Merry Christmas to all.

Bless the Lord, ice and cold…Bless the Lord, frosts and snows…

I always smile when I think of these lines from chapter 3 in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. Because that same chapter tells us (eight times in the NRSV translation) that the young men praying these lines were in “a furnace of blazing fire.” Maybe it’s easy to think that ice and cold and frosts and snows are great blessings when one is in the midst of great heat.

But here in western Canada, where I am spending Christmas with my family, I confess that the ice and cold sure don’t seem like blessings at the moment. Ouch! I can hardly breathe outside some days. Ouch! Get me back to Mexico!

But I see that in the mountains of Mexico the people are also experiencing cold. The Mexican meteorologists are calling it “Cold Front Number 20.” It’s not as bad as 30 or 40 below, but throw in the cold rain and the fact that thousands of people are still living under plastic tarps (since Tropical Storm Manuel in mid-September), and it means that the cold is hardly perceived as a blessing.

I think of the many “displaced” people I know there: the 81 families from Tepeyac; the 145 families from Union de las Peras; the 114 families from La Lucerna; the 44 families from Filo de Acatepec; the 445 families (yes, 445—it’s not a typo) from Moyotepec…and the list could go on.

So at the same time that I feel grateful to be celebrating Christmas here with my loved ones in a nice, warm house, I think too of my Mexican friends who are struggling in very difficult situations for life for themselves and their loved ones. And I breathe a prayer of thanks to Mission Mexico—and to all the people who support Mission Mexico—for assisting them in their efforts.

It will be good to get back to Mexico on January 6. But it is great to have time now to be with my wife and two daughters and other friends here in Regina, Saskatchewan. Memories made now will hopefully “keep me going” during some tough times in the mountains of Mexico in 2014.

One nourishing memory will be the potluck dinner that I was invited to at the offices of the Archdiocese of Regina last week (thank you, everyone). I worked in those offices for four years as the catechetical coordinator, and I know the many challenges that my friends on the archdiocesan team encounter in their work. Whenever I think of these friends, I think of some words written by Pope Francis in his recent apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). In article 266, Francis writes:

…we are convinced from personal experience
 that it is not the same thing
 to have known Jesus as not to have known him,
 not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, 
not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, 
and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, 
to find our peace in him, as not to. 
It is not the same thing to try to build the world with his Gospel
 as to try to do so by our own lights. 
We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer 
and that with him 
it is easier to find meaning in everything.

In a way, I like to think that this is the "spirit" nourishing not only my friends on the archdiocesan team in Regina, but also many of the people involved with Mission Mexico—including myself. We are simply striving  (as the prophet Micah expressed it more than 2500 years ago) “to act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God.”

My friends, Merry Christmas. My wish for this beautiful time of year is taken from today’s gospel: that the rising Sun will visit us “to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe and "the Promise"

Today, December 12, is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico’s favorite saint. More than five million people will visit her shrine in Mexico City this week. Thousands of these pilgrims will be from the mountains of Guerrero; many of these will be there to fulfill “una promesa” ("a promise") made to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe

What is “una promesa”? In general terms, it is simply a commitment made by a person to Our Lady of Guadalupe that if Our Lady helps this person achieve a goal or a favour, then that person will travel to the shrine in Mexico City to personally thank Our Lady and to leave an offering such as flowers or candles.

What kind of “goal” or “favour” is requested? These can vary. It could be a request for good health or a successful medical operation; it could be that a loved one get a job; it could be that the rainy season be a good one; it could be that a family member manage to “sneak into” the United States; it could be that a child manage to do okay in his or her studies at school.

In the Spanish translation of “Nican Mopohua,” the first document describing the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to a humble indigenous man, Juan Diego, in December of 1531, one reads that Mary wanted a church to be built on the hill of Tepeyac so that she could share there her “amor, compasión, auxilio y defensa” and “oír allí sus lamentos, y remediar todas sus miserias, penas y dolores”—so that she could share there her “love, compassion, assistance and defense” and “hear there their cries, and remedy all of their miseries, sorrows and sufferings." It’s no wonder that the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination in the whole world.

I’ve always found it interesting that when the new Basilica of Guadalupe was being built in Mexico City in the mid-1970s (the old basilica was sinking and was unsafe to enter), one Mexican bishop, Sergio Mendez Arceo, bishop of Cuernavaca, spoke often in his homilies about “la promesa” and how the “powers that be” that controlled Mexico’s government and Mexico’s economy at that time were taking advantage of this religious practice in order to “keep the poor people in their place.” It’s one reason why, even today, one can read a plaque at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe that states “Patrocinado por el Banco de México” (“Sponsored by the Bank of Mexico”—which was, in the mid-70s, a government-owned bank).

