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.