A LATE NIGHT MUSING FROM THE PETĖN

By David Jimenez

Originally published in the Spring 2013 Edition of the 

Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Vocations Newsletter
www.maryknollvocations.org

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Late at night in the village of Guadalupe in the Petén region of Guatemala, I encountered what seemed to be an inexplicable presence. Removed from the busy lights and bustle of the city, the sky glimmered with an infinite number of stars.  The wonderful winter breeze felt as refreshing as a summer evening back home.  The small chapel of the town soon filled as stoic, quiet abuelitas took their smiling, adorable nietas into this holy place.

David Jimenez

The young children became fascinated with the saint cards and images of Mary and Jesus brought by our group, captivated by something so simple and seemingly unremarkable.  One could only grin at the innocent giggles and smiles of the children as they heard our broken Spanish and even more awful Q’eqchi'.  The Mass erupted with the sound of boisterous instruments and songs.  Although our Maryknoll Priests and Maryknoll Brother played their part, it was the laity that really brought life to the ceremony as they read the Word of God, surrounded the altar with incense, venerated the Eucharist, and prayed to La Virgen de Guadalupe.  During the Mass, four languages of Spanish, Q’eqchi', English, and Latin were all spoken at one point, the best possible example of the universal Church.  During the handshakes of peace, one could see the friendliness, cheerfulness, and respect that everyone held for one another.  Indeed, it was not the firm handshake one encounters in the United States, one of firmness, strength, and dominance.  It is instead a very warm touch of hands, a sign of communion and friendship.  Far from the great cathedrals of Paris and Rome, one could feel more in this tiny chapel the presence of God than anywhere in the world.

Br. Marty Shea, MM

But was this simply some form of outdated religious piety, Marx’s “opium of the people” whose strong emotional power held no relation to world?  Far from it; rather throughout our trip, we encountered the Catholic faith as a lived reality and commitment.  As we toured a nursing home for elderly people, we saw a small, passionate staff who addressed all of them as abuelitos, grandmothers and grandfathers who needed to be shown continued love in the twilight of their lives.  We walked with the family of Caesar through the new agricultural co-op his village has created, a project that he hopes honors God’s creation and brings a decent, independent livelihood to the community.  In every hacienda, we encountered a corps of committed catechists, lectors, and leaders from Delegates of the Word or Catholic Action who sought to build the spiritual and material life of their home.  In the mornings in Flores, we would see the local bishop and joyful nuns walk young orphans to school.  As we toured the houses of families, we encountered beautifully constructed altars where we lifted up together our prayers and hopes.  We walked with Brother Marty through one town, built by scattered refugees from around the region on vacant land.  There they had successfully built their own farms, businesses, schools, and clinic.  During the evenings, we heard the remarkable stories of our Maryknoll Priests and Maryknoll Brother whose continued labors and sacrifices during the horrors of 1970’s and 1980’s spoke to God’s call for us to be close to the “least of these” in their greatest trials.  During a home visit, one of the young leaders in Guadalupe said that he desired to be a Trabajador de Cristo, “Worker of Christ”.  Catholics here are not passive members of the Church but engaged participants.  For the people of Guatemala, faith is not simply a set of beliefs, rituals, or a cultural tradition.  It is the core and nucleus of their lives, the communion with God and neighbor that illuminates every action and thing.

As a fractured Church in the United States seeks to rediscover its own identity and purpose, my encounter with the Church of Latin America is a powerful reminder to return to our core.  As Father David said, the “Church must be about people not issues”.  We must, as the people of the Petén do every day, let Christ enter into our lives, sharing intimately in our struggles, poverty, and deepest hopes.  We must not treat Christ as an outdated icon, a political tool, or a cultural artifact, but a person who invites us to walk with him, him, to follow him, and labor with him to build the Kingdom of God.  Whether as a Maryknoll or Jesuit, religious or lay person, I hope to take on the same mission that the ordinary people of Guatemala continue to make, the same commitment the Lord revealed to Saint Ignatius of Loyola:

"It is my will to win over the whole world, to overcome evil with good, hatred with love, to conquer all the forces of death - whatever obstacles there are that block the sharing of life between God and mankind.  Whoever wishes to join me in this mission must be willing to labor with me, and so by following me in my suffering and struggle may share in my glory".