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe - Mexico City

I had the good fortune to translate for Bishop Sergio Mendez Arceo on several occasions (most memorably when he was visited in the 1980s by Henri Nouwen), and I remember his way of explaining this reality. Here is a summary of his thinking:

Bishop Sergio Mendez Arceo (1907–1992)

If the poor believe that they are poor because God made them poor, and if they believe that it is Our Lady of Guadalupe who will be the “responsible one” for helping them achieve goals that should be the right of every human being (food, water, health care, education, dignified employment, decent housing, etc.), then the governing powers are only too happy to encourage this way of thinking, in order to continue exploiting the poor. For example, if a poor mother makes a promise to Our Lady of Guadalupe that the mother will travel to the shrine to thank Our Lady if she helps the mother’s thirteen-year-old daughter successfully complete Grade Six, then any failure on the part of the daughter to finish Grade Six would seem to rest with Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Might the daughter’s success in school depend on other factors, such as:

-       was the daughter malnourished as an infant; will her brain cells even allow her to learn?  

-       is the mother literate; can she help the daughter with her homework?

-       does the family earn enough each day to eat healthily and rest securely?

-       does the daughter have to look after smaller siblings every night in a one-room house?

-       is there electricity in the home; can the daughter even study at night?

-       is the daughter out at the street corner every night selling candy or gum or flowers, just so that the family can eat every day?

-       is the daughter discouraged in school because she is bullied or made fun of because of her poorer clothing and appearance?

Factors such as these (in the words of Bishop Sergio) undoubtedly have as much to do with the child’s success or failure in school as does the requested intervention of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And the above-mentioned factors surely are as related to the political and economic situation of Mexico as they are to the loving desire of Our Lady of Guadalupe to “hear” and “remedy” the sorrows of this poor mother.

Bishop Sergio was famous for reminding the people of God’s words to Moses in Exodus 3:10: “Go now; I am sending you [to free my people].” Pope Francis, in his recent apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, reflects those words when he writes (187): “Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and the promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society.” He clarifies (201): “None of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice.”

Pope Francis with image of Our Lady of Guadalupe

My friends, we are getting close to Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Pope Francis reminds us (197) that “God’s heart has a special place for the poor, so much so that he himself ‘became poor’ (2 Cor 8:9).” Let us pray that each of us can have that same heart.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

Living and working among the poor in Mexico and in other countries of Latin America has certainly given me a new appreciation for these words of St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. It is impossible to be here and to not experience death almost daily. But resurrection is also a beautiful part of the same experience.

I can remember several occasions when I would be driving a very sick person to a hospital and I would be told by a family member that I could turn around, that the sick person had died. Continuing to the hospital would only involve paperwork and expense; why go on?

I remember giving a family a colorful blanket that I had bought thinking that it would be a great gift for my mother the next time I went to Canada. Instead, we used the blanket to wrap the body of a mother who had died in the village that day. My blanket was her coffin.

Cemetery in the background of Cochoapa el Grande

I remember being asked (because I was the tallest person around) to tear off a piece of plastic that was being used to keep out the rain on the roof of a “house” that wouldn't even qualify as a “shack” to most people. We used the plastic to wrap the body of a baby boy who had died that day. The plastic was his coffin.

I remember thinking of how “macho” many men in Mexico are purported to be. Seeing Enrique moaning on the ground of the cemetery and screaming “Why, oh God, why?” as we buried his twenty-five-year old wife didn't make him seem too “macho.”

I remember my own pain when I returned from a four-day visit to some villages and learned that Pepito, a five-year-old boy who hung around my house every day and who was my “special buddy,” had died of diarrhea why I was away. If I had been there, maybe I could have done something.

I remember so many elderly people who died slowly and painfully on old straw mats on dirt floors in their homes. Definitely, there were times when death seemed to have a very great “sting.”

Cemetery in Tlacoapa

But the people—the family members and the community members who stay behind to struggle on—never seem to lose hope or to see death as “being the victor” or “stinging.” Death is simply the passageway to the next life. It is the fate for all, and it is to be accepted as a “natural” part of life—although malnutrition and exploitation are not "natural" parts of life. After almost thirty years with these people, I think I have “absorbed” (gratefully) some of their relationship with death.

Especially “educational” for me has been the experience of living and working with people who risk death—an almost-certain death, in many cases—by struggling against the injustice, exploitation, and suffering of so many of their people. In other words, they risk their own "unnatural" death in order to assure a dignified life and a "natural" death for their people.

I remember Reynaldo. He was the eighth president of an independent, non-governmental human rights commission. All previous seven presidents of the commission had been either murdered or disappeared.

On his thirty-ninth birthday, a small party, with several close friends, was held for Reynaldo.

As Reynaldo bent over to blow out the candles on the cake that had been bought for this festive occasion, someone jokingly shouted, “Don’t worry, Reynaldo; you’re not old yet. You’re only thirty-nine; you won’t be old until you hit forty.”

