Id y Enseñad (Go and Teach)

Yikes, it’s been a really long time since I’ve written a blog!!  Just goes to show how the holidays are busy and full of activities everywhere you go.  I was planning on writing a reflection on the experience of Christmas away from home and in a different culture, but given the limited amount of time that I have to crank this out, I’m going to go straight to what I’ve been up to the past month and what I will be doing throughout February. 

Right after school ended on December 21^st, we headed straight into formation/planning meetings for “misiones” or missions.  Each year, my school takes a group of about 40-50 high schoolers on missions.  Before I go into some reflections on the experience, I should explain a little about what “misiones” are in Chile.

The call to be an “Iglesia misionera,” or missionary Church, largely grew out of the assemblies of Latin American bishops in Medellin, Puebla, Santo Domingo, and especially Aparecida.  In Aparecida, the Bishops called the church to embark on a continental mission to go forth to share the Gospel with the most excluded and isolated, as well as with unbelievers.  In other words, it was an invitation to all members of the church in Latin America (children, youth, adults, priests, and religious) to be in a “state of mission.”  This call arose out of the realization that times have changed and continue to change at an even more accelerated pace due to the effects of globalization, which present us with so many different novelties and ways of thinking and being that aren’t always compatible with the Gospel.  The Bishops declared that the need to be a Church in mission was urgent—that the world desperately needed (and continues to need) to see a new face of Christ and a renewed and animated Church.  The main ideas of misiones are to ask, listen, and present our experience of Christ.  The focus is on sharing and engaging in dialogue, not on imposing the Catholic religion on anyone. 

So, what does this actually look like in practice?  With the group of students from my school, we went to a rural community 3 hours south of Santiago to mission for 10 days.  This was the third and last year that my school went to this particular community.  It is typical for schools and parishes that go on misiones to go to the same community for several years because the point is to build relationships with the people, accompany their faith journey, and help the community to organize itself to set up different activities or groups that will continue to further the religious life of the community members after the missionaries leave.  The first year, the theme of missions was “Received Faith”; the second year “Shared Faith”; and this last year “Announced Faith.”  Our group of 50 students and adults stayed at the local school in our community.  We all brought sleeping bags, and the boys and girls slept in two different classrooms. 

A typical day began with morning prayer or Mass, breakfast and chores, and then house visits.  The missioners were divided into groups of 3-5 people, and then we were split up to go visit the different houses in the community.  Because the community we were in was very rural, the houses were extremely spread apart and hidden in different pockets in the woods.  During the two previous years of missions, the group had mapped out the community, so we largely knew where most of the houses were, but the many small, winding dust roads still made for some entertaining adventures!  Each day, there was a different theme or focus for the house visits.  For example, because most of the families work in agriculture, one day we read the parable of the sower and talked about the dignity of work.  Another day, the focus was on prayer in the family and another on the rosary.  I should point out too that the point was not to arrive at the house and say “Let me share a Bible passage with you,” but rather to gradually work the reflection into normal conversation about their daily life, their family, their work, etc.  I know that these visits probably sound really weird and uncomfortable—that’s what I thought when I first started.  I was apprehensive about what the reception would be like and was worried about being intrusive or imposing.  But what I found was completely the opposite.  The families I was blessed with visiting were the most welcoming, hospitable, and warm that I have ever met.  Rather than stilted and awkward conversation, we encountered people who were thirsting to share their worries, concerns, and joys—people who were longing to talk about their faith and express some of the big questions burdening their hearts.  During many of the visits, tears would fill the eyes of the person I was talking with (especially the elderly of the community) as they told me about the isolation that they feel on a daily basis, their loneliness, or the many hurts that they have carried with them throughout life. 

I remember an elderly woman who lived with one of her sons in a deserted pocket in the forest grasping my arm after we prayed together in front of a little shrine to Mary that she has tenderly cared for year after year, asking me when I would come back to pray with her again.  Leaving her house was one of the more difficult things I have ever done because all I wanted to do was just sit with my arm around her and cradle her brokenness and loneliness. 

