Good Friday Walking

Tonight I rest tired feet after walking in both Good Friday processions.  First comes the Via Crucis, Stations of the Cross.  It's a fairly short procession in mileage, perhaps half a mile, but slow and in its Good Friday version very elaborate.  We all walk, men in the middle, women on the sides, following the statue of Jesus carrying the cross that, in turn, is carried by eight men.  The stations, beautifully decorated, come about one per block - but because I was in the middle of the procession we often stopped for one station when I was looking at the altar for the previous one.

There was a long pause at the 4th station, where Jesus meets his mother - a long pause so that the statue of Maria Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows, could come up and bow before Jesus (women carry the statue of Mary).  She's followed by St. John, carried by men.  Then at the 6th station Veronica (women again) comes out to wipe the face of Jesus and, in a little magic trick, reveals his image.  They all fall in line - Mary, John, Veronica - as we complete the stations, stopping at each station for a reading, a short interpretation, and prayer.

Finally we all came into the church where Jesus, Mary, John and Veronica took their places in front of a purple curtain that hides the altar (it will be dramatically pulled away during the Easter Vigil tomorrow night):

This procession took about two hours, from 10 to noon, in very hot sun.  Water sellers were doing a brisk business - I was glad I'd remembered my water bottle.

Then after a moving Celebration of the Passion and Veneration of the Cross - and a quick supper - I returned for the Santo Entierro.  I've never gone on this procession before, but this was the year for walking.  This time the men - I hope it was a new group, but I'm not sure - were carrying a heavy wooden coffin topped by a glass case holding Jesus, dead.   For quite a while, hearing a motor noise, I assumed there was a truck of some kind doing the carrying, but when I drew closer I discovered that this was a rolling generator following along behind so the coffin - and Mary following behind - could be brilliantly lit.  We walked from the church, over several alfombras (carpets) of bark and colored salts that had been created in the afternoon to be walked over by the procession:

It turned out to be a long walk - from the church, over several alfombras, then down along the road that leads to the hospital and the graveyard (we paused and prayed at both places) and back up the hill into Suchi's El Centro, and back into the church, where Jesus came to rest.  As we were getting close to the church, I began to worry about the men carrying Jesus, who looked almost spent - but they made it.  Then the coffin was placed on a rolling base and slowly steered down the aisle.  It was almost too big to fit, and at one point there was an ominous crunch, some quick consultations, and a bit of redirection accompanied, of course, by "dé le!" - the ubiquitous Salvadoran male language for directing cars, trucks, or stuck floats. 

The procession was probably about 3 miles in total, a good walk and a slow walk, which is good for me!  As I walked, I thought how much I will miss these processions next year when I'm back in the U.S.  Politely sitting in church - much as I love creative liturgies in the U.S. - doesn't have the same body power as walking in noonday heat and evening darkness with your friends and neighbors, following Jesus.

Processing with palms and donkey

I have finally, by accident, figured out how to do Palm Sunday right here in Suchitoto.  In previous years, I've skipped the procession of palms in favor of getting an actual seat in the church, which you can only do if you're there before the palm-bearers arrive. 

This year I went to Mass Saturday night, not realizing that it would be the Sunday readings - but it was, a Palm Sunday Mass minus the palms - and plus songs and ¡Que Viva! for Monseñor Romero.  That left me free to walk down the street this morning to the Capilla la Cruz where we all gathered on the cancha (basketball court) and where I bought a puny bunch of palm leaves for a quarter.

Most everyone there had glorious palms, interwoven with flowers and a seedhead that looks like baby corn.  My puny bunch would have looked impressive in Seattle, but here ... not so great.  It felt as if everyone in Suchitoto was there, whole families and children, like this charmer:

You might notice that she has woven and beaded bracelets on both wrists.  These must stretch back to the days of the Lenca and the Pipiles: each red bracelet is threaded through a small, smooth stone, and their purpose is to keep the baby safe and whole. 

After a few songs, the padres came down through the crowd and sprinkled us and the palms and anything else sprinklable with gallons of holy water.  No tame drops here.  The acolyte holds a huge tub of water, the padres have thickly-leaved branches, and they scoop the water up and fling it out into the crowd with a will:

In truth, in the hot sun of March, it's a joy to be drenched with holy water!  My camera was also blessed, and survived the blessing.