Without meaning to dampen the spirits of anyone present, Reynaldo turned his head for a second toward the people around him and simply asked, “Do any of you really think I’ll live to see forty?” Then he blew out the candles, and the celebration continued. But everyone present knew that Reynaldo was right: undoubtedly, he would never live to see forty. But that didn't mean that he’d give up the struggle for justice.

I apologize for thinking of death today, on the First Sunday of Advent of 2013—a time of coming, of new life, of new hope, of renewed love. But today my mother died. She was blessed to be allowed to live eighty-five years, and she used that time to love as generously and as fully as she could. She lived her life with so much faith, hope, and love that I know that she would be the first to repeat the words of St. Paul: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” She continues her journey, and I can only pray that I can live my earthly life with as much faith, hope, and love as she did. Thank you, Mom; I love you.

Mom's right hand at the end—no, at the beginning of something new.

Have a wonderful Advent season, my friends.

A "Holy Spirit" of Service

Early every Wednesday morning the 45 seminarians here in Tlapa climb the hillside and have a special morning prayer service that reflects the customs and traditions of the indigenous peoples of La Montaña. Most of the seminarians are indigenous themselves, and they organize this time of prayer. Flowers, candles, and incense tend to play a major role in the celebration.

The huge cross in the prayer area was donated by a religious congregation called the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, and the cross has symbols of a heart and the Holy Spirit on it—it is the cross of their congregation. At this week’s prayer service, I remembered an incident that occurred in the diocesan offices here in Tlapa several years ago.

There was a meeting scheduled for 10 AM with the bishop, and several of us were waiting for the meeting to begin. I was talking with two priests when a man approached us and requested that a priest accompany him to the local hospital to “confess” and to offer his dying father “the last rites.”

The two priests explained to the man that they were busy now, that they had a meeting planned with the bishop. But the meeting should end by 2 PM (lunch time in Mexico), and one of them could gladly accompany the man to the hospital at that time.

It was evident that this possible “solution” to his request wasn't what the man was hoping for. What if his father died before 2 PM? It pained me to see the anguished look on his face.

Just then Father Juan Manuel Ayala, Missionary of the Holy Spirit, walked in. He was to be in the same meeting with the bishop and us. He noticed the man standing off to the side and went up to him and asked if there was any way he could serve him. The man mentioned his dying father in the hospital. Before he could continue talking, Father Juan Manuel interrupted him and asked him if it would be okay if he (Juan Manuel) went immediately to the hospital to celebrate the sacrament of the sick. The man said, “Of course.” Juan Manuel gave him an embrace and said, “Thank you, my friend. It’s for moments like this that I became a priest. I am so grateful to you. Do you want to come with me right now?”

The other two priests interrupted to remind Juan Manuel that it was time to begin the meeting with the bishop. Juan Manuel simply smiled and said, “You guys start without me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Off they went. Less than an hour later Juan Manuel showed up for the meeting. The bishop asked him how things had gone at the hospital. Juan Manuel said that he had just had time to celebrate the sacrament of the sick with the dying man before he took his last breath.

A seminarian called Jesús

I thought of this at morning prayer on Wednesday. I don’t know where Father Juan Manuel is, but I give thanks for his wonderful example of true service to his brothers and sisters. And I pray that I might be more like him.

Remembering on Remembrance Day

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. I think gratefully of all the men and women who sacrificed so much to protect rights and freedoms for others. That includes my father (who fought in World War II) and my uncle Joseph (whom I never knew, since he died in World War II; my middle name is Joseph).

I had a brief experience with war in El Salvador in 1989. I was living there and working “undercover” with the Independent Human Rights Commission of El Salvador. By “undercover,” I mean that only a few members of that Human Rights Commission knew I was working with/for them. I had obtained permission from the Armed Forces of El Salvador to be in the country as a journalist “covering” the war for a small newspaper in San Francisco. (Yes, I know it sounds like a TV show, but it's true.)

I had a “beeper” on my belt that was linked to the Independent Human Rights Commission. If it beeped once, I knew that I had to be in front of the Baptist Hospital in thirty minutes to receive instructions. Two beeps meant having to go to McDonald’s. Three beeps meant going to Mr. Donut (that was my favorite; I liked their coffee).

That experience came to an end when the government of El Salvador expelled me from their country the day after attending the public funeral for the six Jesuit priests (and two women helpers) massacred on November 16, 1989. I feel sure that my movements in the days following that massacre helped to “blow my cover.” And I almost didn't manage to get out of the country; that’s another story that was almost surreal.

I don’t often speak of those terrible war experiences, but here are two paragraphs from a longer description of that experience (I titled it “Stranger and Scarier than Fiction”) that I wrote for my family:

“The members of the Human Rights Commission had to go into hiding, and my beeper began to sound often. Sometimes I was asked to book a hotel room with a fictitious name (I could be sure that it was for someone on the blacklist of the death squads). Sometimes I would bring food or a message to someone in hiding (I remember bringing a note to an address and giving it to the president of the national university). Sometimes I would be sent to an area where the fighting was intense, so that I could photograph how many non-combatant civilians—men, women, and children—were being killed (my photos always showed more victims than the government would admit).