[David Jimenez is finishing his freshman year at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.  He joined us for our January 2013 Mission  Immersion Experience to Guatemala along with Daniel Mello of New Bedford, Massachusetts]

Mission: More than a Transaction

Pick a project, write a check.  For many of us in US parishes, this sums up our relationship with the poor beyond our borders.

Over the past year, I have been serving as a mission adviser for a budding twinning relationship between a parish in the Archdiocese of Seattle and a parish in Haiti.  Sister parish relationships can be beautiful, strong relationships that affirm the dignity of all partners, but they can also quickly fall into the above trap.

Let's look a common scenario: a parish in the US enters into a twinning relationship and asks the other pastor right away, "What do you need?"  The pastor of the parish in the developing country expresses a need to provide year-round salary for his teachers.  He explains that not being able to pay them during the three months of summer means that many (understandably) move on to other jobs/schools (he can abrely pay them during the school year, as it is).  The parish in the US immediately gets some figures together, makes calculations, and budgets out what it would cost to cover the teachers' salaries for the year.

Sounds good, right?  But many parishes trying to offer support do not stop and reflect: Are we in a strong enough relationship with this parish yet to make these types of decisions?  Have we met and heard from the teachers at the school?  Do we know the needs of the community?  Have we asked the questions that we should ask to truly work with this community towards a mutual goal?

Looking at this specific issue, teacher salaries, let's examine an approach of learning before doing.  US parishes usually (or should!) send members to visit their partners at least once per year.  During a visit, they can take the opportunity to learn more about the problem from the point of view of the pastor and the rest of the community.  It is a time when they can ask, "WHY can't you afford to pay your teachers?"

That simple question, "Why?", may be one of the most important questions we can ask of our partners, especially as we try to learn from them about their communities.  In this case, the pastor may respond, "Because the families cannot afford tuition."  The typical US response would be, "Well, let's pay for tuition, then."  But what would happen if we instead asked, "Why can't the families afford the tuition?"  And, eventually, "What can we do together to help address this problem?"

By respectfully learning about the problems that our partner communities face from their perspective, we can together figure out ways for our partners to become what Kim Marie Lamberty of CRS calls "protagonists in their own development."  We learned in our group, for example, of a parish that quickly began paying the salaries of teachers at their sister parish, and five years into the relationship the sister parish is completely dependent on this support to function.  In contrast, we were also told of a parish that helped their sister parish community set up a goat cooperative that not only helps families afford to send their kids to school, but is sustainable within the community.

When we enter into relationship with people suffering from extreme poverty, we often feel an overwhelming need to do whatever we can as quickly as we can.  I know that members of our group struggle with the feeling that little is "getting done" so far.  But we can look at the examples above to see what happens when we take the time to enter into relationship with our partners, and start by asking questions instead of assuming that we have all the answers.

Kevin Foy is a mission promoter for the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in the Pacific Northwest.

Please Don't Blame My Friends For Boston

As the tragedy unfolded in Boston, many prayers welled up in me but one kept surfacing. I hoped and prayed that the terrorists would not be Muslim.   I'm not sure that would have been my prayer a year ago or even entered my consciousness as a concern. But as the news broke that the suspects were Muslim, my heart sank and I became worried for my Muslim friends in San Jose and others around the country that they would be become the targets by association of people's rage and distrust. Why would that be my concern now when it wasn't much of a concern before?

The simple answer is that now I have friends who are Muslims. It is amazing how things change when people who are known to you only as a category become friends and you learn that there is far more that you share in common than that which separates you. For me this happened over the course of the last year when I participated in two retreats that included a small groups of Christians and Muslims who came to spend the weekend together at our Maryknoll place in the San Francisco Bay Area.