We were all ready to go after that, and Padre Jesus had to remind us that we were supposed to hear the Gospel for the procession first.  And then we formed into lines - as always here, and it makes my gringa heart a little crazy, the men marched in the middle after the donkey carrying the statue of Jesus, and the women marched in two lines on either side.  I'd just once like to see the lines reversed, women in the center, men on the outside.   But perhaps that's not yet an image our church can stretch to, at least not in Latino America. 

Monseñor, vives hoy

This video by Fabrizio Villegas includes powerful moments and images from Monseñor Oscar Romero's life.  I especially love that it begins with one of my favorite nuns here, tiny Sr. Benedita, touring us through Monseñor's house on the grounds of the Hospitalito (Hospital Divina Providencia, where he lived and died).  Then, about 4:07 minutes in, close to the end, there's video of Monseñor's visit to one of the many slums built along abandoned railroad tracks (because that was and is public ground, unused, and an easy place to take possession and build a shack of cardboard and tin) - perhaps the railroad tracks near the church Maria, Madre de los Pobres in the La Chacra neighborhood of San Salvador.  I'm moved by the three unidentified Sisters who accompany Monseñor, clearly Sisters who work in this slum and are showing him around.  It reminds me that communities of women religious have long been present with the poorest among us.

We celebrated Monseñor Romero's life and martyrdom today, on the eve of the day he died (since tomorrow is Palm Sunday).  I missed the main celebration - apparently the Archbishop was here in Suchitoto and it was a grand celebration, but I was on an errand of mercy in the capital, and was too late to join in - but the evening Mass was also dedicated to Monseñor on the 33rd anniversary of his death.  After communion the choir sang one of my favorite canciones (words and music by Alvar Castillo) - the chorus is:

Monseñor vives hoy
en el corazon
del pueblo que tanto te amó.
Monseñor tu verdad
nos hace marchar
a la victoria final.

Monseñor you live today
in the heart
of the people who loved you so much.
Monseñor your truth
makes us march
toward the final victory.

And at the end of the mass we all proclaimed together "Que vive Monseñor Romero!  Que vive!"  With the election of Pope Francis, with his passion for the poor, Salvadorans have hope that the canonization of Monseñor Romero will take place at last - but then the people have always known that he is San Romero de las Americas, pastor, prophet and martyr for the people he loved so much.

El Último de Doña Licha

My friend Martha's mother died the day after Christmas, after several months of increasingly painful suffering.  I think her given name was Maria Louisa, but I knew her as Doña Licha - people here in Suchitoto called her Niña Licha, but I haven't yet managed to get comfortable with addressing a woman of my own age, more or less, as a niña, child.  I used to meet Doña Licha in better days when she was on the way to market, and we'd stop and exchange hugs.  Martha sometimes brought me tamales her mother had made.  And one day, when our medical mission team was visiting Suchitoto, as we do on each mission, Doña Licha came to our house to have her ulcerated leg treated by Dr. Jon Dykstra, a specialist in wound care.  Here they are, Doña Licha in blue on the left:

Jon bandaged her leg and gave her some medication for it: the bandage didn't last long, because it was itchy, but the medicated cream was great - soon I was seeing her again on the way to market, and this lasted for several months until she began to suffer from pain in her hips, back, legs and soon everywhere.

The customs of death are very beautiful among Catholic families here.  The funeral mass and burial almost always take place the day after the death.  Then for eight days the house is transformed into a shrine with flowers and santos and a photo or two, and friends and neighbors and family come by each night to recite the rosary and sing - or just to stand by and be present.  On the 9th day, this season of intense mourning closes with a memorial Mass, and then everyone gathers for El Último, the last night of mourning, and some stay with the family all through that night to the next morning.

I was able to join in on one Rosario after I returned from Guatemala and the small house was crammed so full of people that you would not imagine it could hold any more.  When Maria del Carmen and I returned for El Último, there were people sitting in rows of chairs in the street outside the house and more people inside.  Martha and her sister Orbelina invited us to come in through the side door which usually leads to a yard full of chickens and ducks and dogs and a green parrot.  All the animals were elsewhere (I wonder who does the duck-sitting?), the yard was swept and neat, and huge, really HUGE iron bowls of tortillas were waiting.  Martha and Orbe and a few friends had worked all morning to make an unimaginable number of tamales, the traditional food served in El Último, and soon we were sitting with tamales and cookies and coffee or hot chocolate.  Meanwhile, in the main sala of the house, the singing and prayers continued, as they were to do all through the night.