“On one occasion I was caught in crossfire between the army and the guerrillas. Yes, it is possible to hug the ground. However, I knew that Oscar (a young man on the Human Rights Commission) and I had decided that morning that if I didn't contact him by 10 AM, then something must be wrong, and he would leave his hiding place at my house. I also knew that the armed forces had checkpoints all over the neighborhood: he would surely be detained (and, just as surely, disappeared) if he did leave the house. I tried crawling down the street; the movement seemed to only attract more bullets. At 9:45 I had no choice but to jump up and run (and I mean run!) to a public phone located at the far street corner. The bullets came so close to me during that race that I am still not sure if I heard them or if I saw them or if I felt them as they crossed the bridge of my nose. The phone worked, in spite of the bullets pinging off the pole. I was sure that my house telephone (like that of all foreign journalists) was being intercepted, so I communicated to Oscar (without using his name) that he could rest tranquilly at the house since the neighborhood was being ‘protected’ by soldiers at every entrance or departure point. Oscar understood: he stayed put.”

Thank you to all who offer their lives to the struggle for justice and freedom and human rights.

A Unique Baptism in La Montaña

I wouldn't have identified him if he hadn't stepped in front of me and asked me if I was the Bishop’s secretary. I told him that, no, I wasn't, but that I had been years earlier. When he asked me if I remembered the Bishop baptizing his son in his office fifteen years ago, the scene immediately came to my mind.

I had walked to the diocesan offices just a little before nine in the morning. I noticed the couple as soon as I walked into the churchyard. They were sitting on the steps leading to the office. I could see from their worn, tattered clothing that their life was not an easy one.

As I approached them, I smiled, introduced myself as the Bishop’s secretary, and asked them where they were from. They replied in broken Spanish that they were from Huehuetepec, Municipality of Atlamajalcingo del Rio. Their names were Manuel and Martha. They had walked all of the previous day. Someone had told them that the parish priest in Atlamajalcingo del Rio was away, and they wanted their first child—a boy—to be baptized. They had arrived in Tlapa the previous night and had slept on the sidewalk outside the Cathedral.

Señor del Nicho - Cathedral in Tlapa

Something kept me from telling them that their walk was in vain, that their child had to be baptized in the local parish unless they had a letter of permission from the parish priest. I told them that the Bishop would be here in a few minutes and they could share their request with him. When I asked how old their baby was, they replied, “Three weeks.” The woman opened her shawl and showed me the baby’s face. I was shocked when I realized that the baby wasn't breathing; he was dead.

Upon questioning, they explained that the baby had been sick from the moment of his birth. When they started walking the previous morning, he was still alive, but during the day he had stopped breathing. The couple kept walking because they wanted their first child to be baptized; they wanted to be sure that he was in heaven with God the Father.

I thought to myself, “Oh no! How will the Bishop handle this? He can’t baptize a dead baby. Perhaps he can bless it and sprinkle it with holy water. But that’s not Baptism. And this couple want Baptism. And I know the Bishop never lies to these poor people, so I know he won’t fake a baptism. Poor family! Poor Bishop, to have to figure out what to do here.”

I invited them into the office. A few minutes later the Bishop arrived. As soon as he heard the couple’s story, he embraced each of them and told them that he would be honored to baptize their child. As soon as he said those words, I could almost see a burden being lifted from the shoulders of Martha and Manuel. The glance they exchanged was not one of joy, but it was definitely a look of relief.

As the Bishop put on his vestments and asked me to get the baptismal registry to write down the information about the baptism, I was thinking that this can’t be a real baptism. How can you baptize a dead person? But the Bishop carried out the complete ceremony in his usual gentle manner and then signed the baptismal certificate. I still remember the name that the couple chose for their firstborn son: Jesus.

As the Bishop passed the certificate to Martha and Manuel, he added a one-hundred-peso bill and suggested that they get something to eat and then use the rest of the money to return to their village on the back of a truck (the local “bus” to Huehuetepec).

After Martha and Manuel left, I expressed to the Bishop my dismay that he had baptized a dead child. He smiled and asked me if I had studied theology. He knew that I had. He then asked me, “What are the three types of baptism?” I had forgotten this “minor detail,” but when he mentioned the three types, I remembered and replied, “Water and blood and desire.”

“And how much desire do you have to have before your child is considered baptized?” he asked. “Do you think walking all day and sleeping outside all night might count?” Embarrassed, I responded, “Yes.” The Bishop then added, “That child was already baptized. All I did was to formalize that and offer comfort to a grieving family. I don’t think God minds too much that maybe we stretched the rules a little bit. The Sabbath was made for the person, not the person for the Sabbath.”

