It was great to visit Canada for a couple of weeks in June,
but it was also great to get back here to the mountains of Mexico. For some reason,
I don’t experience as much “culture shock” going from Mexico to Canada as I do
coming back to Mexico after a visit to Canada.
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| Calgary looked bigger after being away for a long time |
It was “different” spending time in Calgary and area after
not really having spent time there for more than ten years. My gratitude goes
out for hospitality and lodging to Fathers Wilbert and William at St.
Bonaventure Parish in Calgary, Father Fred Monk in Bow Island, Cal and Barbara
O’Brien in Lethbridge, and Len and Margot Lang and family in Calgary. The welcome at St.
Gerard’s Parish in Calgary was more than one could have hoped for. I had an
incredible barbecue in Cochrane at the home of Joann Churchill. And the time spent with Colleen Flanagan and Rob Morgan and family was precious.
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| Thank you, Cal (and Barb), for the wonderful hospitality. Lethbridge is blessed to have you. |
I loved visiting the Escuela St. John Paul II Elementary
School in Calgary, St. Michael’s School in Bow Island, and Catholic Central
High School in Lethbridge. It was a thrill to speak to students and teachers in
these places. And it was an honor to meet and share the Eucharist together with
the people in Bow Island and Foremost. What beautiful people everywhere!
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| Parishioners in Foremost with a banner sent to Father Fred and Mission Mexico from the villagers in Cuapala |
I admit that it was sometimes difficult to share with people
“up there” about what life is really like here among the impoverished
indigenous peoples. I didn’t have a “prepared speech” or anything. On the one
hand, the hopes and dreams of the people are the same as those up north:
education, health, security, a better future. On the other hand, the struggle
to achieve these “dreams” is so often a more difficult one here.
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| Mike and Reina in front of her house in Las Juntas |
I probably “bragged” a little about the great work being
done by Mission Mexico—but is it bragging if it’s true? I think I said
somewhere up there that one of my ways of looking at the reality here is to
contrast “poverty” and “misery.” I often think that almost everyone here is
poor, but their situation can be considered “misery” if these poor people are
confronting alone the challenges in their lives. Confronting challenges
together nourishes hope…and hope destroys misery. Are the people still poor?
Yes, in many ways…But working together for something new, something different,
brings any dream closer to reality.
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| Baltazar is watering his dreams and hopes for the future... |
And Mission Mexico is nourishing that hope in so many
different ways. The lives of individuals, families, and communities are being
changed. Mission Mexico is “partner” and “friend” with so many people
struggling for change. And none of that would be possible were it not for the
support of the people that I met in southern Alberta this past month. Thank you
to one and all for sharing with these sisters and brothers in the mountains of
Mexico.
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| Thanks, Father Fred, for making possible my wonderful trip |
