Easter Sunday

Mass began at 8:00 am at La Antorcha. We arrived early enough to help set up. We had the same rickety table as Holy Thursday, a greater array of mis-matched chairs, and many of the friends we had made over the last several days.

Since the only church in La Antorcha are the people. The sky was our room and the dusty, beaten ground the floor. We had not one, but two images of Guadalupe…one made entirely out of threads strung between nails in a spiro-graph manner. It was amazing. In true fashion, there was no crucifix. Mary seems to be the more approachable and understandable image for these simple people. There were the usual mix of dogs wandering through; kids and adults on bicycles; the people we had come to recognize like the old man in the straw had, who tears up at every service. I am sure some of the kids had never attended Mass before. They walked up to the altar and just stared. Father distributed Holy Water after mass, bless babies and also blessed us and our crosses that we received as we started our retreat the day before. It was simple and Holy.

The people were so grateful for our presence, not only at Mass, but through out the week. It was the first time that anything had happened to them like that. They didn’t make a lot of eloquent speeches, but you could see it in the weather faces, the tears in their eyes, the smiles on the faces of the mothers.

We had a little time to play a couple of more games with the children before we were off to our next Mass. As the bus left the village, the children ran after it screaming and waving. The kid that hit Matt a day earlier now called him, mi amigo. Pretty awesome stuff.

Our next Mass was at the Chapel Divino Nino, Jesus. At ten in the morning the freshly painted white walls shown even more brilliantly, the stained glass added the same “holy light” that inspired Abbot Suger in Abby of St. Denis in the 1100’s. The Chapel was filled to over-flowing. The girls who had done mission in the area were there.

I couldn’t help reflecting on the differences in the two services. The difference between roof and walls and floors. There were talks giving thanks for what we had done. But they would have gotten to that point without us, not by Easter to be sure. But these people had property and money…the people of La Antorcha, not so much. Same readings, same basically everything. But the simplicity of the people of La Antorcha touched my heart in a special way.

We returned home after mass to start cleaning, finish our retreat and of course…go out on the town. The boys have never cleaned so well and so fast as when they know they have cute girls waiting for them! The place was spotless!