These retreats were patterned after a historic encounter almost 800 years ago between the Christian, Francis of Assisi, and Malik-al-Kamil, an Egyptian sultan during the Crusades. There was only one ground rule for the retreat; there would be no expectation that anyone would be converted from one side to the other. And, only one goal or hope, to see if we could live together, eat together and pray together for a weekend. Before we gathered the first time, there was much anxiety whether this goal could be met. By the time we gathered again a year later, the only concern was whether the amazing success of the first time could possibly be repeated. By the grace of God, the second gathering which happened a couple weeks ago, was even deeper and more gratifying.

The first time we gathered as strangers, but left as friends. Most of that transformation happened around the dining room table. Because of the Muslim dietary requirements, our Muslim friends graciously provided the meals and with most of them being from Turkey, we were treated to delicious Turkish cuisine. Stories and experiences were shared over tea and coffee. Awkward silences at the first meals quickly changed to laughter and sharing and by Sunday we found it hard to leave the warm sharing around the table.  

Our sessions together likewise produced much fruit. At first we observed each other praying with great curiosity and through many questions and sharing learned from each other how we approach the same God through prayer. And, at some point we seemed to have crossed a line where it wasn't merely observation but that we were somehow praying together despite coming from different religious traditions. I think in some ways it happened not out of some formal theological accommodation but rather a simple recognition that it was the same God who viewed us as his children and our growing awareness that we are brothers and sisters of that one God But I must admit, as one who through ordination took on a goal of praying Christian Prayer in the morning and evening that I was humbled by their discipline of praying five times a day and how it seemed to mark and define for them, and for us in their company, the very flow of time into the rhythm of God. In other words, we never went too long without that reminder to bring ourselves back into the awareness of God through prayer as we stopped and moved the furniture to the side so that they could spread out the prayer rugs.

Our sessions of trying to ground ourselves in the story of Francis and the Sultan and our attempts to share our own understandings of faith with each other had two effects. It not only deepened our own sense of our own faith but expanded our horizons in understanding each other's faith experience. I struggled, in a good way, to articulate who Jesus was to me to my Muslim partner and I listened intently and with growing curiosity as he described who Muhammad was to him. Unable to rely on churchy language with assumed meaning it was a dialogue of the heart and personal experience.  

As we gently probed each other with questions of genuine interest, I began to realize who Jesus really is to me in a different and deeper way as I began to see it through the eyes of my new friend. And, as he told me about Muhammad and what Islam meant to him, I realized how ignorant I was about Islam and some of my preconceptions began to fall away with new realizations. I was deeply impressed by his spirituality that was rooted in a deep trust and submission to the will of God, an issue that touched my own struggles of trying to trust God more at a radical level.

Perhaps in many ways, what touched my heart the most were the stories they shared of what it meant for them to be new immigrants. As a third generation immigrant, I can only imagine the challenges and opportunities that my grandparents faced as children when they came from Italy and Poland. However as I listened to my friends I was struck not only by the challenges they faced as new citizens trying to navigate a different language and culture, but the pain they've encountered as being seen as the "other" because of their religion, and moreover, sometimes being viewed the "enemy" particularly since 9/11.

As I listened to their stories at first I felt outrage for them that they were treated with prejudice. How could they be painted with the same brush? Would not I too be upset if I were lumped in with extremist Christians who resorted to violence, like the KKK? However, as I reflected further, I realized the roots of the disease of prejudice within myself and how easy it is to so quickly paint the other as not only a stranger, but as a threat, and even as the enemy.

I recently saw the film, "Argo" about the crisis in the early 1980s when the Americans were taken hostages in Iran. It was a painful reminder for me of my reaction as a college student then and the horrible sign we made and put in our window blaming the Iranian students who were in our own community and telling them to go home. I faced the painful reality of looking within myself to see my own tendencies to judge and to hate.