It was a blessing to encounter Manuel fifteen years later. He has more children; he still struggles to get by in life. But the baptismal certificate, he says, occupies a place of honor above a candle that he and Martha have in their home to remember their firstborn son, Jesus.

And I’m not forgetting the undeserved blessing of being allowed to be personal secretary to this incredible Bishop for ten years. There are many more stories I can tell about his life and witness, but they can await another occasion. Have a great week, readers of this blog. Pray for us here in the mountains of Mexico. Thank you.

PS: I also met this week a woman from Ixcuinatoyac, who asked me if I had contact with Patricia Flores (who, I believe, lives in Calgary with her husband, Luis). More than thirty years ago, during a time that she was working with Father Lawrence Moran, CSB, here in Mexico she was a “madrina” (godmother) of a child in Ixcuinatoyac. The woman’s name is Florentina Pastor Abelino; her son (Patty's godson) is Luis Miguel Romero Pastor. If a reader of this blog knows Patty (or Luis), please let her know that she is remembered in Ixcuinatoyac with much affection.

An Unforgettable Day of the Dead Lesson

One of the best lessons I ever learned from the poor of the mountains of Mexico occurred in the early 1980s when I was living with Father Lawrence Moran in the very impoverished parish of Alcozauca.

I spoke almost no Spanish when I went to live with Father Moran in the summer of 1982. In a way I was in the same situation as a lot of people in his parish, since most of them spoke only Mixteco, a native language totally unrelated to Spanish.

On the Day of the Dead in 1982, I accompanied Father Moran (he was on the horse; I walked) to an incredibly poor village called Xonacatlan. I was surprised to see a rather thriving business in candles taking

place outside the small church. Sellers had come in from the neighboring State of Puebla to sell candles to the very poor people. Most families did their best to buy at least one candle for every loved one who had departed this world. In most cases, that meant a lot of candles.

I was shocked. My first thought was that these very poor people should buy food or clothing or blankets for their children. I knew that most people slept on the damp mud floors of their huts, and that malnutrition and sickness and death were common. I was convinced that the people should be more concerned about the living, not the dead. But since I spoke almost no Spanish and almost no Mixteco, I had to contain my inner rage and say nothing. But I definitely wished that I could have spoken out about this terrible “injustice.”

Two years later, in 1984, my father died in Canada. The next opportunity that I had, I bought my candle and I spent the night of the Day of the Dead in the cemetery of Alcozauca; it was located on a hill just outside the town. When I was by myself, I sat in the dark with my flickering candle and remembered gratefully all the loving sacrifices that my dad had lived in his life for me and the family, and I “talked” with Dad about life. When other people asked about my candle (my Spanish and my Mixteco had improved by then), I told anecdotes about my dad. When I asked about their candles, they shared stories—often with a mixture of tears and laughter—about their loved ones. In all-too-many cases, these loved ones had not had long lives; but, in another sense, this sharing of stories seemed to “make present” these loved ones—they weren’t really “gone”; they just happened to not be physically present.

As I walked into Alcozauca the next morning from the cemetery, I gave thanks to God for that incredible Day of the Dead experience. It “nourished” me; it “clothed” me; it “warmed” me—much more than food or clothing or blankets could ever have done. I also felt shame as I remembered my anger in Xonacatlan from a few years earlier. It brought home to me a special thought: after years of study in Catholic institutions, maybe I thought I knew a lot about God, but after years of impoverishment and death and struggle and constant faith in the Divine Presence, these people knew God a lot. There’s a difference! And I’m grateful that I discovered (and continue to discover) that difference.

Day of the Dead 2013

November 2, celebrated in the Catholic liturgy as “All Souls Day,” is a huge day in the mountains of Mexico. Called “El Día de los Muertos” (“the Day of the Dead”), family members make a real effort to be in their home villages in order to spend all day or all night in the local cemetery where their loved ones are buried.

Families also set up altars in their homes; on these altars they place mementoes of their loved ones, food and drink that their loved ones appreciated, a special bread called “bread of the dead,” and flowers and incense. The most common flower is cempoatxochitl, the "flower of the dead."

This year I was fortunate. The Tlachinollan Human Rights Center in Tlapa (which receives support from Mission Mexico) loaned me a four-wheel-drive truck in order to bring food and supplies to a very poor and isolated village high in the mountains called San Marcos. Most people wouldn’t even try to get to that village on the very muddy and dangerous road. However, I have about thirty years of experience driving these roads, and I was able (with only a few “close calls”) to get to San Marcos.

In San Marcos, one of the most appreciative persons for this assistance was Marcelina. On September 16 of this year, a huge landslide rushed down the mountainside and buried her, her husband, and their four-year-old grandchild in mud. Six of Marcelina’s children were nearby and saw this happen; they rushed to neighbours, and these were able to extricate—alive—Marcelina from the mud. Unfortunately, the lifeless bodies of Marcelina’s husband and her grandchild were found three days later.