For me, the house visits were a special reminder of the need to abandon any nerves about how the conversation would result to the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit would guide my words and questions and bless our conversation.  And time and time again, God showed me that He was listening to my prayers!  I remember talking with a woman about prayer in the family and after a while, when the conversation seemed like it was dwindling to a close, I felt moved to ask something that I would normally consider to be a more personal question and typically wouldn’t ask someone that I had only met a half hour before: “So, how is your personal faith life right now—where do you find yourself.”  After I asked the question, the woman’s eyes filled with tears and she started telling me about how different people had come through town talking about the end of the world, how she had been wondering if it was true, how she was overwhelmed by all of the different types of information that have begun to disrupt their quiet, simple life, and about how she was trying to stay strong and place her trust in God day after day.  It was moments like these that I knew were true experiences of grace because they opened up space for deep conversation that allowed strangers to instantly become brothers and sisters sharing and accompanying each other on the same journey.  During the same visit, just as I was about the leave, I got up the courage to ask if the woman’s daughter was pregnant (she was just at that point where you couldn’t tell if it was a little one on the way or the results of the increased summer ice cream intake!).  When she said that she was, I knew that I had to ask if we could say a special prayer for her baby.  Even though I felt uncomfortable and unworthy, I went to lay my hands on her stomach, said a prayer, and invited everyone to pray to the Virgin Mary to accompany this woman in a special way during her pregnancy.  The daughter's smile will stay with me for a long time.

I could share so many more lessons and experiences from misiones, but I already see that this blog is super long, and I haven’t even said anything about the meetings for children, youth, and adults that we had, the special activities such as the story of the Three Kings, Way of the Cross, Rosary at Dawn, and final closing Mass!  Just to briefly illustrate those activities, I’m going to put up some pictures with short explanations.

Festival of the Three Kings: the missioners wrote and performed the story of the Three Kings for the children of the community. 

 After the show, the kids received presents that were donated by professors, students, and families at our school before leaving.

Youth Meeting:  Myself and 6 other missioners were in charge of planning and running the meetings with the youth from the community.  We were so excited because about 20-30 teens showed up to each meeting, and the numbers continued to grow after each day.  The encounters were really inspirational because after 3 years of having the missioners come to their community, the youth are really motivated to better organize themselves and be more proactive as a group.  They have already organized a confirmation group and are trying to start to brainstorm about how they might initiate their own misiones in the future.  Even the 20-something year-old guys that showed up to the meeting dressed in punk clothing with an initial too-cool-for-everything attitude ending up laughing and goofing around during all of the ridiculous ice-breakers that we did and eventually opened up a little in terms of faith and reflection.  Please keep these teens in your prayers--that they grow in faith and leadership, learn how to work as a team and continue to be a light of hope for their community.

Stations of the Cross:  the missioners organized a community Stations of the Cross that went through the main road through town towards the chapel, asking various families along the road to decorate an altar for a station outside of their house.  The hour-long journey was accompanied by prayer, song, and reflection with different members of the community carrying the blue cross between each Station.  Two children from the community portrayed Jesus and Mary throughout the entire journey.  They were only 9 or 10 years old, but they moved everyone by their seriousness, attention, and faithfulness

So, that is a bit about misiones with my school.  In two days, I will be joining a group of Franciscan nuns and a few adults and young adults to mission in the very south of Chile for 2 weeks on the island communities of Chiloe.  How, you ask, did I get connected with Franciscan nuns when I’m working with Holy Cross?  Long story perhaps for a different blog, but a story that I believe definitely has God’s hand in it as the people with whom I’m going are wonderful and have already taught me so much about what it means to be a missioner/disciple.  The 14 of us have been divided into groups of 2 or 3 are being sent to different islands where we will live with families, visit houses, and organize prayer services and community events.  I will be on an island with two of the Franciscan nuns and have been particularly asked to help with the music ministry for the first big celebration of First Communion that they are going to have on the island!

Finally, I want to close with a translation of the Missioner’s Prayer that we use with the Franciscan mission group. 

Missioner’s Prayer:

Christ Jesus, You have called me to be your missioner knowing who I am.  And knowing who I am, You still want to use me to do Your will.  Let my words be Your words, and let my will and my actions accomplish that which You desire me to do.  I place myself in Your hands as a tool, that You might use me to draw others to Your saving and healing Word. 

They need you!  Give me the wisdom to illuminate Your path amidst all of the different paths that tempt them, so that they may live in peace, know true happiness, and feel your protective presence. 

Together with the prophet Isaiah, I say to You: “Here I am.  Send me!”  Amen. 

The first line is my favorite of the entire prayer.  I love it because it is so tempting to become bogged down in our weaknesses and imperfections and to impose on ourselves limitations about what we are able and unable to do.  By reminding us that God already knows all of our imperfections and has still called us by name, the prayer provides us with the strength to assume our vocation.  We are all called to be disciples--to be a people in a state of mission.  So here is your challenge: "Id y Enseñad"--"Go and Teach" what you have freely received so that the Church, the community of believers, might be strengthened and renewed!