So, the recent news of the terrorism in Boston took on another level of concern for me. Not only immediate pain of the victims and their families, not only the growing fear of violence that violates everyone’s sense of security, but now also a concern for how the actions of a couple fanatics might create further prejudice and animosity against my new friends who happened to also be Muslims. And, once again it caused me take that painful look inside myself to nip the tendency to want to direct my fear and anger at others who have nothing to do what happened in a futile hope that it will somehow make me feel more secure and less unsettled. However, thankfully I'm drawn to the example of deep faith from my Muslim friends and reminded in my own Christian tradition that the answer to confronting that fear is not to lash out, particularly in hate or violence, but rather to trust deeper in God and follow the path of peace.

Matt Dulka is a deacon of the Oakland Diocese in full time ministry with the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Accompanying an Immersion Group to Haiti

Published originally in Not So Far Afield Volume 22 Number 1

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In the days leading up to a trip to Haiti, I felt like I really should not be going.  With a busy life at work and home, and with my wife being pregnant, it just seemed like a crazy a thing to be doing.  But I went anyway…

Getting off of the plane in Port-au-Prince and working my way through customs and baggage claim was an overwhelming experience. I quickly instructed others in my group to simply say “No, mési,” (“No, thank you) to men offering to “help” with our bags, and they followed my lead. In the days leading up to this visit to Haiti, I felt like I really should not be going. Soon, we were in a van riding through the streets of Port-au-Prince, which swelled with the over three million Haitians that populate the city. As the sights and sounds of the city enveloped us – people buying and selling goods, intense traffic, Red Cross vehicles, UN trucks mounted with machine guns – I suddenly felt that God was calling me to be there.

As a mission promoter for the Maryknoll Society, my role was to provide a spiritual component on this parish immersion experience. I hoped to help the group place their experiences in the larger context of God’s mission. As part of this task, each night I led prayer and reflection on one of the Beatitudes, a strategy that I had learned from Matt Rousso, a veteran Maryknoll promoter. On the third day of our journey, we visited a feeding program in Port-au-Prince. A local woman, Madame Samson, approached a non-profit twenty years ago with a proposition: if they provided the funds, she would prepare a hot meal six days a week for the neighborhood children. For many, this would be the only full meal that they would receive each day. Now in her eighties, she still fulfills this duty for 75 local kids.

When we visited, we met a young woman named Gloria, 17. She spoke impeccable English, which she had largely taught herself by watching television shows from the US. She was helping out with feeding the kids, so I asked her how long she had helped out in this program. It was the wrong question! She explained that she had been receiving meals there since she was a little girl. Sure enough, after the others were fed, she, too, sat down to eat. We also met Mackenson, 19. He had graduated high school and now needed work. (Haiti has a 70% unemployment rate.) He asked members of our group if they could get him a job. When he learned that one of us was a priest, he asked that he pray for him.

That evening, I led the group in reflection. Our Beatitude, fittingly enough, was “Blessed are the Meek…” I explained that the meek are sometimes described as those who “hunger for bread and thirst for dignity.” And here we had just witnessed this in raw form: the young people like Gloria that rely on Madame Samson for their daily beans and rice; people like Mackenson who thirst for the dignity of work and opportunity. On the last night of our immersion in Haiti, members of the group thanked me warmly for the reflections that I led, and commented on how much they looked forward to them each night.

I have come to appreciate more and more the role of Maryknoll in accompanying people towards a deeper experience of faith. The presence of Christ in the poor and vulnerable is so central to our faith that if we do not choose to encounter it directly, we are denying ourselves a deeper relationship with God. As a mission promoter, I am privileged to play some small part in helping people make sense of these experiences. Needless to say, I no longer doubt why I went to Haiti!

Mackenson and Gloria with a member or our immersion group

Who Am I in the Good Friday Story?

Pilgrims from all across Central America flock to Esquipulas, Guatemala, where the basilica houses El Cristo Negro - the Black Christ.  The dark hue of Jesus' body on this large crucifix carries great meaning for many Central Americans, especially those of indigenous descent, who see this Christ representing them more than the traditional western (Caucasian) representations.

