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.