What a rich religious tradition this is!  The rosary is beautifully at the center of these nine days of prayer and mourning, and all around the edges of that murmur of ongoing prayer people share memories and condolences, connect with the family, remember Doña Licha.  For over a week the family is held and upheld, even as they work so hard to prepare everything.   It may be a relief to come to that 10th day when the house can slowly come back to normal - but as Martha said to me, it will also be very lonely. 

Remembering the Jesuit Martyrs

Today is the 23rd anniversary of the martyrdom of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America (UCA).  I hope to be at the annual memorial Mass tomorrow.

(Icon by Br, Robert Lentz, OFM)

Tonight I am remembering them, their courage, their commitment to the people, their faithfulness and their hope.  In the words of Fr. James Martin, S.J.:

Today we remember the six Jesuits and their two companions who were martyred in El Salvador on Nov. 16, 1989. The Jesuits at the University of Central America in San Salvador stood with the poor and the oppressed in their country, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Liberator, and made the ultimate sacrifice for God, for the church and for their brothers and sisters.

Holy Martyr Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Segundo Montes, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Joaquín López y López, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Amando López, S.J., pray for us.
Holy Martyr Elba Ramos, pray for us.
Holy Martyr Celina Ramos, pray for us.

This week

In so many ways, I'm in the usual "day before" state - slacks and shirts ironed, customs permissions and paperwork in hand, the to-do list and the to-bring list checked over.  I'm just about ready to go meet our eye surgery mission group at the airport tomorrow night.

And at the same time I'm feeling - along with a lot of U.S Catholic Sisters - like I've been punched in the stomach (to paraphrase the elegant words of Simone Campbell, SSS, poet and director of NETWORK, the Catholic Social Justice Lobby).  The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), to which my Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace belongs,  has been ordered to reform its statutes and is being put under the direction of Archbishop Peter Sartain for five years. 

It's personal to me because I was a member of LCWR when I was on the Leadership Team of what was then our Province.  And it's even more personal because Pat Farrell, OSF, the current President of LCWR, lived here in Suchitoto for many years, and is a friend to Peggy, Margaret Jane and me.  I've been going about the daily work and the extra work of getting ready for a mission, and I've been feeling kicked in the gut and I've been praying for peace, a prayer that feels necessary right now. 

I'm glad to have a week ahead that will keep me running all day, glad I have a mission to do and work that will help some people to see more clearly.  And I pray to see clearly myself, and to be peace-filled.

The leaf player

Patti and I had an amazing meeting yesterday.  We were visiting Santa Ana to see the grand neo-Gothic Cathedral and the other handsome buildings - theater and city hall - surrounding the parque central.  Seemed the cathedral wasn't going to be open for another half hour, so we sat in the parque, enjoying the people and the trees.  Along came this señor, clearly a Barcelona fan, who began to make some pretty amazing sounds with the aid of nothing more than a single leaf that he held in his mouth and breath and no doubt some years of practice.  Sounded a bit like a soprano saxophone, said Patti, and he was definitely tuneful.  Sadly my iPod Touch needed recharging or I might have tried to capture the sound. 

A few minutes later the doors of the cathedral opened and we all went in to pray (and in our case, to look about as well).  Our leaf player went in too, to say the rosary.  There's one man who knows how to make a joyful sound to the Lord!  Alleluia!

Viernes Santo

Viernes Santo, Good Friday, is the holiest of days here in El Salvador.  In Suchitoto, we began the day with the Stations of the Cross at 10 am, walking from the Capilla de la Cruz, about a mile to la iglesia Santa Lucia.  The heat was punishing, but that didn't stop the Suchitotense: we were a goodly crowd, walking slowly from station to station, each lovingly set up in front of a house or store and carefully decorated, following the image of Jesus carrying his cross.  The high point for me was the time - at stations IV, V, and VI - when St. John (on his own platform) comes to bow before Jesus, goes back to a side street and returns with Mary who bows before her son as he bows to her.  A little later, Veronica comes with her towel to wipe the face of Jesus, and the three of them become part of the procession, following Jesus on the way of the cross.

