Abuelita

At well under 5 feet, Doña Matilde has always personified the term abuelita or “little grandmother” for me. Through the 14 years I have known her, she has been the glue which held her family together. Matilde has raised two grandsons and a granddaughter, because the children’s mother is unable to care for them. Their 2-and-a-half-room home in Mérida, Mexico is starkly humble, with little furniture. To earn money, Matilde made food that her husband Don Andres sold from a cart in front of a school.

My husband Richard and I sponsor Matilde’s family through Mission of Friendship’s Amigos program. Richard accompanied me to the mission in March for the first time in 12 years. The children he knew had grown into teenagers. Their hospitality, as always, was warm as we looked through pictures of granddaughter Landy’s quinceañera or 15th birthday celebration, and took photos of our visit. We left with Doña Matilde hugging and thanking me, saying she hoped it wasn’t 12 years until they saw Richard again.

Hours later she was dead of a heart attack.

Doña Matilde was laid out in a simple wooden coffin at home. Her body was swaddled in a sheet with only her face showing, even that being partly covered by cotton.  Several borrowed vases were joined by dirty work buckets of flowers, some still in newspapers. A cross stood at the head of the coffin, and a shoebox for donations lay at the foot. We arrived at the house with Cari and Marilyn, the coordinators of Mission of Friendship. Immediately, borrowed metal folding chairs were brought for us as we were drawn into the family circle. Landy, suddenly the woman of the house, poured bottles of Coca Cola into glasses and served them. 

Grandson Carlos had missed our visit the day before because he was working at Walmart. His face mirrored grief and the weight of his new responsibilities as major bread winner. I showed him the pictures I had taken. “She was happy,” he smiled appreciatively.

Embalming is not done in Yucatán, so burial is within 24 hours—too fast to take in such an unimaginable loss. Several days later we checked on the family, and found them sad but getting on with life. “I always thought I’d go first,” sighed Don Andres. A cross formed with limestone powder and surrounded by candles was on the floor where Matilde’s coffin had stood. For nine nights friends and relatives would come to pray. Then the powder would be swept up and taken to the cemetery.

Images from these days stay in my mind. I saw none of the expensive trappings we feel we need to honor our deceased loved ones. I did see what mattered: the love and support of family and friends, and an amazing acceptance rooted in faith. How could anyone be better honored? 

Rest in peace, Abuelita.

— Pat Marshall directs the Office of Diocesan and International Missions for the Erie Diocese

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Could you repeat that, please?

Last November I had the good fortune to spend a week in Hawaii. (When I say good fortune, I mean it. We won the trip through a fundraising raffle.) While attending Mass at a local church, I found myself straining to understand the Columbian priest. He was just learning English, and stumbled as he read his homily, sometimes syllable by syllable. You may have had the same experience right here at home. The priest introduces the missionary guest speaker and you understand only every third word. It’s frustrating, boring, irritating.

Now imagine you have switched places. You are speaking to strangers in a foreign language. Your cause is worthy and you desperately need to convey that. You struggle to speak clearly because the quality of people’s lives depends on your success. Each year, as director of the Mission Office, I receive hundreds of letters from dioceses around the world asking for a spot in Erie’s Missionary Cooperative Plan. Almost without exception, the work they describe deserves our help. It is often heartrending. Whom do I choose?

Unfortunately not every worthy mission group has a speaker with perfect English. In most cases, I don’t know ahead of time if their speaker is difficult to understand. Even if I did know, would we refuse to help because of language? Of course not.

It has sometimes been suggested that parishes simply take up a collection without the speaker. It is true that we wouldn’t have to listen to unfamiliar accents, and it would even save the missionary some travel money. But we would lose the witness of someone who is spending his or her life helping others know Christ. We would lose the opportunity to learn firsthand about some of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and to feel for them. We would be poorer for it.

There are no easy answers. Missionary Cooperative talks should be ten minutes or less. This may sometimes mean ten minutes of impatience for us. But for the missionary, it is always ten minutes of trying to improve the lives of the people they serve.

— Pat Marshall directs the Office of Diocesan and International Missions for the Erie Diocese

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Mission Comes to Visit

Imagine being the only US-born priest working in all of Egypt. Imagine working in the only home for people with mental disabilities in Cairo. Imagine having a clientele made up of both Christians and Muslims. This unlikely scenario is the life of Maryknoll Father Doug May.

Parishioners at St. Jude’s Parish in Erie will hear Father May’s story when he speaks at Masses one weekend in August as part of the Missionary Cooperative Plan (MCP). Parishioners in other churches will hear equally amazing stories throughout the summer months as they, too, are visited by MCP speakers.

Who are these people and how do they end up in your parish? The Missionary Cooperative Plan, a program of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, brings missioners to each parish in the diocese once a year to share their work and lives with us. Hundreds of mission groups and dioceses apply annually for the privilege. Selection and placement is done by the Catholic Charities Office of Diocesan and International Missions right here in the Erie Diocese. A second collection is taken at these Masses to support the work of the visiting missionary’s group. But the opportunity to educate our own people about the mission work of the church is also a primary purpose of MCP.

