Letters
II - Dec.
14, 1998 to May. 12, 1998
from Yecora,
Mexico, Dec. 14, 1998:
Peace in the Lord who comes
to save
us. It's been awhile since I sent a message for e-mail circulation. A
thousand thanks to all you who have written, and to all who remember me
and the mission in your prayers. Mail comes in a bunch: we may not get
any for two weeks, then we get letters mailed anywhere from 2 to 5
weeks back. I got a nice "bunch" last Friday, all of it mailed
ostmarked sometime in November.
The biggest news here: we
formally
received the six candidates into the postulancy Saturday, at a Mass for
the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is also the patron orf the
parish here. It was a wonderful ceremony, very impressive as a "first"
for us and the parish here. We're very pleased with these guys and
their potential, and we feel very grateful for them. The present plan
is to have a two-year postulancy, with a good amount of classes in the
Catholic faith and traditionm, but it also seems that some of them
might be ready for novitiate this next summer.
The question of a novitiate
for our
territory or an inter-jurisdictional novitiate is still undecided.
David went to Mexico City earlier in December for the establishment of
the new (Spanish) vice-province of
Mexico. (Their territory is
central
and southern Mexico, and we have the eight northern states for
recruitment, and by the grace of God a future province.) At that
gathering a common novitiate was discussed, but another meeting is set
for January to further consider common formation.
This has been an extremely
busy time
here, as it has for all of you. Advent here centers around preparation
for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (a novena of processions,
rosaries and Masses), then the nine days of posados leading up to
Christmas.
from Yecora,
Mexico, Mar. 2, 1999:
Peace to you all in your
lenten
journey to Easter.
First of all, thanks to all
of you
who sent Christmas mail...some of which is still arriving! The system
here gives new meaning to "snail mail." (My mother's Christmas package
with some nice new sweats" arrived last week, and there's still plenty
winter left to enjoy them.) I feel very blessed to be remembered in
thought, love and prayer by so many people.
The year is going well and
fast here,
and there's a lot happening as we prepare for next year. We just
finished a vocation retreat for possible postulant candidates for this
fall Eleven young men attended, two of whom are still too young, two
others inappropriate for us, and the other seven vary from moderate to
strong candidates. It would be great to get 3-4 of them anyway as
postulants for September. We've set September 18 as the entrance date
for the postulancy class of 2000!
With at least some of the
present
postulants seeming to be ready for novitiate this summer, we've
petitioned our general Capuchin leadership in Rome for permission to
establish a novitiate house. We hope to have that permission in March.
We have an offer of a kind of farm-retreat compound at Tres Ojitos in
the state Chihuahua, near the city of Madera and a couple hours away
from the city of Chihuahua. The local bishop will give us the use of
this site in exchange for our pastoral care for
five local pueblos and the
Capuchin
Poor Clares in Madera. It looks like a good setting for the novitiate,
so pray with us that we get the permission and our postulants continue
to prepare well for novitiate.
If we set up the novitiate
this
summer, we'll have to divide our personnel here, which will stretch us
next year both in terms of pastoral ministry and formation staff. I'm
not sure if I'd stay with the
parishes and postulants
here in
Yecora or go to the novitiate house. Thanks be to God we do have
another friar from the States joining us in March, Br. EFRAIN SOSSA
from the Province of the Stigmata in New Jersey; and we hope to have
1-2 other friars from the California Province (the host province of the
Yecora mission) also join us this summer. But we're always open for
more missionaries here....
The pastoral ministry
continues to
provide many new experiences for me. In January I went with David (who
is in charge of the indigenous ministry for the Diocese of Obregon) to
a week of studies for leaders and catechists for four different indian
tribes: Mayo, Yacqui, Guarajio and Pima. We met in Guaysiacobe, a Mayo
pueblo (without any running water), to study the Gospel of St. Matthew
and share the various religious traditions and prayer rituals of the
four tribes. It was a rich experience, especially observing the
reverence and spirituality of the people, and participating in their
sacred dances. It was also quite a challenging experience, to try to
figure out how to place the person of Jesus Christ more in the center
of the prayer, ritual and sacramentality of their religious expression.
Locally, the ministry continues to be a mixture of joy and
disillusionment.
I enjoy the opportunities
to preach
and teach, to celebrate and console both in Yecora and the neighboring
pueblos. But ministering here is so often like teaching a high school
class where most of the students don't want to be there! Pulling teeth!
I mentioned in my last letter the history of the absence of the priest
here and the psychology of independence, a kind of "leave me alone"
attitude that has minimal social and ecclesial expectations. In this
ambience baptisms and funerals are big, but the other sacraments and
the Sunday Mass are not strong. The novena of rosaries after a death
will sometimes fill the church, but the daily Mass a couple hours later
will draw three people.
