Christmas mourning

In the cycle of violence which has gripped our city (Ciudad Juarez, Mexico) for the last two years, I have often pondered about the mystery of life and the human  capacity for stark cruelty.
    
When we first began to hear about attacks on funeral Masses, processions and wakes, I thought that this could only be an exaggeration. However, when a funeral Mass was attacked in a neighboring parish with the priest eventually crawling out to bless the casket and dismissing the hearse before greater damage could be done, we soon discovered that these attacks were not only real but frequent.
     
Many people have been executed at funeral services of late, so it was with a sense of mild foreboding that I accepted a request to celebrate a double funeral on Christmas Day of a mother and son who had been executed three days previously outside the old U.S. Consulate in Juarez. I had spoken briefly with this same woman just the week before at the funeral of her nephew who, along with one other person, had been gunned down outside the neighbouring parish church of San Marcos. The very distraught family had requested that I celebrate the funeral at 12:30 p.m. and the parish priest of San Marcos gave permission.
      
I was informed that the uncles of the grieving family had all been threatened with execution and that some thought that the funeral might be interrupted by an attack of some sort. Given the outstanding solidarity of the people of the Columban Parish of Corpus Christi, I was accompanied by 20 of the folks who volunteered to form a choir and off we set. The large funeral procession arrived on time and as we commenced the Mass I must confess that I gave an occasional and furtive glance at the main door during the Eucharist.
      
On that day when we celebrate the Lord’s birth with a sense of gratitude and happiness, I found myself once again a witness to the suffering of so many families in our city.
      
It is so easy for whole families to be seduced by and trapped into the seemingly quick money to be made in drug distribution. However, when “things go wrong” or there develops a so-called drug war, it is only then that people realize the lethal nature of the business and the impossibility of escape or flight.
      
Please pray for peace and justice in Mexico and an end to the corruption and violence.

Fr. Kevin Mullins spent many years in Chile before moving to the Border beween Mexico and the USA.