Learning to Receive

Well, I'm back in the city getting ready to start school again after a beautiful experience on the second set of misiones that I went on and, in general, wonderful days of "summer vacation."  The experience of missions on the Butachauque islands of Chiloe were incredible given the very unique culture of the people, the beauty of the landscape, and the different religious celebrations, house visits, religion classes, and overall time spent getting to know the people...not to mention getting to know the other missioners better (an amazing group of people!).  As I was reflecting on the experience and wondering how I would ever be able to capture or share what we did throughout the 2 weeks in words, my thoughts seemed to keep wandering to ideas about discipleship, community, giving, and receiving...so that's what I'm going to talk about, and hopefully I will be able to share some things about missions in the process.


Perhaps one of the secrets of discipleship is learning how to receive.  As people trying to be good Christians, we often focus on giving…we organize food programs, spend time volunteering, plan social gatherings, and run different programs for kids, youth and adults.  Giving makes us feel good, feel accomplished and gives us a sense of mission and purpose.  Giving is good—the Gospel is full of passages that specifically command us to give our clothing, food, time and talents to our brothers and sisters.  But what about receiving?  How often do we really choose to recognize the gifts of others and allow ourselves to receive them?  Jesus did this all the time, but we often only choose to highlight the passages where He was the one doing things for others.  We forget that Jesus and His followers did not have homes, did not travel with food or sleeping provisions.  Jesus even told them to leave their shoes and clothes behind.  In other words, Jesus and his disciples were experts at receiving from others.  They counted on the people to give them a place to stay and food to eat—to welcome them into their homes and communities.  Jesus didn’t ask the people to come to his home, or a specific building in the community—He went to them.  Why did he do this?  Our Gospel is a Gospel of communion—an intimate sharing of being one family, one living body of Christ.  Let’s think of who we invite into our homes: typically our families and our closest friends…maybe once and awhile friends of friends or people that we’re not really acquainted with.  How often do we welcome or invite strangers into our homes?  Often we don’t need to.  In the world of affluence, where community centers, big churches equipped with all sorts of meeting rooms, safe parks, coffee houses, hotels, and restaurants are abundant, there is really no need to bring people to our houses.  In poor communities, usually the opposite occurs.  There are no other spaces to congregate, so the home is the place of welcome, sharing, conversation, and hospitality.  You may ask, “so what?”  What difference does it make if I have a conversation, meeting, prayer service, meal, or gathering in a church conference room or a coffee shop rather than in my house?  Well, I am beginning to think that it makes a lot of difference and can help us reflect on where Christianity has come and where it is going because it touches the core of that crucial, mutual, communal interaction of giving and receiving.

It has been my experiences in Latin America, at my home now in Chile, and especially my experiences on misiones that have been making me reflect a lot on this concept—this crucial part of our Christian history.  After all of these experiences, I remember marveling at how incredible it was that, in only a few weeks or a couple of months, I was able to form such special, deep relationships with the people I met.  What always impacted me the most during and after the experiences was the hospitality of the people and their willingness to welcome me into their families and communities without even knowing who I was or really understanding why I was there.  I experienced the same thing on misiones.  Before leaving for the island, I remember our formation leader telling us that when visiting houses, we should never say no to a family’s invitation to drink mate tea or to eat…no matter how many cups of tea we had already had that day, how full we were, or how poor we could see that the family was.  He said that, especially given the culture of Chiloe, to decline (even if done in the most polite way) would be very insulting and rude.  Our job was to receive and to be grateful.  Before my time on the island, I don’t think that I actually understood how difficult this would be sometimes, nor how important it was for the people to be able to give or share something with the missioners. 

