Letter from Lima
31.03.2010
Fr Bernard Lane looks at life in Lima.
Greetings from Lima! We have been experiencing a prolonged summer and the sun shines brightly today. The sunny day gives me energy to sit and complete this way overdue letter.
In Lima we have celebrated Holy Week and Easter. There was the “multiplication” of the ceremonies and it was an exhausting but enriching week.
On Good Friday I walked a “marathon” joining three different communities for the traditional “Way of the Cross.” In these Communities it means walking out on the dusty paths and struggling up and down hills as the people move around their neighbourhoods stopping at people’s homes and community places such as Mother’s Club, soup-kitchen, Community Hall, kindergarten. It’s rough and real-life; dusty, dogs barking, kids running around, mothers carrying babies on their backs in the traditional Andean style; people taking turns to carry a rough wooden cross, the afternoon sun bearing down.
The numbers were not so large this year as there are so many “distractions” these days with the “consumerisation” of things and the increased promotion of Easter as “vacation time.” However, with the people among whom I walked, recalling and making present Jesus’ Way of the Cross to Calvary, I was once again challenged.
Hearing these people proclaim “We adore you O Christ because by your Cross you have redeemed the world,” and knowing that many of them experience suffering every day, I perceive a sense of identification with the suffering, crucified Jesus. The commitment and witness is inspiring.
Part of my reflection in these past months has been on an article I read on the need for promoting a “culture of being human persons.” It spoke of the tremendous need for authentic reconciliation in our world, so that in the future it will not be necessary to have constitutional tribunals to investigate authorities and leaders for abuses of power and violations of human rights.
But that is only a “dream,” given the wide, deep spiral of institutionalised corruption, the violence, greed, social exclusion and discrimination occurring daily in Peru and worldwide. The challenge remains to follow Jesus who was a victim of structures of absolute power, dominance, greed and fear; and ultimately died a cruel death, proclaiming from his Cross, that the way to Life is the way of the cross.
I’ll bring this letter to an end and send it on its way.
With prayerful best wishes to each of you in your personal and family lives. In the Love and Peace of the Risen Lord.
Fr Bernard Lane is a missionary in Lima, Peru.
