Easter update

Easter People: James, Margaret, birthdayboy Michael, Jenna, Josh, Mary
Sign: complements of my grandmother, Kay Lynch :)

Lent, the Tridium, and Easter Season have always seemed to create a sacred time for me. I’ve decided that because at Easter, unlike other holidays, there are so many less commercial distractions, it seems so much easier to keep it about what it is REALLY about! The “reason for the season” is crystal clear. Being away from home, I remember clearly the family and church traditions I participated in at St. Peter’s. I miss the familiarity and the routine, though I know there is brilliant beauty in the new experiences I have been a part of here…

Holy Thursday mass was an intimate experience. Josh and I went to Adolfo Reyes, one of the Christian-based communities where Father Joe Mulligan, our in-country coordinator, serves as the pastor. I recognized immediately how he is very much a Shepard-like figure in this community of women, gathered around the Word. The church was small, though decorated with posters of Oscar Romero and the UCA martyrs, a hand-made ornament that Joe brought back from Palestine, and many flowers, candles, and cloths. The women arranged the benches to form a big table that we all sat around to celebrate the mass of the Last Supper, and celebrating the first mass! The women brought food to share afterwards which they placed on the table. It was so real to sit around a long rectangular table, with a bunch of women and children, and Joe, so simple and honest, remembering that which Christ taught us to do. And of course, the washing of the feet! A Nicaraguan woman washed my right foot! Talk about humbling. After the mass the women served the food, a bit for everyone, like the loaves and the fishes, and I left feeling so loved and welcomed.

And Good Friday, whoa that was cool! We participated as a community in a Stations of the Cross, Against the War in Iraq and For Peace, around Managua… well, not all around Managua… around two blocks, from the old US Embassy to the new US Embassy. Christ is still being condemned, carrying the cross, falling, and being nailed in the daily struggles of the people. Each station was read and reflected on by a different community in Nicaragua, to demonstrate how the Cross is still being carried today. Among these included a community of widows from Chichigalpa who were representing their campesino (farmer) husbands, who have died because of the pesticides that large sugar companies are using. Another was a community from Arenal, where 1500 people do not have access to potable water. This community has been working for years with the water company to try to make this possible. We as JVs prayed the 9th Station, Jesus falls a Third Time, and spoke about the situation in Guantanamo – the “erosion of human rights” that has been occurring for too long. Too many falls, too many generations, too many presidents that have let this go on. What is next from these struggles, is the cross, and death, and so we asked how long do we let this go on for? There were more than 100 of us, all united in this Way of the Cross, remembering how Jesus was killed because he spoke out against the hypocrites, the wealthy, the imperialism, the lies, the injustice, the hatred and discrimination, and responding to the call to model as Christians. I felt honored to walk with the Nicaraguans, Joe, and my community members in this struggle, remembering the Passion of Christ and the Passion of the People.