Praying

July 9, 2010 by Amy Welborn

Here is what we did in Mexico, most days:

We’d work (visiting, digging, hammering) in the mornings, then come back and eat, then have siesta – some would indeed sleep, others would wander, go kick a soccer ball, go find ice cream, cool off in the amazingly cool plaza across the road.

Then, in the early evening, we would gather and get ready to go out to the ranchos.

Ranchos are settlements, to put it most simply. They are settlements of landowners who farm (the best they can in a long-term drought) and have animals the land , and the convoluted, shifting history of Mexican agrarian reform is involved in this in ways that I really don’t understand.

There are about 45 ranchos associated with the Church in General Cepeda. None have a resident priest, it should go without saying, and the sense I got was that they had Mass in the ranchos perhaps once every three months.

You can perhaps see the cross on the hill. There was a cross erected, it seemed to me, on a hill above every one of the ranchos.

So an important element of the missionary apostolate in the area is bringing prayer services to the ranchos as frequently as possible. They work with the parish priest to coordinate this aspect of the apostolate.

We divided into three groups, each led by a couple of the permanent missionaries, and after prayer and preparation at the mission house, we would set out – some of the ranchos were fifteen minutes away, others 45 minutes to an hour.

Missionary Santiago (James) with some kids (including mine) at a rancho.

(Most of these missionaries are young Americans, but there is a concerted effort going on to form local people to serve as well)

Some of the ranchos were tiny – the first our group visited had perhaps 6-8 houses grouped around an open space. Others had paved roads and small businesses – cafes, and so on. All featured exhortations to good hygiene and health painted on low walls, often with Tweety-Bird, Winnie-the-Pooh or other characters involved.

One rancho had been almost totally and successfully proselytized by Jehovah’s Witnesses. They said that the JW had built an air-conditioned chapel (I experienced nothing air conditioned in Mexico, myself…) and had even brought a picture of one of the older, long-term Catholic missionaries in General Cepeda, stating that yes, they knew Senora, and implying (if not outright stating – I am not sure) that she approved of the JW. I didn’t go to that rancho, but the group that went engaged in evangelization, as the Spanish-speaking missionaries directly engaged the claims of those who confronted them with JW teaching in an effective and loving, clear way, and that when it looked as though no one at all was coming to the Catholic service, the suggestion was made to just stand outside the chapel and start singing…and people came. Not a lot, but a few – the remaining Catholics in the rancho and perhaps a few more.

It was summer and the light was still high, so not many younger men were around. Older men, women and children – that was who we saw, and mostly women and children.

We honked the van horn as we drove in and then rang the chapel bell three times: Once when we arrived, then a donother when it was about ten minutes to begin, and a final time when we began.

After we piled out of the van, we walked door to door, inviting people to come. We learned what to say: Buenas Noches. Somos missionares Catholicos….

Eventually they would come. Mostly women and small children. Boys in school shirts would hang around outside, maybe venture in for a few minutes, then book it.

(I asked about schooling. One of the missionaries told me that the ranchos had schools, but teachers were required to live in the rancho, which meant they would often disappear midway through the year. )

This is the chapel in the second rancho we visited. Protestants also had a chapel in the place, which seemed to have about twenty or so homes. Several families have joined the Protestants and it has apparently caused (naturally) a great deal of division in the community because it’s, well, divisive.

Night fell, and we prayed, they prayed, we all prayed together. The last rancho we visited had a very nice chapel with many images, included a great Our Lady of Guadalupe framed by a set of lights shaped like roses that would flash on and off, off and on. Unfortunately, as darkness fell, someone attempted to turn the lights on in the chapel and blew a fuse as a result, so even the roses went dark. But the prayer continued, there in the shadows.

Choosing items from bags of donated clothes after the prayer service.

I don’t presume or pretend to know anything substantial or important about the spiritual lives of these people. I don’t know how Mexican political, social and cultural life over the past century has worked to impact their experience of faith. I don’t know what they do in between visits from the missionaries and the priests – the chapels obviously weren’t neglected. I don’t know if the way that their faith has been embodied in traditional devotions is being successfully passed down from the grandmothers or if the younger people are drifting. I don’t know what the Protestants and the Jehovah’s Witnesses do or say to draw them away. I wish I did know more, though. From what I saw and heard (what was translated), they are people who suffer loss, sickness and uncertainty, are worried about their children, who are trying to live out Jesus’ command to love, who look to Christ, Mary and the saints to help them, and who live under a cross on a hill.

At the end of the prayer services, people would be invited to come up for prayer. One night – the second night – I stood at the front of the chapel with the missionaries and others from our group and women came up. Two women who, in succession spoke quickly and quietly, the missionary translated their deep need, and both what both women asked prayer for from the five of us, what they both needed, were my needs, as well.

And once again, I learned about communion.