VIA CRUCIS

On Wednesday, March 3, Lynn and I accepted an invitation to attend Mass and a stations of the cross ceremony in our neighborhood.  The invitation appeared on a photocopied sheet of paper posted on the outer door of our host family's home. To be sure we would arrive on time, we decided to find the house a day ahead of schedule so we followed the directions to the  address on the invitation and came to the door of a house only about a block away.  The houses here are surrounded by high walls and have locked gates or doors.  This one was no different, but a similar photocopied invitation indicated that we were in the right place.

On the following evening we returned at 6:30 and pressed the doorbell.  A middle-aged man with a kind face soon greeted us and led us in.  He was dressed in plain clothes, but we soon learned that he was Padre Tito and that this structure behind the high walls was a house of study for seminarians. The chapel was a large room just to the right of the foyer.  About fifteen people were already there--some seated, some standing close and chatting.  In the back were three young men, two holding guitars.  All seemed to be in good spirits, and soon a second priest, Juan, was welcoming us in English about equal to the Spanish we used to thank him for the invitation. No importante because our limited words were only a part of our communication: he could tell we wanted to be there and we could tell that we were welcome.  Juan introduced us to a neatly dressed woman and withdrew to prepare for celebrating the Mass. This woman turned out to be the mother of our host family's father.  In a moment we were laughing together and sharing the news we had heard of her recent birthday and how her three of her children--our host Henry, his brother and sister--had celebrated her birthday by hiring a mariachi band to stop by her house (just two houses down from ours) at midnight and serenade her. It was good to  get to know the person who lives on the other side of the wall we pass each day on our way to Spanish classes at the Maryknoll Language Institute, the wall covered with cascades of flowers I probably mistakenly call drops of gold. It was good to learn that before retirement she had been a professor.  She was energetic and observant, and when she welcomed us to the neighborhood, she did seem to speak for the entire neighborhood.  Others I recognized in the congregation were the Franciscan Sisters who lived together in a house two blocks from us, among them the one from Italy who greets me with a smile when I jog past her sometimes in the early morning.

Through words and song we drew closer during the course of the Mass and shared the body of Christ.  Our common beliefs united us.  Following Mass we were all invited in to the social hall to drink cups of api, eat empanadas, and share information about ourselves.  Most people were from the neighborhood, but several were from other Latin American countries, and Lynn and I, the only two from the United States, were welcomed again. The three young men of the choir were seminarians. Gradually people began to drift out of the social hall.  Lynn and I presumed they were returning to the chapel for the stations of the cross, but when we returned there we saw that no one was there. Confused, we thanked Padres Tito and Juan and left. As we started walking along the dark street back home, we wondered how we could've misunderstood about the stations of the cross and wondered if maybe we had missed something because of our limited Spanish.

On our way back we saw a light ahead at one of the doorways and saw several people gathered around. We stopped and had our answer about the stations of the cross.  Here at the gateway to this house the family was preparing one of the stations: a table covered with a white table cloth, images of Christ, Mary, angels, a wooden cross, candles, flowers, water, salt.  As we looked up and down the street we saw other stations being erected and learned that the fourteen stations were arranged at the gateways of fourteen homes at intervals around the block on which we lived.  We followed others to the first station and walked and sang in procession with them and the seminarians with guitars, stopping at each station for the announcement of Christ's sufferings and for the benediction.  To our surprise the gateway of our hosts' home was the final station.  (A neighbor took a photo of Lynn and me with our hosts, Henry and Lily.) This blessing seemed to complete the blessing of houses with the koa fires honoring Pachamama during Carnaval.

I suppose a block party can bring about good spirits among neighbors, and it would be wrong to idealize the faith of all of the participants, ours included.  We were not trooping around the block in lock-step bliss.  But it was beautiful to see this ceremony reverencing Christ's acceptance of sufferings extended from the church and into the homes and lives of the people nearby.  And it was beautiful to see so many people voluntarily join together in a peaceful ceremony of shared belief to express their faith.