Are We There Yet?

Posted on July 19th, 2008

The summer months always remind me of family vacations. There were years when we loaded up the car and set out for North Dakota. There were other years when we visited cousins in Southern California. On one trip to North Dakota, we were just north of Albany - with four more states to cross and many hundreds of miles to travel, when my brother Bob asked, “Are we there yet?” It appears that kids today still ask this age-old question of their parents. Well, some of you have been asking about this web log and whether “we’re there yet?” Indeed, we are. This entry marks the official end of the sabbatical journal and I want to share with you that it has been a delight to be part of it.

Much guilt has been shouldered by me because, in my last entry, I felt like I left you hanging in San Antonio! These entries haven’t been as exciting as a well-written crime thriller, but I promised to stay in touch when I last wrote and it is now mid-July. Thank you for your patience.

The transition and re-entry into parish life has been good and I have received a warm welcome back to St. Mary’s and O‘Hara Catholic School. Among the most frequent expressions I have used in English and Spanish over the past weeks are “I missed you a lot”, “Thank you for your prayers”, and “My journey was blessed and I’m happy to be home.” As you may recall, the grant I received was for the purpose of renewal and that has happened in ways far beyond my expectations. One of the expressions they used in the Lilly Foundation grant award was “do things that will let your heart sing.” Well, many of you know I cannot sing very well with my voice, but it has been a pure joy to let my heart sing, especially in new ways, by having been able to travel to amazing places, be with blessed and holy people, and all the while look forward to returning to my parish family here in Eugene.

I’ve told a few people that I’m so eager to share stories from the renewal days that, sometime this autumn, there will be many in the parish who will say, “I wish he’d stop talking about Mexico.” But I have to say that, until people tell me to stop, I’ll gladly share the rich stories of God’s blessings from Cuernavaca to Oaxaca City to Guadalajara and even to San Antonio. I’ve even been able to offer a few previews of my photos, but there are over 800 of them and I’ve yet to share all them in one sitting. The parish bulletin and the parish website will be announcing dates for “Sabbatical Follow-up” sessions and I hope you will be able to join me for one of those. I promise that I won’t try to show all 800 or so photos in a single hour!

If I may, here are a few reflections on the final days of the renewal time and a preview of the follow-up talks that will be offered:

One of the encouraging things that has happened since my days at the monastery in Cuernavaca is that I have renewed my love for prayer. No, I don’t wake up at 4:30 in the morning anymore, but I do make prayer a central part of the day and night in a new way these days. I suppose that many people take it for granted that their priests are men of prayer, but (and I know this from personal experience) prayer can sometimes become more of a chore to be completed than a delight that marks various moments of one’s life. I am very much assured that I never lost my desire to pray nor my willingness to do it, but the three months away have given me a renewed appreciation for the great fun that prayer can be and how much it can be life-giving. The Benedictines showed me that laughter, honesty, and meaningful silence can be crucial in helping me mature as a man of God and a man of prayer. I will be forever grateful to them for that.

On occasion, I take the past additions of the parish photo directories with me to the adoration chapel; I’ve done that for years. I figure that seeing the faces and names of the people for whom I will be praying is a worthy exercise. One of the sheets of paper that I have begun to include inside the directories is a list of the people I encountered over the past three months. I don’t have their pictures, but adding their names to my personal “litany” has been comforting and reassuring. I do have many photos of them, but they are in my computer and I hope I’ll never be found in the chapel surrounded by the glow from my laptop.

