Tila, Chiapas en La Zona Norte
oday at mass I made the offertory intention, “Lord bring
forth your justice and peace for the people of La Parroquia San Mateo, Chiapas Mexico;
for the people of Ferguson, MO here in our country, and for women religious {a
Vatican study of their U.S. “behavior” is released tomorrow} throughout the
world.” A long prayer interconnecting
some of the important mentors of my personal faith. Padre Heriberto and the catechists of his
mountain comunidades. My dad’s personal
witness of integration as I was growing up in Jackson, MI, and the prophetic
justice campaign of Martin Luther King I was privileged to be touched by. All
the strong compassionate religious women who have been my teachers in school, and
compatriots working for peace.
At this point in my life, while I still can at 67, I’m
deciding to return to Chiapas where I’ve been six other times over the years,
working in a parish clinic and sharing a small part in their community’s
struggles for justice. They seek a path
that preserves the goodness of their indigenous way of life, by overcoming the larger
world’s imposed poverty. For me this is
a pilgrimage to their Nuestro Senor de Tila, miraculous shrine of the black crucified
Christ, asking for help in addressing our own powerful nation’s need to learn
humility, solidarity, and appropriate stewardship of resources with the rest of
the world’s people. My prayer will be for the Holy Spirit to stimulate
increasing interest in travel and mission service. I leave on January 9th, and invite your
sponsorship [see below for address].
Padre Heriberto celebrates mass in the remote Carmela, a Zapatista community, in 2011
Those who’ve had the blessing of time spent living in
other cultures, learning their languages, making some miniature bridges between
rich and poor, realize the wonderful, intrinsic, spiritual value of the experience. There was more intention and investment in
these efforts in the 60’s and 70’s. As
we beneficiaries age, I believe we need to pass the torch, and much more
opportunity, to the next generation.
Many of our young people appear ready to learn and serve
away from home to benefit others, and broaden their own perspective. This is despite our society’s widespread advertised
aversion to any risk. There are certainly dangerous places for anyone now in the Middle East, Africa, the Ukraine. And Mexico has become a diminished travel destination because of the drug violence there. Yes, for them the narco-traffic/U.S. drug-market violence
is terrible [yet rare in Chiapas], but if you know who to be with, and
where to be, you are as safe as anywhere--and this is true worldwide. While there's always risk just walking out your door,
even here in the USA.
Kennedy’s invitation, “Ask not what your country can do
for you, but what you can do for your country,” still resonates. It should be expanded into a brand new Peace
Corps, and faith based groups like Jesuit Volunteer Corps, into not just “do
for your country”, but do for planet earth.
Pope Francis has repeatedly called for real tangible solidarity with the
poor. He made it routine practice in
Argentina for his all his priests to spend time ministering in the poorest of
communities.
In our parish, and with an interfaith group, we’ve had
some discussion about creating a local/regional organization in which more, young
and old, could support such service. We
believe we should able to help each other in the funding, researching, recruitment,
and mentoring it would take to stimulate a renewed national faith commitment to
nonviolent intercultural service, both home and abroad. My trip can hopefully help seed this
project.
Its only by such personal steps across cultural
boundaries, and the grace of God, that we’ll all learn to beat back the blight
of racism, and the many other –isms of division, and plant in their place—understanding.
Michael McCarthy PA-C
Faith Perspective on War and Peace
2714 Stone St., Port Huron, MI 48060
810 982 2870
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O COME O COME EMMANUEL
Illumination by Kathy Brahney
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