“For me, the money we raise comes in second to the chance to do reverse mission,” says Father May, referring to strengthening the faith and awareness of people through sharing the reality of life in mission lands around the world. Dr. Geetha Yeruva of India’s Foundation for Children in Need seconds Father May’s sentiments and adds, “I love mission appeals, as this is a great opportunity for me to thank the bishop, mission director, priests and parishioners for their prayers and support, without which mission work would suffer.”

Reading all the application letters and choosing which groups to invite to each of our 124 parishes is a difficult task. All of the applicants do important work and have valid needs. I try to choose groups that will reflect a balanced representation of geographic areas, as well as a balance between men’s and women’s groups. I also try to choose groups that have a U.S. representative within a reasonable traveling distance to the Erie Diocese.

In assigning groups to parishes, I check what groups each parish has hosted over the last few years, to avoid repetition and to give parishioners an idea of the scope of the church’s mission work. Once assignments are set, the pastor and missionary find a mutually agreeable date for the appeal.

No matter who is assigned to your parish, you can be sure that you will hear someone who is passionate about spreading the Good News. As Father May reflects, “I want people to know what I have given my life to and why.”

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Dances with turkeys

This is the full version of the article written by Pat Marshall for the May/June issue of Faith magazine. As noted in the print version, the photos are not for the faint of heart!

Just a fair warning…this story does not end well for the turkeys.

While in Mexico for my yearly visit to Mission of Friendship, I along with Catholic Charities Director Mary Maxwell, Mission Coordinators Cari Serafin and Marilyn Randolph and volunteer Amelia Netto received an intriguing invitation. We were asked to attend a Kots-kaal-tsó or “dance of the 21 turkeys” in the Mayan village of Dzitas. This event was part of the festival of the local parish, Santa Inés (St. Agnes), Sister Parish to St. Julia Parish in Erie. We accepted, in spite of the fact the dance started at 2a.m.!

Our group met with the pastor and sister parish committee in the afternoon prior to the dance, and learned the significance of this tradition honoring St. Agnes. Around the year 290, a time of Christian persecution, Agnes and her wealthy family lived in Rome.  Wanting to dedicate herself to Christ, 12-year-old Agnes refused the attentions of the mayor’s son. Identified as a Christian, Agnes was sentenced to walk the streets of Rome naked, but tradition says God allowed her hair to grow to cover her. Agnes was finally martyred.

As an avid animal lover, I was horrified to learn that live turkeys were to be strapped to dancers, plucked and killed, representing Agnes’ nakedness and death! Of course I wouldn’t communicate that to our very gracious hosts. Later that night, we started out from our motel at 1:30 a.m. for a 20-minute ride into the pitch black countryside. We began to hear music while still a distance from Dzitas. Once there, we found the village to be a maze of blocked streets, parked cars and crowds. Dzitas is only one of two villages in Yucatan which still holds the Kots-kaal-tsó, so people come from all over to witness the spectacle.

The festival filled the center of the village with carnival rides, food booths, a stage and vendors. Earlier in the day there had been a bullfight in a makeshift arena. Strings of triangular flags were everywhere. After parking, we were led by Santiago, the village’s head catechist, to the dancing which had already begun. No rock concert ever had a more eager audience! At one point I could no longer move my feet, but almost lost my balance in the jostling crowd. Just as panic was about to set in Santiago reached back, took my hand and declared, “Let the sister through!” I figured it was not the time to explain I wasn’t a Sister. As if by magic, the crowd parted and I was led to the front. Then I was pulled through the circle of dancers to the center! I stood near a huge pole decorated with strings of banners drawn outward like the spokes of an umbrella.

This was serious business for the dancers dressed as ancient Maya. Men were mostly bare-chested in shorts covered with loin cloths, with painted faces and bodies.  Women wore tunics with Mayan symbols or traditional dresses. All wore headdresses with turkey feathers. They plucked as they danced to the pounding music, throwing feathers in the air like confetti. One of the women left the circle to press two feathers into my hand. Eventually the rest of our group was also brought to the center.

After the dance, we visited the church which was decorated with three colorful cylinders called hotsilib suspended in the main aisle. The cylinders represented the body of St. Agnes covered with the long hair God made grow. There were three because the Holy Trinity protected Agnes in her martyrdom. The next day there was to be another traditional event, putting the head of a pig on each cylinder to represent the head of the decapitated saint. I was relieved that I would miss that!

From my 21st century perspective, I could never understand why it took missionaries centuries to recognize the need for enculturation, to adapt cultural traditions meaningful to local people into the Christianity they were trying to spread. Attending the Kots-kaal-tsó helped me to appreciate what a challenge they faced. I also learned that having great love for a people allows one to respect traditions, even if they are difficult to comprehend.

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