As you make your way through the back of the basilica towards El Cristo Negro, you pass a number of images and statues.  One statue, encased in glass, shows Jesus crawling on his hands and knees, wounded and bleeding. The glass that surrounds El Cristo Negro itself is smudged with the hand prints of those that reach out to be closer to the suffering Christ - many even hold their babies up to the glass.

For many people across the globe, the suffering of Christ is central to their every day reality.  The crucifixion speaks to how God shares their burdens, and does so that they might find comfort and salvation.  When I consider many of the people that I met in Guatemala, I think about where I as a US citizen and global citizen of means fit into the Good Friday story.  Am I like Christ, who suffers for God's people?  Am I like Peter, who denies him?  Pilate, who condemns him?  Or even like Judas, who betrays him?

As a Maryknoll Mission Educator, one of the questions that I often need to address is, "Why do you focus on the needs of people across the globe when their is so much need here in the US?"  As someone that has worked with people in need in the US, answering that question has been part of my own personal journey, as well.  All Christians know on some level that God calls us to be in relationship with our neighbors, and that our "neighbors" are actually all people, be they in our own community or half a world away.  But, as I have seen in places like Guatemala, the answer to the above question can be even more difficult and challenging.

The fact of the matter is that we are not only called to be in relationship with our brothers and sisters around the world, especially those most in need.  The truth is that we already are in relationship with them, and in many cases the nature of this relationship does not reflect Gospel values.  Many US citizens are unaware, for instance, that the US Government intervened to suppress a labor and indigenous rights movement that spawned a civil war in Guatemala that lasted until the mid-1990s.  It did so on behalf of US fruit companies with a vested interest in these laborers not being treated fairly.

Many of us also do not know that by subsidizing our own corn industry, we put the Guatemalan corn industry out of business.  (Corn is a staple of the Guatemalan diet, and with global corn prices now on the rise, many Guatemalans cannot afford imported corn and it is no longer grown on a large scale locally.  The average Guatemalan spends 2/3 of her income on food.)  Many do not know that much of the farmland in Guatemala is owned by US and Canadian palm olive oil, coffee, and fruit companies.  As a result, despite a high GDP, Guatemala has the second highest level of income inequality in Central and South America.

There are other examples of how our relationship with Guatemalans - as well as many other people around the world - is harmful and selfish.  If we truly believe Christ's words that he is present in the faces of those in need, then we need to ask ourselves who we are in his story.  One of the paths of Christian mission outlined by Pope John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio is reconciliation.  In many cases, we are called to reconcile relationships that we may not even know existed.  As we celebrate the new life of the Resurrection this Easter, let us recognize that every relationship, every mistake, every harmful or neglectful act, is part of the story of again finding, serving, and being Christ in the world.

Who will you be in the Good Friday story?

Mission for Lent

Lent is fast approaching and as many of us do, I start thinking about what I want to learn and experience this year.  In my search and discernment, I encountered an old letter from Fr. Bob McCahill, M.M., Maryknoll missioner in Bangladesh.  I have a poster of Fr. Bob hanging in my office.  The photo is of him (known locally as Brother Bob) carrying a young man in his arms through the halls of a hospital in the capital city.  The poster represents the Fifth Commandment (You Shall Not Kill) from the Maryknoll 10 Commandments set of posters.  Fr. Bob has his familiar look of determination on his face as he carries the young man in for treatment.  Facilitating the healing of the very sick and disabled comprises the greater part of Fr. Bob's ministry in Bangladesh.  Moving from village to village every 3 years and attending to one person at a time may seem like a drop in the bucket but each drop is a sacred life.  You Shall Not Kill means more than not taking someone else's life, a commandment most of us have no trouble obeying.  It means preserving life, returning life, giving life, wherever possible.  Not only physical life, but mental and spiritual life. 

