A Holy Week experience
Teresa and David Jackson from Britain are old friends of Columban Fr Ed O’Connell. Last year they fulfilled one of their great dreams by visiting him in his parish in Lima, Peru, during Holy Week.
Initial Impressions
There are many things that stood out for us when we first arrived in the week leading up to Holy Week in Fr Ed’s parish, Nuestra Señora de la Misiones (Our Lady of the Missions), amongst the dusty streets of the northern suburbs of Lima. There was the sheer size of the parish, with its tens of thousands of parishioners, spread out over 12 chapels and served by a host of lay leaders and catechists, lay missionaries, religious and four priests. The parish is a community of communities.
Fr Ed told us that the parishioners continue to struggle against injustices and poverty on a daily basis, seeking a better life for their children. The lives of the parishioners are hard, marked by all kinds of deprivations. "Take away with you a memory of the great dignity of the poor,” one of the resident priests, Columban Fr John Hegerty, told us. At our first Eucharist the quality of the people's faith was evident, expressed in joyful music sung with great enthusiasm.
On a visit to the different chapels, we noticed the large number of posters on the walls, that sum up how our faith is to be lived. One read, "Disciples and Missionaries". We commented to the local people, "You got that from Pope Francis". “No”, they replied, “our lived faith here is where the Pope gets it from!" We found a Church with dusty, bruised feet of the streets, a field-hospital of compassion and mercy which Pope Francis talks about. The parish was beginning to weave its magic on us.
The level of pastoral planning in all the chapels really stood out for us. Lay people, called Pastoral Agents, young and old men and women, meet regularly to share the Gospel and plan sacramental and liturgical formation and activities. All this underpins the detailed work of building communities, in which laity and priests share responsibility in each chapel.
Holy Week
On Palm Sunday we joined the people of one chapel in a dusty football park and walked and sang our way in procession to the chapel of "The Black Virgin". People burst into applause at the end of the Gospel reading. It was as if Christ, the Word, had just entered the chapel in person! Then the liberal distribution of holy water, from three-litre plastic bottles, soaking the enthusiastic congregation to great applause and laughter.
On Maundy Thursday we joined a group of parishioners for the annual walk, organized by young people, around the 12 chapels. Each chapel community provided prayers, testimonies, food and drink. One young boy spoke of how he had been supported by the community after having had to leave his family and an alcoholic father. He'd been healed by the resurrected Body of Christ and by a community on the move, young and old, men and women whose faith is practical, shared, enjoyed and celebrated. Behind it lay the careful planning, allocation of tasks, assessment and formation - the slow, deliberate building of a 'communion of communities'.
We then attended the Maundy Thursday Eucharist in one of the chapels. Here 12 parishioners washed the feet of 12 others in a sign of mutual Christ-like service.
On Good Friday we joined three different chapel communities walking the Way of the Cross. Processions threaded through the unpaved streets for prayers at the homes of parishioners. The prayer themes were taken from the lives of folk facing the long-embedded issues of poverty in these self-made settlements of the city - lack of health care, debt, child abuse, inequality and abuse of women, political corruption, denial of human rights, brutality and poverty itself. In moving symbolism the words were nailed to the cross. Jesus had died opposing these evils. The people in this His Resurrected Body continue the fight in his name.
On Saturday morning, the community leaders and those responsible for the catechetical programs of the twelve chapels, met to review the Holy Week liturgies so far and to plan the next steps in pastoral development.
Then on to the great Easter Vigil celebration on Saturday night with the lighting of the Paschal candle, baptismal promises and the story of the Resurrection celebrated afterwards with music and dancing in the chapel's dusty courtyard. Our journey ended with a Holy Hour, organised by the youth leaders of the communities in the St Martin de Porres Youth Formation Centre - a time for reflection with Christ.
Final Thoughts
Looking back, what did we find in Lima? A Columban community since 1952 in Peru that is worth its weight in gold. During those years, it has developed many parishes, communities, a special needs school, women and children’s centres, clinics and churches. Long ago Pizarro demanded that Atahualpa, the last Inca king, be ransomed by his people supplying a room full of gold. Here Columbans provide 'rooms' which the people are filling with the community gold of their joyful love of God.
Thanks to the dignified parishioners of Lima and the work of the Columban community there.
"Happy the people who acclaim such a King, Who walk, 0 Lord, in the light of your face, Who find their joy every day in your name, Who make your justice the source of their bliss."
(Psalm 88)
 |
LISTEN TO: Easter on the dusty streets of Lima Duration: 6:50mins, MP3: 3.13MB) |