Six weeks later, Marcelina is still unable to walk. She lies all day and all night on the floor in Mariano’s house. Mariano, the local “cantor” (singer/pray-er for religious ceremonies) in the village, does what he can to support her and her six children. But it’s not easy. Here is a photo of Marcelina (and the family’s Day of the Dead altar) in Mariano’s house.

I also visited with Panfilo, whose eleven-year-old son happened to be returning from the fields with another nineteen-year-old friend when that same landslide occurred. The two boys were washed away by the slide. Their lifeless bodies were later recovered more than ten kilometers away.

Panfilo

And I had lunch at Doña Simona’s house. Simona lives on the side of the same hill that was partially destroyed by that landslide. Other neighbours have since moved away, since it is still raining hard there and one can even hear (yes—hear!) the earth moving below the surface. But Simona refuses to leave her home. She says that if that means that she will die, so be it. At least she will die where she has lived most of her life and raised her family.

Thank you, donors of Mission Mexico, for making this trip possible and for assisting these wonderful people. God bless you and your loved ones.

Sad times in La Montaña of Mexico

This past week I have been visiting communities throughout La Montaña of Mexico, and I've seen firsthand the difficult realities of the people who lost family members, homes, animals, and crops during Tropical Storm Manuel. I personally saw more than one thousand families (families, not persons!) living under pieces of plastic, and, believe me, it's cold and windy and still raining in the high mountains here.

I don't have the words to express the incredible challenges facing these families. Here are just a few photos. If a photo really is worth a thousand words, the first two photos are symbolic of the reality of the people here.

Santiago and his wife, Gregoria, showed me what was left of their house in Chuparosas:

Then Santiago started crying as he talked about what his future might look like:

In Moyotepec, more than six hundred families are living in plastic "tents" above their village; the fear is that the mountainside will continue disintegrating and completely wipe out the village:

In San Miguel Amoltepec el Viejo, that same fear exists. The top third of their village was already destroyed, and the soil above the village is still very loose. Can you, the reader, pick out the red roof in the middle of the gravel of the one school building that survived the landslide? The school used to be surrounded by other houses; those houses simply don't exist any longer:

And the big problem this year, besides housing, health, education, etc., is going to be hunger. The people tended to plant their corn on the mountainside and (even better) near rivers. Anything near the rivers was not only destroyed; what used to be fertile areas are now filled with rocks, gravel, and sand. Some families were lucky; for example, the family that owned this field in Lucerna lost only a part of their mountainside crop:

The struggle will go on. Mission Mexico will do all it can to accompany this afflicted people. Thank you for your support and prayers.

The Joys of Being Mayor

I read this week that Naheed Nenshi was re-elected mayor of Calgary. I congratulate Mr. Nenshi and wish him and his council—and all of the elected officials in Alberta—all of the best during the next years.

Mr. Nenshi knows what it’s like to coordinate efforts when a major disaster like flooding hits his community. Here in Mexico, after the tropical storm that affected hundreds of towns and villages last month, many mayors know what it’s like to (try to) coordinate such efforts.

On Wednesday I visited a village called Lucerna, here in La Montaña of Mexico. Here are a few photos of Lucerna’s mayor, Juan Garcia Mateo, and his community. I invite the reader to reflect for a few minutes: where might you sooner be mayor, in Calgary or in Lucerna?

Here is the mayor of Lucerna in front of his present residence:

Here is the mayor visiting some of his constituents:

Here is the mayor looking over his constituency:

Here is the result of the tropical storm for one family in the mayor’s village:

Here is the mayor on his way to work:

Here is one of the few residences with windows in the constituency:

I could add more photos, but I suspect you're getting the idea. Now the reader gets to decide: where might it be more challenging to be mayor?

PS: A special thanks to Lucerna’s mayor, Juan Garcia Mateo—and to the people of Lucerna—for allowing me to accompany him (and them) on Wednesday and learn about the challenges of trying to rebuild community life after Tropical Storm Manuel. And thanks to Mission Mexico for trying to make a difference in La Montaña.

World Mission Day — October 20, 2013

On Friday, October 18, I sent the following lines to Father Fred Monk, founding director of Mission Mexico. I don’t think he’ll mind that I share them in this blog.

Good afternoon, Father Fred. I hope that all is going well with you.

I couldn’t help but notice that this coming Sunday is World Mission Sunday. In the gospel Jesus shares a parable about a persistent widow; Luke tells us that it’s about the need to pray always and never lose heart.

I’m sure, Fred, that one of the things that most impacted you on your first trip to the mountains of Mexico was the persistent prayer that the poor here seem to so easily incorporate into their lives. I still can’t give a good response to the question of why it seems that God can be so present in their lives when it’s so easy to think that God must be absent from this reality of so much suffering and marginalization.