When I read the accounts of the crucifixion, it's the terrible aloneness of Jesus after he has been arrested that strikes my heart.  Here, following the stations, we become his friends along the lonely way to death, with his mother and his friend and a woman who reaches out to comfort him.

Later, after the Viernes Santo service and Adoration of the Cross, another procession left the church, this one for the Santo Entierro, carrying the dead Jesus to his resting place.  The Santo Entierro procession walks over alfombras, carpets, that have been specially created just a few hours or even minutes before, created to be destroyed by the feet of the men carrying the body of Jesus.  Last year the alfombras were all swept away in a rainstorm before the procession arrived.  This year, happily, they were completed, the procession passed, and then the blessed rain came down, cutting the heat of a day as hot as any I can remember.  

Tomorrow we celebrate the rising.

Silencio

Tonight I left Margaret Jane (who returned to El Salvador on Tuesday - hurrah!) and Patti sleeping peacefully and walked the three blocks to the parque central where everyone, except Margaret Jane and Patti of course, seemed to be gathered.  In the church we finished the hours of adoration of the eucharist and went out into the parque to wait for the procesion del silencio to begin.  It took a while, but finally Padre Juan Carlos emerged to lead the procession, followed by a man dragging chains, and then by men carrying the image of Jesus, bound and blindfolded.  It took a while, too, for the noisy crowd to quiet down, but by the time we had turned a couple of corners this huge crowd had become completely silent and I could hear the noise of the chains dragging against the cobblestones.  We walked - two rows of men in the middle, two rows of women on the outsides - holding candles, silent, walking with Jesus toward prison and torture and condemnation.

My Salvadoran friends and neighbors must connect this long, silent walk with Jesus and their times of walking with family members and friends who were in danger during the Civil War, who might be picked up and questioned and never seen again.  Perhaps also with the family and friends who've been threatened, extorted, or killed by gangs.

An El Salvador light on the scriptures

Yesterday I was invited by my Seattle parish, St. Patrick's, to reflect on the readings for the 2nd Sunday in Lent in light of my experience in El Salvador.  The readings were the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22, 1-18); the passage from Romans that asks "if God is for us, who can be against us"; and the Transfiguration (Mark 9, 2-10).  Here's what I said:

God put Abraham to the test.  How can we bear to hear this passage from Genesis, this terrible story of child sacrifice required by God?  We can look at it from a distance and say that yes, it’s a story about leaving behind an ancient and horrible tradition of sacrificing the first born son, leaving behind the image of a God who would require that sacrifice.  But we’re still faced with the unimaginable horror of that moment when Abraham turns to bind his son and lay him on the altar in his obedience to a bloodthirsty God.

But at that awful moment on the mountaintop there’s a pause, then a shift,  the light changes and the angel says NO, no, put down that sword, here is your beloved son, here is your future.  Who could bear such a moment? 

We are all put to the test in our lives, facing questions of who we are and who we’re called to be, facing into grief and loss, or finding ourselves in a moment when what’s asked of us – going with someone we love through a terrible crisis or caring for someone we love who is dying – seems far beyond our power to give.  This happens often enough to those of us who live in the rich world of North America, but how much more often are our brothers and sisters in the poor world, in countries like Haiti, Somalia, El Salvador faced with tests that you would think no one could pass

Many of you know that I have been living in El Salvador for three years now, coordinating PeaceHealth’s medical mission program and getting to know the people and the tragic history of this small Central American country.  El Salvador means “the savior,” of course, “el Salvador del mundo,” the Savior of the World.  And the feast of the Savior of the World is the feast of the Transfiguration, an event celebrated with a week of vacations and celebrations and processions every August.  …So as I reflected on today’s readings I began to ask myself what my Salvadoran friends and neighbors will be making of them.

