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Good Fridays Via Crucis at Valle Oriente
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By: Reverend David Blanchard, O.Carm.
The questioning started about a month before Easter, and it was incessant. “When are the Carmelites coming? How many are coming this year? Who is coming? Is Jesús coming back? What about Rogelio and Ever? The reference was to the students from the Casa de Carmen in Mexico and Torreon who have visited us on various occasions over the years, with a tradition established during Holy Week that generates a lot of anticipation and enthusiasm. This year we were blessed with the presence of three Mexican prenovitiate students, accompanied by Joel Moelter, and later in the week by Tom Jordan.
Alejandro Muro is from the parish of Transfiguration in Torreon and is in his second year of formation in Mexico City. Mario Cadena hails from the diocese of San Juan Lagos and is in his first year of formation. Miguel Angel Vielma is the newest member of the formation program. He comes from the same neighborhood as the house of formation in Mexico City and is in his first year of philosophy.
The best way to describe the excitement of our young people anticipating the arrival of these brothers is to compare it to a similar sense of anticipation that we senior students shared at the minor seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts, when the “frats” were coming. We’d know the date and almost the hour that the frats were supposed to arrive, either from Niagara Falls, Ontario, or Whitefriars Hall in Washington, DC, but we’d badger our prefects and teachers, just to confirm what we already knew. “When are the frats coming”?
Young men crave the attention and friendship of those just slightly older than themselves. That was the way it was when I was a teenager, and that is the way it is today at the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes in Calle Real and Cabanas, in El Salvador.
This year, the “frats” arrived at about nine in the evening, on the Friday before Palm Sunday. There was a large number of our youth group waiting to greet the three brothers with a few brief words of welcome along with the traditional ménage of songs; Flos Carmeli,(Flower of Carmel) sung in a Latin American style, a few songs that touch on the theme of friendship, and the revolutionary Salvadoran anthem the Sombrero Azul, (The Blue Sombrero). Then we sat down to review the busy agenda for the following week.
Holy Week is a vacation for the schools in El Salvador and we take advantage of the time available to promote pastoral activities. Mario was involved the Saturday after his arrival helping to initiate the retreat of the Charismatic Renewal. On Sunday we inaugurated a mission for evangelization with 35 young men and women. These young people we “sent forth” in a ceremony at the close of the mass and later in the day they shared their hopes and fears in an afternoon of prayer and reflection at the parish cultural center. The highlight of this afternoon was the reading of a short story prepared by Alejandro Muro. That evening the 35 missionaries planned their first day of home visits to a large rural area of the parish that includes 400 households.
The mission lasted three full days and included visits to three sectors of the parish. The young people were well prepared in their message and style. Our Mexican postulants took a supportive role in motivating them, challenging them to do better and offering suggestions on the different parts of their message. On the last day of the mission, the youth returned to visit the poorest families they had encountered and offered food and other material assistance, in the name of the Church.
The canton of San Laureano is an isolated, rural corner of the municipality that has traditionally received support from the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes during Holy Week and other important festivals. For the second year the community of San Laureano was served by Father Joel Moelter, O.Carm., accompanied by Miguel Angel. The community of San Laureano is accessed by a dirt road, but the web of transportation within the community is comprised of paths, hammock bridges that cross gullies and flat rocks placed in strategic parts of streams and river beds. Miguel Angel is a first year philosophy student at the Casa del Carmen, but in San Laureano he was challenged beyond the texts of Plato and the Skeptics to respond to the pastoral needs of hundreds of children gathered in a Holy Week retreat, liturgical ministers seeking inspiration to allow them to serve as musicians, lectors and altar servers. Miguel preached his first homily in San Laureano, and his second as well.
San Laureano has a rich history of martyrdom. Many catechists, delegates of the word and youth leaders from the community were made to disappear or were tortured and killed during the conflict that tore apart El Salvador for twelve years. The community is largely abandoned by the archdiocese but in the absence of clerical leadership, the lay people, and especially the youth have risen to the pastoral challenge. San Laureano has a number of important celebrations during Holy Week that do not appear in the Roman Sacramentary or list of officially sanctioned celebrations. Miguel Angel hails from Mexico City and has had little experience with rural communities in his own country. He adapted perfectly well to San Laureano, however, and provided support and encouragement throughout the week.
Activities on Thursday, Friday and Saturday followed the normal routine in the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes: processions, the Easter Triduum and preparations for the musicians, lectors and servers. On Sunday, our three brothers were joined by Carmelite Father Tom Jordan for a two day vocation encounter.
The vocation-formation project in Mexico involves two annual retreats, one after Easter and the other at the end of the year. We have one candidate accepted and stationed in Torreon, as a community experience before beginning studies in Mexico City. Another candidate has been accepted and is formalizing his papers in El Salvador before leaving for Mexico. One pre-candidate will leave in a week for Mexico City for the post- Easter retreat. Of the nine participants in the vocational encounter, four have a strong interest in religious life, while the other five are just beginning their time of discernment.
The vocational encounter included some moments of prayer and faith sharing, and presentations by the students and Father Tom Jordan, O.Carm., on vocational discernment, the formation project in Mexico, the charism of the Order and apostolate. All of the participants were motivated and expressed strong interest in continuing a formal discernment process before joining the retreat in Mexico. The parish council asked Tom to return for the feast of the Little Flower and to meet with these young men in vocational discernment another time.
Our Mexican students left to return to Mexico at about 4:30 in the morning on Easter Tuesday. The Monday evening before their departure, a large group of men and women met for the traditional despedida, or goodbye ceremony. Letters were exchanged, greetings sent to Torreon and Mexico City, mostly by the youth who have established friendships over the years. It was a time for giving thanks and sharing hopes for the future. When are the frats coming back to Calle Real.
Maybe we know ourselves, but maybe others know us better.
I’d like to conclude this little report by returning to my opening. I was a little short with one of the young people who were bothering me for a weeks about when are the Carmelites coming. I said to him, “What do you mean? I’m a Carmelite and I’m already here.”
His response: “Yes, I know, but you are better when you are all together”.
A few other comments from “the people”:
“These Carmelites are different from other seminarians. They know how to laugh with people. They are comfortable with us. They share with us and don’t talk at us.”
“The testimony of these young men is what we mean when we talk about a gospel incarnated on the earth”.
Their final comment to the Carmelites from Mexico: “This is your home. Don’t even tell us you are coming. Just come!”
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