I think of Juan, a father of three children in Cochoapa, one of the poorest villages here in the mountains of Mexico. Juan’s wife, Anna, was pregnant with their fourth child when she became very ill. Juan was too poor to take her in the back of a truck to the hospital inTlapa, so he lit a candle in front of the image of St. James in the church and prayed for Anna’s health in his native language of mixteco. A short time later Anna and the unborn child died.

Anna’s brothers were angry that Juan hadn’t taken their sister to a doctor, so they openly let it be known that revenge would be forthcoming. Sister Silvia, one of the nuns working in Cochoapa, heard about these threats, so when Juan came to her one evening and asked her to write a letter for him in Spanish about how he had done the best he could to assist his wife, about how Anna’s brothers were planning to kill him, and about how that would leave his three small children orphans, she automatically assumed that the letter was to be sent to some kind of police force or government office.

You can imagine Silvia’s shock when, after the letter was finished and Juan had added his thumb print as a signature, she asked Juan whose name she should put on the envelope. He replied, “God the Father.” Juan explained that he had no doubt but that the brothers would carry out their threat to kill him, and since God had let his wife die even though he had prayed hard, maybe God didn’t understand mixteco. So he wanted to be sure to have this letter written in Spanish so that he could pass it over to God the Father after his death. Juan was murdered three days later. Silvia made sure the letter was in his pocket when he was buried.

I don’t think that God fails to understand prayers in mixteco. And I don’t think that God wanted Anna to die, just as I don’t think that God wanted Anna’s death to lead to Juan’s death. So why did they die? Did persistent prayer make a difference?

All kinds of answers could probably be offered to “explain” this all-too-common reality. One thing I do know is that malnourishment, preventable diseases, lack of education, health care and decent living conditions, and exclusion from the many glorious gifts of God’s creation—gifts for which many of us said “Thank you” to God just last weekend—all played a role in these deaths.

I appreciate the fact that our pope, Francis, seems to have great clarity in terms of the evil of poverty—the sinfulness of poverty. And he has been very clear that alleviating poverty must be at the very heart of the church’s mission; it’s not something that’s optional or secondary. It is at the heart of our role as members of the community of Jesus’ disciples.

So I guess that I believe that, as the song we often sing at Mass expresses it, “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” But I often wonder: do we hear the cry of the poor? And even more I wonder: do we hear the voice of God that is surely inviting us—pleading with us us, I daresay—to be God’s instruments/stewards/disciples in transforming ourselves and in transforming our world? I think of the words expressed by Saint Teresa of Avila almost five hundred years ago:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

Christ has no body on earth now but yours.

Thank you, Father Fred, for starting Mission Mexico. Thanks to all of the people who support Mission Mexico. Thanks to all of the people who pray for Mission Mexico. All of us involved with Mission Mexico try, with humility, hope, love, and persistence, to respond to this invitation from God to struggle against death and for life. We do what we can to help the Juans and the Annas (and their unborn children) live to a ripe, old age with dignity and love. We do what we can to educate people like Anna’s brothers so that mercy and solidarity, not revenge and death, are the guiding lights of their lives. We do what we can to live the advice of the prophet Micah: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). 

None of this would be possible without the persistent prayer mentioned by Jesus in the gospel. Such prayer makes love, solidarity, justice, and hope part of our DNA as disciples of Jesus. It will give new truth to the psalmist’s words put in the mouth of our loving God:

“Call on me in your day of trouble;

 I will deliver you,

and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15).

The Struggle Goes On

It has been a busy week. Trailers continue arriving from different places in Mexico with supplies for the villages most affected by the recent tropical storm. And trucks from these villages continue arriving to bring these supplies to the needy families in their areas.

Consider the village of Zontecomapa. Below are two photos: one of the school before the storm, and one of the school after the storm.

And, of course, many people lost their homes, their animals, their crops, their whole way of life (and many lost loved ones). Supplies are getting to the villages at the moment, but the question is: what will happen in two months, in four months, in six months? That’s when hunger is really going to strike La Montaña. If there is a line between poverty and misery, this storm undoubtedly forced many families to cross that line.

Of course, with the hunger and malnutrition will come diseases. Some of the villages have (or had) health centers, with at least a nurse or a doctor-in-training offering services on some days of the week. This is what the health center looks like now in Zontecomapa. This is just one of hundreds of villages affected by the storm. 

Tlapa’s bishop, Dagoberto Arriaga Sosa, has been travelling to the villages with his message of solidarity and hope. The people are in dire circumstances, but they still do their best to celebrate the presence of their pastor. In one village where I was accompanying the bishop, the people even found a turkey (no, it wasn’t Thanksgiving; Mexico doesn’t have that celebration) to share with the bishop. Everyone is so grateful that the bishop and the church are “so close” to them during this difficult time in their lives. Bishop Dagoberto has been bishop of the Diocese of Tlapa for only six months. He is a man who truly leads by example.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with a group of about 25 young people from two towns, Olinala and Atlamajalcingo del Rio, who came together for a weekend of reflection and activities; the weekend was organized by two seminarians, Pedro and Ponciano. The theme of my talk was “The Bible and Justice.” It was heartening to see the concern of these young people for transforming the reality of impoverishment and marginalization in La Montaña.