They won’t, I think, find the sacrifice of Isaac as strange, as horrifying, as archaic as we do.  It’s going to remind them too clearly of the realities of their history and of their lives – and of the way their lives are part of God’s story.  It will remind my friend Lita of watching from a refugee camp in Honduras as villagers fleeing Chalatenango were mowed down by Salvadoran and Honduran troops.  It will remind Doña Licha of the nights she spent huddled hungry and terrified with her children in what’s now our pleasant little tourist town, Suchitoto, listening to rockets and bombs and gunfire.  It will remind Doña Mercedes of the day she found the headless body of her son in a Suchitoto park. It will remind Doña Tulia of San Antonio Los Ranchos that she lost nine of her eleven children during the Civil War. 

Rogelio will remember, as he does every day of his life, that he witnessed the massacre of his family and his village, Copapayo, escaping only because he – a 10-year-old boy - fell back among high grasses and played dead. 

it will remind them all of the story of their beloved pastor, prophet and martyr, Monseñor Oscar Romero, who knew he was marked for death in 1980 and asked only that his blood become a seed of liberty for his people.

The sacrifice of Isaac might also remind my Salvadoran friends of the terrible choices and realities they often face in the present moment: to know that your child’s life could be saved with a new heart valve that you cannot possibly afford; to love and raise children who may well grow up and join a gang; to pay protection money to the gang so you can keep your little store open; to save money so you can send a family member north for the hope of remittances. 

But in their terrible experiences – in the past of the civil war, in the present of poverty and violence and limitation – they know God who stands with them, God who is for them.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?” asks Paul.  This is not the God who demands sacrifice, but the God who loves and saves – the God of the Transfiguration, who saves Isaac, who loves and reveals Jesus, who leads us up the mountaintop to the place where truth can be known. 

The God revealed to us all in the Transfiguration is not a God who saves us by keeping us from suffering.  Just before this passage in Mark’s Gospel Jesus says, “whoever wishes to save her life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” And coming down the mountain, he reminds them that the story leads to resurrection – but only through death.  Still the disciples are allowed to see what my Salvadoran friends know in their hearts and souls: here is the Beloved.  Through Jesus we are all the Beloved.

I find it hopeful that Peter, the Rock on whom our church is built, is such a bumbler.  He’s been taken up to the mountaintop with James and John and he sees the reality revealed, the dazzling white clothes, the conversation with Moses and Elijah (and what would be the sound of that conversation – birdsong, falling water, fire?) and he’s terrified – they are all terrified – at this fearful reality.  Peter, it seems, can’t just fall on the ground in silence before this Jesus, he has to do something – let’s keep this going, let’s make some tents, let’s have a party, he says. 

But then they are overshadowed, Peter and all, by the truth within the truth: “This is my beloved son.  Listen to him.”  And suddenly there’s nothing to be seen anymore but Jesus alone with them, the truth within the truth on the mountaintop. 

I believe that’s the Jesús my Salvadoran friends know, the beloved one, the one who loves them even though AND BECAUSE they’re bumblers too, as are we all, who loves them even though AND BECAUSE their lives are lived at the margins of the world’s great events, who loves them even though AND BECAUSE, like the disciples, they don’t understand theology and don’t know how to make a liturgically correct response to the Transfiguration.

Instead, like Peter, they make a party, a fiesta.  No one makes fiesta like my neighbors in El Salvador, with costumes and firecrackers and processions and speeches and dances and food and drink.  They celebrate being alive, even though it’s hard, this life.  They celebrate the truth within the truth, that they are seen and known and loved, just as they are.

My friend Lita – the woman who witnessed the massacre at the Rio Sumpul - comes to visit Margaret Jane and me most Thursdays.  Lita got to know our Sisters Andrea and Margaret Jane when she lived in the Calle Real refugee camp during the civil war and they were providing some safety by being an international presence.  Now she’s a health promoter, a pillar of life in her El Bario community, a woman who, given half a chance, could manage the world.  When she comes to call we have lemonade and cookies and talk about her disabled granddaughter, about the trouble she’s been having for months with a sinus infection, about the hard work. 

La vida no es facil, she says, life isn’t easy, la vida no es facil.  And then she laughs and lets down her beautiful long hair, black streaked with white, and she gives us a great hug and maybe some mangoes or tamales and says “Primero Dios nos vemos el otro jueves” – God first, we’ll see each other next Thursday.  Primero Dios, God first: that’s what Lita and my Salvadoran neighbors get right, what we gringos often get wrong.  We want to think it depends on us whether we’ll meet on Thursday.  Lita knows that our meeting, everything, depends on God.  And then we laugh together because we know that la vida no es facil, but it is transfigured by love and laughter, by the truth within the truth and, primero Dios, we will meet.