Christmas in the parish was
particularly hard for me as a Catholic and Franciscan, who really
wanted to celebrate BIG but found only a weak interest. Christmas is
not nearly as important to the people as Our Lady of Guadalupe. We have
a ways to go to help people know Mary the mother of Jesus, not just
Mary a kind of religious icon, and Jesus as the center of the
Advent-Christmas celebration. Or, how can we let Mary, Our Lady of
Guadalupe, take us beyond December 12 to the birth of her Son?
The friars here say that
Holy Week
and Easter are likewise weak, so I'm bracing for another
disillusionment. I should add, however, that this is not characteristic
of the Mexican church. Generally, especially further south, the
traditional Christian and Catholic feasts are very lively and well
attended. This lethargy is more the case in parts of the North and
especially here in the isolation of the Sierra, where our parish is
generally recognized as the toughest challenge in the diocese.
In all this I appreciate
the
fraternity very much - it would be hard to minister here alone - and I
have great admiration for past missionaries, including the Capuchins,
for their faith and patience and perseverance. Progress is slow, but
real.
I continue to be impressed
with the
great poverty of so many of the people, both the "white" (Spanish) and
the Pima indians in and around Yecora. The two groups of people who
most frequently come our door are the poor and elderly in Yecora who
need the basics of firewood for their stoves and beans for their pots,
and the Pimas who seek those same things plus medical care. There's
acutually quite a variety of economic levels here in Yecora, a growing
town with new money and developments but also with its marginated and
street people.
I recently had two funerals
for very
poor people. One lady Rafaela was laid out for the vigil in her
wood-slat home, without a casket, on a mat surrounded by four simple
vigil candles and a handful of people. The other, Salomon, was a kind
of street dweller who died but wasn't discovered until almost a day
later. Without embalming here they usually bury within a day, so the
aroma at this funeral after almost two days...well, let's just say I
appreciated more than ever before the use of incense at the funeral
Mass, the comments of Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, and the women
carrying perfume to the holy sepulchre on Easter morning.
It was also the only
funeral I've
celebrated here where there were more men (his street buddies) than
women in the church.
The papal visit here was a
huge and
impressive national event. None of us from Yecora went to Mexico, but
we watched a good bit on television. The media coverage being very
supportive and positive, and it was refreshing to be away from the
cynicism of so much of the U.S. reporting. I hear that the St. Louis
visit was very enthusiastic and graced by a number of our friars and
youth from our ministries. I was also delighted that the governor of
Missouri commuted a death sentence in response to the Pope's plea.
Last week I had the
opportunity to
travel to Mexico City to attend the Vice-Province assembly of the
Spanish Capuchins, the other Capuchin jurisdiction here in Mexico. My
attendance there was part of our efforts at colloboration between the
two groups, and it was also good to be able to spend time with their
formation friars and visit the postulancy program in Puebla. The
Assembly focused on the "Propositions" from the recent Plenary Council
of the Order on the subject of Poverty.
While in Mexico I did a
little
sight-seeing, did some shopping for books for our libraries, and
visited the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe. I had been to the
Basilica once before, but it was my first time on the city's Metro
(subway) system. It's quite well-done and moves lots of people in that
city of 20 million.
On the gardening front,
we've
recently added a statue of St. Francis and a fountain in the square
outside the dining room. Adds a little class to the place. You should
come and see it..... It takes a lot of water these days to do some
minimal gardening, since we haven't had any rain since December - and
we're entering the dryest season, till rains return in June.
In the "another new
experience"
column, I assisted at a delivery a couple days back in our guest room
here at the pastoral house. Many indigenous ask for hospitality here if
they have business in Yecora and can't catch a ride back home (hardly
any have cars) before dark. A pregnant Pima lady from a neighboring
village was spending the night here, having tried to visit the doctor
and hoping for an appointment in the morning. Well the baby didn't
wait, and about 6:00 am this lady's mother, who was with her, came to
my room asking for help. Luckily I was able to reach the local doctor
who came for the actual delivery. I stayed in the background and
provided the clean sheets and water, but I think I at least merit the
new little guy's being named "Memo" (Spanish for "Bill".)