I wrote to my family from San Antonio and we arranged to meet at the Sacramento airport at the end of June. I still needed to pick up my car and my dog before heading for home. The menus in Mexico and Texas often included rice and beans, plus tacos, quesadillas, and burritos. I told my family that I would gladly forgo “Mexican” food for awhile. When they picked me up at the airport, they immediately announced that we were going to have enchiladas for lunch and tacos for dinner. After I remained silent for a moment, I said, “Oh.” Being the fun-loving family they are, however, they actually had plans for In-N-Out Burgers for lunch and a delicious barbecue for dinner. We were able to share several days together in California and I remain grateful for their love and support. When I went to the Life Teen Mass at the parish of my brother Bob & family, we were greeted by the youth minister. He had arranged a meeting with the new priest in the parish, but there was an emergency that afternoon and we were told that “Father isn’t going to make it.” I asked, “Isn’t going to make it for our meeting or isn’t going to make it for Mass?” It turned out, both! Or neither, depending on your perspective. With less than an hour to prepare, I made a plea to God for some inspiration, especially with regard to the homily. I’ll let those who were there say whether it was inspired or not; all I know is that it was great fun. Their parish began Life Teen ministry only a year ago and they have good leaders. One of the surprises was that my English was a little rusty. I had regularly attended or presided at Mass for the previous three months, but never in English. It’s kind of an odd feeling to have to search for words in one’s native language.

My English is improving and I am enjoying these summer days as a quite fun transition back into the rhythm of parish life. I’m glad to report that I am very happy to be home. Are we there yet? Yes, indeed. Thanks be to God.

With continued hopes that St. Mary, Our Lady of the Presentation, patroness of our parish, will intercede for us in a generous way, peace to you all.

With love,
Fr. Mark

Final Days in San Antonio

Posted on June 19th, 2008

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Mt. 25,40)

The time since we returned from the Rio Grande Valley has been filled with a lot of Scripture reflection and prayer. To say that our days among the poorest of the poor were intense would be understating the truth. One of the volunteers at the “Working Together” community in Matamoros is a young man named Matt. He is a student at Vanderbilt University and has chosen to work with desperately poor and very disabled children as his summer “vacation.” He has been, like I have been, writing a web log to send home during his time away. When he posted a few thoughts on his blog, after our visit to the community last weekend, he said that he felt frustrated at being “only a tour guide, showing people (us) around.” I responded to his comments with a personal message that went something like this: “you have chosen to be among the poorest people on this continent, when you could easily be in a number of other places, doing a number of other things; yet there you are, loving the ‘least of our brothers.’ You were much more than a tour guide.”

Our visits to the shelters, slums, and even the streets of Reynoso, Matamoros, and San Juan have reminded me of a saying I have tucked away in my prayer book. The quotation is from the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador: “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something . . . which may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.”

Here at the Mexican American Cultural Center we are soon going to finish our classes. The primary teacher for us has been Martin Martinez, a veteran teacher here at MACC and a generous and patient man. He is a husband and father, a San Antonio native, and he sings in what is called a “conjunto” band. His accordion playing reminds me a lot of the polka music which I heard as a child in both North Dakota and Oregon. It turns out that the German culture has had an influence on (and has been influenced by) the Mexican music that has been evolving here for generations. Martin also sings at two local parishes on Sundays and at our daily Mass here at MACC.
Dr. Arturo Chavez, Fr. Juan Alfaro, Mr. Alejandro Siller, and Sr. Rosa Maria Icaza have joined with Martin in providing a diverse and rich series of classes.

I won’t go through all the names of my classmates, but I will tell you that they are seminarians from Mexico, California and Texas, a priest from Washington, and a lay minister from New Mexico. We are 11 in all and the consensus is that we’re either well prepared to begin parish work or ready to return to it with minds and hearts renewed. In fact, one of our discussions today was based on the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “people of faith can run the risk of reducing themselves to being one-dimensional, either by retreating from the world to dedicate themselves to God and prayer or by totally immersing themselves in the world to help others. Instead, we must look for a middle ground by imitating Christ, whose life was dedicated to contemplation and action.” If I didn’t know better, I’d think the Holy Father caught sight of my sabbatical program! His wise words have been the precise aim of the past three months of my renewal.

It has been quite an awakening for me to realize, from those first few days at the end of March to these final days of June, that I (we) are called to show our love for others through charitable action in the same degree that we must show our love for God through prayer.

May Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, continue to pray for us and intercede for us . . . that we will always remember: our work and our prayer, “which may be incomplete, are a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.”

With love,

Fr. Mark

The Border

Posted on June 17th, 2008

When I was preparing for the Pastoral program here at the Mexican American Cultural Center, I caught sight of something on the itinerary called “the Border Experience trip.” The rest of the class agenda included Multiculturalism, Scripture, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and a variety of other topics, but the “Border Experience” was a four-day event that seemed a little out of place. Special attention was given to making sure we had our passports available for travel across the border into Mexico. It seemed to me, to be perfectly honest, that for all the new and exciting things I was hoping to learn (and have learned) here, this trip would be redundant. After all, I had just spent 2 months in Mexico. It turned out that the trip we made this past weekend was anything but redundant.

The drive from San Antonio to San Juan, TX was about 5 hours long. We stayed at the Pilgrim’s House at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Valley. The “Valley” is the Rio Grande Valley, an area located in the southernmost tip of Texas. It lies along the northern bank of the Rio Grande which separates Mexico from the United States. For the sake of accuracy, this area is not really a valley, but a delta or floodplain. Nonetheless, the estimated population of the Rio Grande Valley is 1.2 million and over 80% of the residents of the Valley are Latino and Catholic. The valley is the home of the Diocese of Brownsville, TX.

Our first full day of the “Border Experience” included a visit to a “colonia” (or neighborhood) called Las Milpas. It is on the U.S. side of the border and most of the residents are poor, have not had much access to education, and know first-hand what it means to struggle to make a living. In Las Milpas we visited a community-organizing group called ARISE (A Resource In Serving Equality). Their philosophy is that each and every community, including their own, is blessed with persons who can work together to respond to the needs of their own community. ARISE engages in works such as English language development for children and adults, early childhood development, home visits, and workshops on strengthening families. Their philosophy also makes it clear that they are not in Las Milpas to create a perfect system, but to serve people. All of the leaders and coordinators are from the Las Milpas neighborhood, they know their people well, and they talked to us often about avoiding doing for people what the people can do for themselves. One of the most touching moments of our visit to Las Milpas was a home visit where we heard stories of the difficulties families experience when separated by the border.

After visiting Las Milpas we passed over the border and visited a refugee shelter in the Mexican city of Reynoso. One of the Religious Sisters who helps provide food and shelter for those recently deported or seeking to emigrate from Mexico or Central America told me that she is fully aware that many in the U.S. still say “which part of illegal immigration don’t you understand?” She also told me something that I heard often in Oaxaca: that many people have left parts of Mexico and Central America because the local economies where they are from simply didn’t allow them to feed their families. I had to admit to her that it is, indeed, a settled principle of Catholic moral law that a starving man may steal bread to feed himself and those who depend on him. We had a chance to hear the personal stories from some of the refugees, some of which included the honest admission that their presence as immigrants enrages some Americans, but that their families are depending on them for survival. I have to admit personally that my heart hurt as I tried to straddle the line between the U.S. need for a sensible immigration policy and the very real human needs of the people I was meeting. As we shared a prayer with the Sisters and the other women and men at the shelter, I noticed a poster that had a quote from Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “Jesus identified himself with the poor from the moment he left his Father’s side to the moment he returned, especially during his passion and death on the cross. He became the poorest of the poor —the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner. Jesus revealed the extent of true love on the cross. Love to be true has to hurt.” At the end of a long day we returned to the Pilgrim’s House at the Basilica to pray some more and reflect on the day’s events.