Whitewash

San Salvador's Cathedral is a national gathering place, the site of massacres in the 1980s during the Salvadoran Civil War, the grave of murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero, the center for the Catholic community of El Salvador.  And until recently it was graced with a tile mural by Salvadoran artist Fernando Llort, with vivid and striking images of the people and the country.

In December, right after Christmas, this famous mural was demolished by order of the Cathedral authorities, without notice to the artist or to the people.  The reason given was that pieces of the mosaic were falling off, that tiles had become discolored in the sun and could not be replaced because new pieces would not match the existing ones.  The Archbishop said that an engineering and architectural firm working with the Archdiocese had recommended removing the mural.

To me it is a great sorrow that the church authorities destroyed this mural so quickly, so lightly.  Where Llort's bright tiles once brought life to the cathedral's facade, there's now a blank, whitewashed wall. 

Whitewashing the past, covering up history and art, has been too much the way of life in El Salvador.  The wounds from the Civil War still bleed - you will hear about them early in any conversation with a Salvadoran over 30 - because there has never been the kind of national process of memory and reconciliation that could bring healing.  Now the San Salvador Cathedral has lost its historical memory and imagery: another wound, another whitewashing.

In San José Villanueva

Our mission team arrived right on schedule Saturday night, at 9 pm, and our only problem in Customs was that one of our tubs had gone missing (it arrived today after spending the night in Houston).  We were on our way to the beautiful Salesian retreat house, Ayagualo, by 11 pm, and arrived at about midnight, still with a little energy available for getting to know each other and talking about the week ahead.
Today we've been getting to know Villanueva and the church/school at the center of the town where we'll be working all week.  Many of us went to Mass and discovered that our host, Padre Mario Adin, is a wonderful homilist and a man deeply committed to the life of his community.  All day there were masses, meetings, study groups, catechism sessions, literacy training taking place in all the corners of the complex.
Our major tasks were setting up the various clinics and the pharmacy, counting out vitamins and bagging them (everyone who comes to our clinics gets a month's supply of vitamins), and having some training sessions with our team and with the local volunteers.
We know from plentiful experience that tomorrow will be a little crazy as everyone tries to figure out her or his job and as the patients flock in to see us.  We also know we're blessed to be here, that we'll be well fed, both at the retreat house (we had pupusas tonight!) and at the parish, where we had a grand lunch today, and that we'll get to return to the beautiful grounds and comfortable rooms (and hot showers) at Ayagualo each night to restock for the work of tomorrow. 
And now it's time for me to catch up on sleep after two very short nights!

An Unnatural Disaster

There's a superb post on Tim's El Salvador Blog about the human role in the disastrous rains and floods El Salvador has experienced this month. I don't think I've seen a better analysis of the complex ties between ecological damage and economic violence to the poor.

He quotes a fierce and superb statement by San Salvador Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez: the disaster caused by the rains demonstrated "the economic vulnerability, that is to say the poverty so many of our countrymen live immersed within, the social vulnerability, characterized by the structural injustice and the ecological vulnerability, for which the great fault lies in the wild ambition that rages against God's creation, this house of all of us which is deteriorating more each day."

I remember that in the 2008 Chapter of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, we struggled to articulate the connection between climate change and the needs of the poor. Well, here it is, in the suffering of thousands of poor people displaced by rain and floods, an unnatural disaster that hardly touches the lives of the middle and upper classes in El Salvador. As Tim says, there are no photos of flooded mansions, no videos of Land Rovers swirling in the overflowing rivers. The land is "the house of all of us," and only the rich can hide from its devastation.

Raindrops

Labor Day in New York City was clear and beautiful, but then it began raining in New York and New Jersey. I looked forward to escaping to New Mexico, where afternoon rains sometimes happen in summer, but where gray days are practically unheard of.

It must be Seattleite karma, but it has been raining in Santa Fe ever since I arrived on Thursday evening. Now this is grand for New Mexicans - everything greens up, forest fires are no longer a major worry, the rivers are running full - but a little discouraging for visitors, especially since this is the Fiesta weekend in Santa Fe.

