when my parents and I went for a meal after Christmas with Uncle George, Aunt Mary, and my cousins, I remember washing dishes with my cousin Mary.

When I lived in Ames, I loved to send people home after a big meal I had prepared. I turned up the music and washed the dishes.

I’m not as enamored of washing dishes these days – no hot water and sometimes no water. But there are still times when it is a joy to wash the dishes. 

Therefore, this story of Nhat Hanh and Jim opens me up to the mystery of Life – being present to every moment and recognizing that when we wash dishes it’s as if we are bathing the baby Jesus and we should wash them with the same love and tenderness.

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I also wrote about this here and here. 

Jim Forest wrote a response to the blog note, recalling Dorothy Day. 

A quote from Dorothy Day that rings the same bells: “Paper work, cleaning the house, cooking the meals, dealing with the innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all these encounters—these things too are the work of peace, and often seem like a very little way.”

A spirituality of a missionary deacon 1: critique of two recent books

In the past year and a half I have read two books on the diaconate which I found very inadequate. Perhaps my criticisms arise from my unique experience – a deacon living and working in rural Honduras, in a large parish with only one priest. I won’t mention the works but I want to share what caused me concern.

Christmas Vigil Mass - procession to the crib 

I found these problems with the most recent book. 

• The author ties the permanent diaconate too closely to the sacrament of matrimony and, in this way, he does not get to the core of the vocation of the deacon. At one point he writes, “The evangelizing witness of the deacon is rooted in sacramental marriage, through which he strives to sanctify his family.” 
• The same book does not mention the importance of Catholic Social Teaching, especially for the deacon. 
• Speaking of prayer, the author seems to place more emphasis on adoration than on the Mass. 
• I did not see the author connecting the diakonia of charity with the Eucharist 
• When dealing with racism, he seems to look almost exclusively at only promoting concord, not addressing the issues of racial justice.  
• Ministry with the poor is considered more in terms of service to them or for them. Where is the reference to Pope Francis’ culture of encounter? 

The other book proposes a diaconal spirituality which I find limited. 

• It seems to be a privatized, individualistic spirituality. Where is the ecclesial dimension of the spirituality of a deacon? 
• The spirituality that seems to be “churchy.” Where is the dimension of the diakonia of Charity? 
• Where are the poor in the spirituality of the deacon? 
• Whereas the other book referred to the deacon in the workplace, this book does not pay enough attention to the deacon’s workplace. 
• I found the spirituality was not very incarnational, pespeically in terms of  recognizing the presence of God in the daily life. Though he refers to De Caussaude’s “sacrament of the present moment,” I felt as if he treated it rather fatalistically. He also did not refer to Pope Francis’ “sacrament of the poor,” which I believe should be central to a diaconal spirituality 
• There seems to be a dualism in his spirituality. He wrote, “The deacon’s service is first and foremost to God rather than to the people; only in God and with His grace can he truly serve the people.” I believe that this sets up a false dichotomy between God and God’s creation. 
•  When dealing with service to the poor he relies on the virtue of “empathy.” But what about compassionate accompaniment of the poor? 
• I also found an overreliance on Collins’ emphasis on the deacon as herald. 

I found both books seem to promote an individualistic spirituality and that Pope Francis’s call to ministry in the margins is minimally addressed. 

Perhaps I am overly critical but both these books, as well as other writings on the diaconate, seem to miss much of what could serve us deacons in our diakonia. 

 Rather than write an extended critique, I think it is important to begin to elaborate my spirituality of the diaconate, which I will do in a subsequent post.