On the second full day of our “Border Trip” we returned to Mexico, to the city of Matamoros. The “colonia” we visited has been built on top of a former garbage dump. As you might imagine, it was a very emotional experience — among the poorest of the poor. Getting back to Mother Teresa, I kept thinking about how much I admire what she did and what she stood for, but how much harder it is to really be in the presence of the most needy. It was an eye-opener. This neighborhood is not only built on the old city dump, but is filled with toxic waste in the soil, the water, and the air. It appears that individuals, other neighborhoods, and even factories dumped everything at this site for many years. As we heard from the families we visited we heard repeatedly that they are so poor that they have no choice but to stay there. A lot of the children have birth defects and other serious medical issues . . . yet a medical doctor and her husband are right there in the midst of it; they are loving the people in a way that very much humbled me. One of the heart-warming experiences we had was a visit with the family of an 11 year-old girl born with spina bifida, an incompletely formed spinal cord. The day before we arrived she got her first wheel chair and she was all smiles. Some of her neighbors had recently poured cement in her house so she could use her chair; the more common flooring in all of the other houses is the “colonia” is dirt. Several of us (including the doctor) had to wipe away tears a few times as we visited with many other children in what I have called ‘houses’, but are really not much more than four walls and a roof. The clinic and outreach that Dr. Nancy and her husband Larry have established is called “Working Together” and they are actively engaged in generous works of mercy.

When it was all on paper, months ago, I thought the Mexican American Cultural Center program would be ‘interesting’, but I wasn’t sure how the “Border Experience” was going to be helpful. Now I have come to realize that the program has not only been interesting, but it has been life-changing! And the “Border Experience” has provided me with quite a change of heart and mind. There is still much to think about and ponder and I imagine that I’ll have more to say about all of this upon my return to St. Mary’s at the beginning of July.

For now, from Blessed Teresa of Calcutta: “Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.” May she pray for us so that we might, indeed, love one another.

With my love and a promise to keep praying for you,

Fr. Mark

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Posted on June 12th, 2008

One of the most common sites in Mexico and in Texas is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is painted on murals, she is cast in bronze, there are photo reproductions of the image which hangs in the Basilica in Mexico City, she appears from thousands of ceramic tiles in mosaics, she is on t-shirts, and she is painted in hundreds of different ways in nearly countless places. She is everywhere! During the past two and a half months I have become more and more aware that her apparition (or appearance) cannot be appreciated fully without regard to its time and place.

The Spaniards in the late 15th and early 16th centuries descended upon what they called “New Spain”, present Mexico, and brought not only conquest through war, but conquest through rampant death from illness. Their bodies had built up immunity to many of the diseases they brought, but among the native people it was another matter altogether. Some have estimated that the indigenous population declined from 1,500,000 (1.5 million) in Mexico City alone to 70,000 in just a few short years. Having been conquered and having seen so many of their people die, St. Juan Diego (to whom St. Mary appeared) and his people were disoriented and genuinely lost in any number of ways. For those who survived the invasion there was harsh racism and slave-like conditions.

The hill of Tepeyac, where our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, was a sacred site, a place of pilgrimage even before the Spaniards and Christianity arrived. “Tonantzin” was venerated there as the mother of gods, the source of life, as a god who gave meaning, direction, and guidance to all life. The Spaniards had effectively destroyed all of the temples and places where the native population worshiped and prayed. At the time of the appearances (there were actually four of them), the conquest, including the destroyed temples, the massacres, and the other destruction, were still very much alive in the minds of the people.

It has been said that when Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, she heralded the beginning of a new era. A new civilization would rise out of the ashes of the indigenous civilization as she gave birth to a new people: the Mexican people. But her significance goes beyond that, because she is the patroness of all the Americas. She also gave birth to a renewed Christianity, through Juan Diego, now recognized as a great lay apostle. My travels during the course of this sabbatical have shown me that Our Lady stands as a powerful symbol of unity here, especially for all those struggling to leave a state of oppression to enter a state of being free in Christ. I don’t know how many times I have heard, in both Mexico and Texas, that “she is our mother” (as she told Juan Diego) who is still here to right the wrongs of her children. Added to this has been the sentiment that she is the mother who has heard the cry of her children and come to provide remedy for them. Catholics in all of the parishes and pueblos I have visited have been unembarrassed to talk about her as our mother, who is with us in our every struggle.