All the same, I had a wonderful day yesterday with my friends Pat D'Andrea and Mary Lou Carson, visiting Chimayo, up north from Santa Fe (there we are in the photo). One of my fondest memories is of visiting the Sanctuario de Chimayo with my parents on Holy Saturday, 1969 when I was new to New Mexico. It was a simple adobe chapel then, with the room off to one side where you could find the healing dirt that made Chimayo a pilgrimage site. A tiny old woman asked me to help her in the chapel while my mom and dad were still up in a shop on the main road. When they came in to the Santuario, they were horrified to see me up on a chair doing something to one of the statues, and I had to quickly explain that I was helping out by taking the veils off the statues in preparation for the Easter Vigil (though I wouldn't have known about the Easter Vigil at the time, then being mostly an agnostic).

Yesterday, 42 years and a few months later, it was hard to recognize the Santuario, now surrounded by plazas and car parks, gift shops, and some heavy and unattractive stone crosses within archways (in the background of the photo) that will probably become Stations of the Cross. When we got to the end of the long entry ramp, we found the old chapel of the Sanctuario looking simple and New Mexican, much the same as ever, but it was hard to see it surrounded by all the trappings of a tourist destination. Thankfully, we escaped to the Rancho de Chimayo, where the rain had forced everyone inside from the terraces. We almost didn't get a table, but then were invited to have lunch at the bar, where we feasted on tamales, carne adovada, flautas, posole, frijoles and sopapillas, the very best of New Mexico's wonderful food, and talked as only old friends can talk. The rain couldn't dampen that pleasure!

Later in the day, Pat and I walked down her block to pick up some tamales from her neighbor, Jenny Martinez, who also showed us her lovely collection of images of the Virgin - or the Lady, as Jenny called her. Jenny, who has been praying for me during my breathing crisis and return to health (along with the members of Pat's sangha), shared her memories of Chimayo and sadness at its tourist transformation. And she gave me a little cross to carry back to El Salvador with me. I'll remember Jenny when I hold it, and I'll remember my time in Santa Fe as filled with sunshine of the spirit.

Fiesta del Salvador del Mundo

Tomorrow is the feast of the Transfiguration, but here it's celebrated with extra passion and delight as the feast of El Salvador del Mundo, the savior of the world - El Salvador's patronal feast. This is one of three week-long celebrations in El Salvador during which people with government or office jobs get holidays: Christmas/New Year's; Holy Week; and the August vacations on the week that includes August 6th. These are all Christian celebrations, but there's not the separation between church and state here that exists in the U.S.

These three weeks are beautifully scattered through the year, so that every 4th month there's a week-long vacation. Salvadorans take off to other countries, to the beach, to the mountains, and some come to Suchitoto, so we always have extra folk roaming our streets during the vacations. The big celebration, with procession and parades and carnival rides and fireworks is in San Salvador - it's the patronal feast of the city as well as the country, of course.

We had our Suchitoto celebration of the Transfiguration tonight, because Padre Carlos Elias will be concelebrating with the Archbishop in San Salvador tomorrow. Before Margaret Jane and I went out for pupusas, we connected with Ana outside the church, and were happy to see her wearing the gloriously pink shoes Margaret Jane had brought back for her. A great feastday look!

Feliz pascua

Christ is risen, Alleluia!

Yesterday Margaret Jane and I decided, with some misgivings, to go to the vigil mass at Santa Lucia. The misgivings came from the time frame: the vigil began at 10 pm and was set to finish at 5 am with a procession. We weren't sure we could make it, but, fortified by afternoon naps, we decided to try.

It was a glorious experience, beginning with the lighting of the pascal fire. We were waiting for someone to light the woodpile in the plaza when we noticed everyone looking back and up, at the roof of the church. A ball of flame appeared on the roof and vaulted down (there must have been a wire, but I didn't see it) to the woodpile, which it set blazing immediately. Padre Carlos Elias lit the pascal candle, and we all lit our candles (una cora, 25 cents, for a candle) and processed untidily into the church, looking for a seat.