There were about 60 houses in the community I was in, spread out all around the island.  I felt that, as a missioner, I was constantly receiving.  In almost every house we were invited to eat and drink as we talked—mate, juice, soda, coffee, tea, chicha, bread with jam or honey, plain bread, bread and eggs, fried dough, seafood soup, potato patties, sweets, cookies, curanto and apples.  We were invited in even when the people were working, had just started to eat lunch as a family, and even once when family from out of town had just arrived and were still unpacking their belongings.  Everyone made time.  Most visits, we would talk for an hour or more.  Actually, we did a lot of listening—a lot of asking questions.  We talked about the health of the animals, how the potato crop was this year, about the wind, the rain and the sun, about loved ones who died in boating accidents, about old aching bones that are tired of cutting wood to keep the oven going, about doctors that visit the island far too little, and about family histories and stories.  The very first house visit I went on, I found myself lifting a 100-year old man out of bed onto a makeshift toilet to go to the bathroom.  The two 70-80-year-old women that were caring for him were hardly strong enough to do it themselves, and were very thankful that visitors had come to the house just at the right time.  Talk about an intimate encounter—one that certainly humbled me and moved me deeply…to be trusted with the care of this old man, to see the silent gratitude in his eyes and his feeble attempt at a smile.  It was a powerful shared encounter between strangers that would have never happened if we hadn’t gone to their home and if they hadn’t welcomed us into their family.  At another house, we spent an hour looking at every page of 6-year-old Tomas’s kindergarten notebooks (oh yes, there were 3), talking to him about what he had learned and admiring his coloring.  At the house of Kathy and Maricel (2 kids who attended the religion classes that we did at night) we spent time playing with 6 new puppies as we drank mate with their grandma, shared her pain over her old fingers which are permanently bent sideways after so many years of cutting wood, and tried to feel grateful rather than guilty when invited over and over again to eat bread which the grandma cut and offered, apologizing that it was old and stale, but it was the only thing they had in the house.  I remember wondering what I could say as a “missioner” to this woman who has known great sacrifice and hard work every day of her life—who welcomes strangers into her house and offers them everything she has, giving even from her own need.  She is the poor widow in Mark 12:41-44 who gives the few coins she has while others give only from their abundance or what’s left over.  Perhaps I gave her an ear to listen or a few encouraging words, but more than anything, I was called to receive.  In Acts 20:35, Christ says, “There is more happiness in giving than receiving.”  If this is true, maybe the greatest service we can offer our fellow man is to receive and allow him the happiness of giving.  What a reversal of the typical image we have of discipleship!  As disciples, we are called to recognize the gifts of others and help them to realize those gifts by opening up our hands and our hearts to receive them.  That certainly seems to be what Jesus was all about—the Son of God left it up to people to choose to take care of Him or not.  He wandered around with nothing so that other people could have the experience of God working through them to care for other members of the Body.  Sure, these intimate moments of communion—of giving and receiving, of dependency and hospitality, of trust and gratitude, can happen anywhere.  But reflecting on all of this has just made me think about how it seems that the majority of us have moved very far from the original model of Christian community and maybe even construct barriers to it in our “always prepared, self-dependent, back-up-plan, time management” attitudes that rarely provide a space for God to bring us into communion with others and thus help us to know other people in our great family.

So, once again, what was going to be a blog about misiones seems to have wandered more around thoughts about giving, receiving, discipleship, and having encounters with people/friends/strangers in the more intimate spaces of our life.  But hopefully something made some sort of sense in there and illuminated a part of misiones in Chiloe.  As always, I’m going to put up some pictures with descriptions to perhaps tell more of the story.

Getting on the boats to head to the island

The 7 different communities where the missioners were working gathering to celebrate the Feast of St. Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria in Nayahue

Processing to the chapel to for Mass

Curanto: a typical food in Chiloe. It is traditionally prepared in a hole, about a meter and a half deep, which is dug in the ground. The bottom is covered with stones and heated like a bonfire. The ingredients consist of shellfish, meat, potatoes, milcaos (a kind of potato bread), chapaleles, and vegetables.  Each layer of ingredients is covered with nalca (Chilean rhubarb) leaves

An encounter with some cows while walking to visit houses :)

Grandma Rosita: she has been bedridden for 2 years but still has such a wonderful sense of humor and outlook on life.  She also makes the big wool socks that are on the bed!

The chapel in my community, Metahue.

With the kids from the community after religion class.  Everyone brought a snack to share!

The man whom I helped to go to the bathroom my first house visit ended up leaving the island by helicopter a few days later.  His family gradually sold most of their land and stuff in their house to be able to fly him to a hospital.  Many people from the community showed up to say goodbye.

One day in religion class, we talked about the Rosary and how the different mysteries can help the kids think about their own lifes as well.

The kids' depictions of the Joyful Mysteries: The Annunciation and The Visitation

The Birth of Jesus and the Presentation in the Temple

The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

Tending to the graves of family members after the Mass for the Deceased that we did in the community.

...it's the simple things in life :)

Playing with Kathy's puppies!!

Eating hot dogs and noodles during a little party the last day of religion class.

Preparing the peas for the food after our community's celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Polishing the wood of our community chapel in preparation for the celebration.

The ladies of the community helping Scarlet get ready for her First Communion! 

Receiving the communities with music, flags, and the statue of our patron Saint on the boat ramp

There were 8 kids in total that we helped to prepare to receive their First Communion