It has been a special delight to pray St. Mary’s Magnificat prayer over these many weeks. If you are unfamiliar with it, I recommend it to you: Luke’s 1st chapter, verses 46-55. As you visit those prayerful words, remember that she was a very young woman, living under Roman rule (in a colonized land), from a small town out in the country, and from a people who were not held in high esteem by those at the heart of the religion in Jerusalem. She says, “God has chosen me . . . God has blessed me . . . He will raise up the lowly . . . those in high places he will tumble down . . . .” When she appeared to Juan Diego, an Indian man, one who was stepped on all the time, held in low esteem, dominated, and considered inferior, she said, “Listen and hear well in your heart . . . do not let your heart be troubled. Am I not here, your mother? Are you not under my shadow and my protection?”

In some ways, I suppose, it’s not surprising that her image, as our loving Mother, is everywhere in this part of the world — and it probably belongs in every part of the whole world. A quick personal note deserves the final word here: wherever Our Lady of Guadalupe’s image appears in public places, especially when it is painted on sides of buildings and on murals, there is never any graffiti present! Only a few feet away, there may be lots of gang symbols and other “tagging”, but never have I seen any defacing of her image in public or private. One of my MACC instructors told me, “even people who do graffiti know to respect their Mother!”

May she pray for us and intercede for the cause of peace and freedom.

With love,

Fr. Mark

Spanish Missions of Old San Antonio

Posted on June 10th, 2008

In the spirit of discovery which has marked a good portion of this sabbatical, I have enjoyed learning recently about the chain of missions established along the San Antonio River in the 18th century. These missions became the largest concentration of Catholic missions in North America. According to the historical records, they were built primarily to expand Spanish New World influence in the northernmost reaches of Mexico. They also served to introduce native inhabitants into Church life and into Spanish society. The fact is that they were like small cities, almost completely independent economically and under the guidance of the Catholic missionary priests.

Four of the missions (San Jose, San Juan, Concepcion, and Espada) were originally founded in East Texas. As the East Texas missions succumbed to drought, malaria, and French incursions, however, they were relocated to San Antonio. All of the missions flourished during the middle of the 18th century.

San Jose (1720)
Soon after the building of the Alamo (technically known as Mission San Antonio de Valero), a second mission was founded in 1720 about five miles downstream. Named San Jose, this new mission was established by Franciscan priest Fr. Antonio Margil de Jesus, who had previously left a failed mission in East Texas. Our Mexican American Cultural Center instructor has told me that San Jose was a model among the Texas missions and gained a reputation as a major social and cultural center throughout the region.

San Juan (1731)
First established in East Texas, mission San Juan Capistrano made its permanent home on the banks of the San Antonio River in 1731. Within a short time, this mission became a regional supplier of agricultural and other products including iron, wood, cloth, and leather goods produced by the native peoples in their workshops. A few miles southeast of the mission was Rancho Pataguilla, a ranch which in 1762 reported 3,500 sheep and nearly as many cattle.

Concepcion (1731)
This is one of the most attractive of the San Antonio missions. The church at Concepcion looks essentially as it did more than 200 years ago, when it stood at the center of local religious activity. This mission was well known for its religious celebrations. The interior of the church still houses original paintings of religious symbols and architectural designs.

Given the close attention I have been giving to mixtures of cultures and how those relationships form and evolve, it has been quite interesting to read and hear this about the missions: how they brought together two distinct groups of people and how they cooperated to make the most of a new life. The missionaries came from Spain via training schools in Mexico. They were Franciscans who had taken a vow of poverty in order to devote themselves to serving, a brotherhood with all living creatures, and the spreading of the word of God. In Texas they mainly encountered bands of hunter-gatherers called Coahuiltecos or Coahuiltecans (kwa-weel-tekens). These bands ranged through what is now the Mexican state of Coahuila into what is now mid-Texas. Since the environment in which they lived was often difficult, mainly because of a lack of rainfall, the Coahuiltecans lived precariously because they rarely had a sure food supply.