As you can tell from my
comments
above, about formation next year, I'll be staying on here in Yecora for
awhile. Cuba does seem to be opening up a bit to U.S. priests, and it
remains an interest of mine. But the missionary and formation need is
definite and immediate here, especially if we expand this summer, so I
told the California province to count on me for at least another year.
from Yecora,
Mexico, May 12, 1999:
Peace to you all in the
Spirit of
Jesus. It was good to see many of you, the friars of my province and
most of my family, during my brief visit for our provincial assembly in
April. I appreciated the opportunity to give a short report to the
friars and I'm very grateful for your support of my work and the
mission here.
I love this time of year:
the
Easter-Pentecost cycle, flowers of spring, fresh mornings. It's a
season full of new life!
Here in the Sierra it's
also a tough
season for the farmers, especially this year which is one of the driest
on record. Pastures are brown and rains won't start for another month,
so farmers are either importing expensive hay, alfalfa, etc. or selling
their cattle. Water is more critical, and in some pueblos even water
for houses is in short supply. In a town/parish we visit, La
Concepcion, only one well (spring) has water so the families take turns
around the clock, one hour every other day, filling their containers to
carry back to their houses.
Here in Yecora we have a
good water
supply, thanks be to God, and we can even water the roses and a few
tomatoe plants we're started. The soil is poor, but there are plenty of
cow chips around to enrich it. I'm just learning the secrets of
cultivation in this climate, but the folks who've been around for many
years have some beautiful flower gardens and share them generously as
bouquets for our church altar and various shrines.
It's interesting to note
the reversal
of seasons here from the US heartland: May is dry but August wet; the
prime months for grass and crops are late summer and fall; wheat is
planted in June and harvested in October. (As is marijuana!)
We have lots of movement
going on in
the fraternity and pastoral ministry these months. Our biggest news is
the opening of a second house in Tres Ojitos, near the city of Madera,
in the state of
Chihuahua. Thanks be to God
we
accepted five postulants for the novitiate, so we will begin our
novitiate at St. Fidelis Friary in Tres Ojitos on July 21. This is a
historic moment, the first expansion into a second fraternity since the
beginning of the mission in 1985.
To prepare the physical
site (a
former retreat house for the diocese) and the novitiate program, four
friars left here for Tres Ojitos on May 2: Fr. BILL TRAUBA who had been
here 13 years, Bro. JIM DOYLE who served here 11 years, and two new
missionaries Fr. MICHAEL RONAYNE and Bro.
EFRAIN SOSA. Efrain is from
the
Province of the Stigmata of St. Francis (New Jersey), the others all
from Our Lady of the Angels Province (California.) They will run the
novitiate program and serve five little towns in the area, plus act as
chaplains to a community of Capuchin Poor Clare sisters in Madera.
That leaves three friars
here for
next year: Fr. DAVID BEAUMONT. Bro. ANSELMO AQUIRRE, and myself. Yikes!
It will be a much smaller community for the postulancy and the parish
ministry, but with careful planning we can make it work. Pray for us
here as we prepare for next year, and also pray for the novitiate
community that it gets off to a good start.
For me personally it will
mean taking
on a few more responsibilities in the fraternity and postulancy, but it
will especially expand my pastoral work on weekends. I'll take care of
the 12 towns that Bill served, using a rotation where I'm here two
Sundays a month and in the towns two Sundays and three Saturdays a
month. The towns are within a two-hour driving radius of Yecora, so
that's lots of "tire time" over rugged roads on weekends! David will
cover Yecora the other two Sundays, and work in other towns (mostly
with the Pima indians) his weekends away. We'll try to have one Mass a
month in the towns, at least the larger ones, and provide catechetics
and other pastoral services in our monthly visits.
Perhaps we can work some of
the
postulants into weekend apostolates, especially in religious education.
We don't know yet how many
postulants
we'll have for next year. We hope for 4-5, perhaps including one who
left last year but wants to return. One applicant is a Mayo indian, so
we'll have our first ndigenous vocation - wonderful!
Liturgically speaking May
here is
like most parishes, busy with First Communions and Confirmations, and a
few Quinceaneras thrown in. Friday and Saturday we'll have large
celebrations in honor of San Isidro, and the Ascension here in Mexico
is observed this Sunday.
I've begun my rounds of the
towns,
and I see that a major challenge is catechesis, especially a solid
preparation for the sacraments. A high priority will have to be
training catechists in those pueblos that don't have them. There also
appear to be quite a few couples married civilly that are willing to be
married in the church, so I want to emphasize that too, so that can
receive the Eucharist.
As we wrap up the
postulancy year,
I'll take the postulants for a couple days next week to San Carlos, a
(largely American) beach resort on the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of
California). It'll be our end-of-year outing, and my first time to the
coast since I've been in Mexico.
That's it for now from
Yecora. You're
all in my prayers and daily Eucharist, and please remember me to the
Lord.
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