Santa Lucia was beautiful with flowers. To one side of the altar was a paper-mache tomb, with the image of the risen Jesus (the same image used in the crucifixion procession of Good Friday, but liberated from the cross). We moved through the beautiful vigil liturgy - readings, psalms, the Gloria, singing Alleluia for the gospel, litany of the saints, baptisms and renewal of baptismal promises, eucharist. By 2:30 am our vigil was complete. "What do we do now?" I asked Martha, who was sitting next to me. "We sing," she said.

Margaret Jane and I decided to opt for bed at this point, but soon after we got back to the house, we heard the procession approaching. The photo shows the faithful with their candles singing and walking down our street at about 3:30 am. Sleepers awake! The Lord is Risen, Christ is Risen Indeed! Feliz pascua, Easter joy and peace to all.

Good Friday, Suchitoto

Good Friday began with the Stations of the Cross, an elaborate walk through the center of Suchitoto that included not only the image of Jesus carrying the cross, but also images of Mary, Veronica and Simon the Cyrenian - each introduced at the appropriate time. Just about everyone in town turned out for the Stations and poured into church at the end to pray.

A few hours later, the church was crammed again for the Good Friday service. We all went slowly and reverently in line to kiss the cross and then to receive communion.

The final act of the day should be the Santo Entierro, the burial procession: a number of alfombras, carpets, were lovingly prepared for the procession and a couple are pictured above, including the offering created by the youth at the Centro Arte para la Paz, the final photo. Just as everyone was putting final touches on the alfombras, alas! the heavens opened and the rain came down in buckets. So these photos may be the only witness to the intentions of the alfombra makers (they are generally made out of bark and colored salt, not very stable items in a thunderstorm).

A thunderstorm that ruins plans seems very appropriate to Good Friday, to a day that turned the world upside down.

Domingo de los ramos

Palm Sunday, domingo de los ramos, in Suchitoto: the church is crammed, packed, overflowing, everyone waving palms in the air as the procession comes down the aisle. Margaret Jane and I decided to get to the church and get a seat rather than walking with the procession (I think that's the wisdom of age), so we got to see Jesus carried up the aisle by two men as we all hosanna'ed and waved our palms. Later, in the middle of the homily, Jesus was carefully positioned near the altar from which he blessed us all through the remainder of the Mass. It was a beautiful start to semana santa, the holy week, a time for church and singing and processions and celebration - and, of course, firecrackers, which got started during this morning's Mass. Hosanna!

A delegation

Today I had the joy of meeting with a group of young people from St. Patrick Parish, Seattle - my church when I'm in the Northwest - who will be the delegation to St. Patrick's sister community, Nueva Trinidad in Chalatenango, this June. They range in age, I'd guess, from 13 to 18 - a few adults will be coming as well - and they had great questions about their journey, ranging from the prosaic worries about getting sick to those questions we all harbor - will people like me even if I can't speak Spanish? What if I do something offensive without meaning to?

I hope I was able to reassure them that the kids in Nueva Trinidad will be nervously asking themselves the same questions - will these cool kids from El Norte like me even if I forget all my English? I know that they will like each other and they will learn so much more than they expect.

I'm hoping to get the group to Suchitoto for a day, and maybe for them to have time to explore Guazapa Mountain on horseback. Mostly I know that whatever they see and do, their curiosity, intelligence, and commitment to justice will make this trip a memorable time in their lives.

Music, full moon, night in Suchitoto

Tonight began wonderfully with a light supper at our favorite restaurant, la Villa Balanza, followed by a moving and beautiful cello concert by Götz Teutsch (here's a recent photo), part of the annual International Festival of Art and Culture in Suchitoto. In addition to the concert - two Bach Suites for solo cello sandwiching briefer and wilder contemporary music by Dieter Acker and Bernd Alois Zimmerman - we enjoyed a wine reception hosted by the German Embassy.

A magical evening, and the beauty of it continued as Margaret Jane and I walked home under the full moon, stopping at a local hall to pray with Tina, a woman who's one of the leaders of our local church, at the vigil for her mother, who died at 92.

But when we got home the disco next door started up, and the contrast between the beauty of the cello and the angry, relentless rhythms our neighbor fancies was hard to bear. It's still going on, but I'm listening to music I like better on my iPod, remembering the earlier magic of the night, and staying peaceful.