Lent is traditionally a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  I've always thought that almsgiving should be the unaviodable response to prayer and fasting, an act of charity meant to bring me closer to God and to my brothers and sisters.  If I look at the word charity from a superficial perspective, it almost seems to be something I do for myself...an act I could choose to do or not, depending on how serious I want to be about this Lenten ritual.  But shouldn't it really be an act of justice?  An attempt to level the playing field in the beggar's favor?  The recipient of the alms, the beggar, has no luxury of choice.  Begging is an absolute requirement to preserving her life and it's more than an act of humility on her part.  It deserves to be met with more than a act of charity.

Anyway, back to the letter.  Fr. Bob tells of Kookee, a disabled, middle-aged woman who begs door to door to support herself and her mother.  Kookee has just returned from making her daily rounds.  She sat in the corner tea stall of the bazaar counting the coins people had given her.  Counting was difficult; her eyes are bad.  Finally she finished.  Her day's income amounted to 16 takas (20 cents U.S.) Then Kookee treated herself to a cup of tea - poured into a saucer to make it easier to soak a small piece of hardened bread.  It was both her breakfast and a reward for a successful Friday morning begging.  Her livelihood depends on one of the five pillars of Islam (the predominant religion in Bangladesh): almsgiving.

Kookee, like the poor everywhere, deserve justice.  Instead of reflecting on what almsgiving is meant to do for me, I thought about what the beggar gives me, a person who never goes hungry.  Without romanticizing the poor, I realized that she gives me the gift of being able to participate in the creative action of God's Mission.  Not to make me a better Christian, although that may or may not be a side effect, but to preserve life in God's creation, to be an active participant in creating justice and from justice comes peace.  

Our Own Journey to Damascus

The main thing that I remember learning about St. Paul when I was young is that he once persecuted Christians, had a moment of conversion, and went on to spread the Church.  Considering Paul's conversion in the reading for today, however, I wonder if we are too easy on ourselves in this account.  Do we look at this story and say, "He hated our way, then came to his senses and realized that we are right"?  Or do we recognize the challenge that this story presents to us, especially in our own moments of righteous certitude?  Do we dare to realize that it was God's way, not our own, that Saul hated?

Before his conversion, Saul is not setting out to make the world a worse place.  He describes himself as having been "zealous for God" and says that he "persecuted this Way to death."  Saul was a man of conviction, a man believing that he was on a righteous mission.  And, in that sense of righteousness, he became blind to the ways of God - ways of love and not fear, ways of creation and not destruction.  

In traveling to Damascus to punish those of whom he disapproved, he encounters Jesus.  What strikes me about this encounter is that Jesus, whom Paul had never met, does not ask him, "Why are you persecuting Christians?" but rather, "Why are you persecuting me?"  As Christians, we are taught to believe that Christ is present in our brothers and sisters, and that our brothers and sisters are all people.  The question that we have to ask ourselves is, "If Saul had been persecuting others besides Christians, would he still have been persecuting Christ?"

This is the challenge laid out before us today.  We see where the Kingdom of God is not breaking through, and many of us feel called to defend certain members of our human family.  We may feel called in a particular way to defend the poor, the ill, the unborn, the victim of abuse, the victim of war, the homeless in the US, the migrant, the trafficked and exploited, or those living in struggling countries and communities across the globe.  As Christians, we understand that all of these people ought to be treated as brothers and sisters according to Christ.  

The harder truth to embrace is that only the Way of God can enact the will of God.  And the Way of God is love.  If we persecute those that oppress, if we commit violence in action, word, or thought against those that we see as rejecting God's will, then we reject God's will ourselves.  We begin to focus on our own mission, a mission of tearing down enemies, whom Jesus told us to love.  Like Saul, we often find ourselves on a road to Damascus - a road of self-righteousness rather than righteousness, a road of destruction rather than creation, of division rather than unity.  Like Paul, we need to regain our sight and see Him, especially in those we find it most difficult to love.