So the struggle goes on. Thank you, Mission Mexico, for allowing me to be here. Thank you, friends of Mission Mexico, for helping to make a difference in the lives of these beautiful people. God bless all.

Dreaming A New Reality in La Montaña

Saturday night…it’s going to be good to rest. Although the thought of having to unload another trailer tomorrow reminds us of how sore our bodies are at this moment.

The diocesan seminary has become the “warehouse” for supplies being sent to the people in La Montaña from Catholic dioceses in other parts of Mexico. The seminarians and I have become specialists in unloading big trucks—just in the past week, more than 100 tons have been unloaded from trucks. The real challenge has been—and is—to get these supplies to the neediest of the needy.
 
 Just as an example, 600 boxes of supplies arrived for people in the parish of Xochitepec; each box is individually prepared for a family. But it took Gustavo (a member of the
Missionaries of the Holy Spirit; they are in charge of the parish there) two days of walking and half a day on the back of a truck just to get here to Tlapa this week. Some organizing and hard work are going to be required to get these boxes into that area.

 I went on Thursday to the high school in Potoichan, just to see how things are at the school there (Mission Mexico helped to build it and still supports it in several ways). The 255 students from all over La Montaña have been busy cleaning up, so things don’t look too bad. Their sports field that was near the river was destroyed, as well as a few orchards and gardens. A couple of the students posted a three-minute video about their school on YouTube; it kind of shows three stages: before tropical storm Manuel; immediately after the
storm; after several days of cleanup by teachers and students. The video plays music and has some typed information in Spanish, but I think you’ll enjoy it even if you don’t understand Spanish. Here is a link to that video: http://youtu.be/hE0mijqVLXo.

  
My friends, thank you for all you are doing for Mission Mexico. The people here need solidarity. Father Rodrigo, one of the priests in Cochoapa el Grande, was wondering out loud the other day: if Cochoapa was considered the poorest area of all poor areas in Latin America before this disaster, what do we call it now? After the loss of lives, crops, roads, animals, homes, etc., it just doesn’t seem right to use the same expression to describe this new reality.

 However, one thing not lost is hope. The sharing and concern demonstrated by people from all over Mexico and from all over the world—even Pope Francis—have strengthened this hope. I can’t help but think of some words expressed once by a Brazilian bishop, Dom Helder Cámara: “When we’re dreaming alone, it’s only a dream. When we’re dreaming with others, it’s already the beginning of reality.” Mission Mexico is trying to nourish that shared dream.

Hunger and Misery in La Montaña

I first met Father Lawrence Moran, CSB, in 1978. He was visiting St. Mary’s High School in downtown Calgary. This was the school where he had been a teacher for decades before retiring and moving to Mexico.

Father Moran told me that he wanted to move from his present location in the State of Puebla to the area of La Montaña in the State of Guerrero. He had read in the newspapers that this mountainous region in Mexico was having a very dry rainy season and that thousands of indigenous people were confronting hunger and misery. Father Moran wanted to accompany these people and offer the solace of his presence, his love, his solidarity, and his gospel message.

Jump ahead thirty-five years. The indigenous people of La Montaña are again confronting hunger and misery. Only this time it is being caused, not by the lack of rain, but by the torrential rains caused last week by Hurricane Manuel.

This has been, according to the government, the worst “natural” disaster in the history of the State of Guerrero. The raging rains caused massive mudslides that destroyed homes, parts of villages, and roads. The flooding rivers washed away people, homes, animals, crops, belongings.

Perhaps the worst part is that the poor peasant farmers here in La Montaña try to eke out a living by planting corn and beans on the mountainsides. The rains were so heavy that in most places, the layer of topsoil that allowed such planting was also washed away. The soil was stripped away, and now the fields are bare rock or hard clay.

At the moment this disaster has caught the attention of all Mexico, and help is streaming in from all over the country. But the fear is that once this stops being headline news, these efforts will end, and the people will be left to strive on their own to stay alive in this challenging environment.

The Catholic Church is most active here in trying to make a difference. The local retreat center is still housing hundreds of displaced people. Priests, seminarians, sisters, and lay people—coordinated by the beloved local bishop, Don Dagoberto—are doing what they can to see that food, water, clothing, medicines, etc., are delivered to isolated communities whose roads and telephone services were destroyed.

Mission Mexico wants to help. People here appreciate this solidarity. At the same time, people suggest that the more important time for solidarity from Mission Mexico will be in the future, after the television crews and the government officials move on to other “big news” stories. That’s when the real struggle among the people for life will begin.

Thank you, reader, for supporting Mission Mexico and, through Mission Mexico, these beautiful people. I know that many readers can identify with the challenges of a major “natural” disaster. God bless, and have a great week.