Granted, the bringing together of these two groups was not perfect, but the indigenous (native) people were willing to become part of the mission system for a number of reasons. The missionaries for example, established an irrigation system that promised a more stable supply of food than they normally enjoyed. Also, diseases brought by Europeans had depleted their numbers, making the Coahuiltecans even more vulnerable to other native groups. The mission communities, however, offered much greater protection.

The missions today (San Jose, San Juan, Concepcion, and Espada) continue to operate as active parishes of the Church and all are open to the public. Through an agreement with the Archdiocese of San Antonio, the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park of the National Park Service administers and maintains the missions.

May St. Francis, patron of the Franciscans and patron of peace, pray for us.

With love,

Fr. Mark

Mexican American Cultural Center

Posted on June 9th, 2008

The Mexican American Cultural Center was established in 1972 as a National Catholic Institute. Its mission is to empower and educate leaders for service in a culturally diverse Church and society. One of the reasons for choosing to make this the final leg on my sabbatical journey is the high quality of the pastoral program here. A good number of priests and lay ministers over the years have told me that the innovative offerings here have been well worth the effort; they have allowed them to serve their parish communities all the better upon their return — and I certainly have an interest in that.

The first week of “classes” here included a lot of history, the dynamics involved in multicultural settings, and the dialogue between faith and culture. Fr. Virgilio Elizondo was one of the founders of MACC and is currently a professor at the University of Notre Dame. His book, Galilean Journey: The Mexican-American Promise was on our reading list this week and proved to be a wonderful read. I used part of the book to write an article for the upcoming first edition of the new St. Mary newsletter (please be sure to look for a copy later this summer). Fr. Elizondo has also written a wonderful book called Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation.

Even with nearly twenty years of parish work under my belt, so to speak, I have found this week to be filled with no less than “revelations” about the fascinating and complex interplay between obvious, external cultural things like food, music, dance, and the arts. But the more intriguing discoveries have come from a new awareness of the internal cultural features of our lives, like our values, traditions, thought patterns, perceptions, and even myths. Here at MACC they refer to these as much like the underside of an iceberg, huge in size and very much hidden to the eye. My hope is that the learning which I’ve been blessed to experience this week (especially with regard to cultural awareness) will be able to be translated into our parish life this autumn, perhaps in the form of workshops or listening sessions. Please pray that the pieces of the program at MACC will continue to fit together as well as they did this first week.

Many weeks ago I made reference to ‘coincidence’ and the number of seeming coincidences that have marked this renewal journey. It was then that I mentioned that some have referred to coincidence as “God’s way of working anonymously.” This past week, one of my teachers told me that a parish priest here in San Antonio has been undergoing treatment for throat cancer and has not been able to serve in his parish. The request which my teacher presented to me was to help in the parish this weekend by offering Masses. I told him that I would be happy to do so and then I asked the name of the parish. He told me, “Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles (Our Lady of the Angels) parish.” Do you remember the name of the monastery in Cuernavaca? Do you remember how many times we have invoked her intercession over these many weeks? Needless to say, it was a joy to go to the parish this weekend and help. The community there offered me a generous welcome and I told them that I think the patroness of their parish had led me to them! Their welcome was so generous that it made me quite homesick for all of you. Many of the kindnesses they showed me reminded me of the graciousness with which you all greet visitors in our parish (and the graciousness with which you treat me). Did I mention I felt homesick?! One of the more fun things at the parish this weekend was that their version of a parish breakfast was not pancakes, but tacos and chorizo sausage!

As classes continue this week, we are also making preparations for a visit to the Mexican/American border next weekend. We will spend much of this week investigating the Scriptures, studying more about cross-cultural dynamics, and spending time in prayer. The staff and students share morning prayer each day and an afternoon Mass in the Center’s beautiful chapel. We pray for you each and every day. Please remember to keep us in your prayers.

As you know well, it is right and proper to ask for the good help of Our Lady of the Angels!

With love,

Fr. Mark