How one year turned into a 20-year pilgrimage

Twenty years ago, my son was in first grade, my daughter in preschool. I was content working for a school district at the time and taking graduate classes, on track with the 10 and 20-year-plan I outlined for my family and myself. However, God had other plans. I did not realize at the time, but he was calling me home, back to the Church. His accomplice, my husband who faxed in my résumé to the diocese, helped me pay attention.

When I started in 1998, I did not know what to expect. I thought I would try it out for a year. Fast forward to 2018 where April 6 marks the 20-year anniversary of my first day on the job. But the word “job” no longer fits, as the journey taught me that my work here is a ministry. Likewise, these years have served as ongoing catechesis and provided some life-changing lessons.

Learning to surrender ranks as one of the most impactful lessons. Connected to this came lessons in patience and humility. Also, I count the gift of each encounter with the people in our diocese which continually reinforces the intricate ways God connects us to one another. 

The pilgrimage continues and I still have much more to learn. For now, I leave you with two poems from my manuscript titled Somewhere Between Surrender.

The Painter Stirs Each Moment

He paints pink oleanders in my backyard, blends

greens into shade, into palms, basil, bougainvillea,

adds salmon into the mix. He stirs blues of the sky

with grays, oranges, pinks. He creates colors we

try to name, gives light, whispers his directions.

The path sometimes blurs in my eyes. He wakes

me with aromas peppered with spice, the perfume

of gardenias, the voice of love, the cries of my

babies gone now, making their own ways,

the premonitions afloat en el Rio Grande

with songs from la frontera.

Mixed media on canvas. Los consejos de mi mama,

la industria de mi abuela, the chess moves my

father tried to teach me, the birdhouses I painted

with mis pequeños, their laughter a contagious tint.

He holds some colors in reserve. Offers hues we

might not dare. He gifts the lizards their own

paintbrush, these chameleons that scale my

porch screens. He, the master painter, in the light

of the Resurrection. I, his apprentice, his groupie,

his skinned-kneed child. I paint with bloodied palms,

color all over the page. I cannot sing, hold a tune,

tantas las canciones, but I write, try to capture

lightning on the page, try to end the hunger, try

to keep from catching fire, catch daylight, answers,

hear the symphony of the hours in each moment.

A Work in Progress

Our expectations falter, critical selves of missteps

and falls. He picks us up, trusts us, again

and again and again. He wants to hear our laughter, cheers

us on, wipes our tears. Abba, I am your work in progress.

Yet you deliver surprises with a bouquet of red

kalanchoes wrapped in Sunday comics.

He does not count promises, disappointments; he picks

us up, gathers our dandelion florets scattered by

day's wind, nudges us in the direction, through hikes

in el Valle's wild, witness the gold blooms on the huisache.

If cactus flowers bring spring to the desert,

I offer my day, my poems, in prayer, in thanksgiving. Ni

el frio de Abril, ni la inquietud del miedo me quita

el ánimo. I wake each day for you Lord, incomplete I look

to discover your work in progress, your surprises, todas

tus maravillas. I surrender. May my pilgrimage walk

give witness to his love.

Walking together, raising our voices

Hope is one of the gifts brought by a New Year. But before we rush into the new it’s healthy to stop and reflect on the past year we traversed, give thanks for the blessings, consider the lessons learned, and acknowledge the people who walked with us.

Some of the standout moments for my 2016 are those spent with family and friends. As much as I value quiet spaces to think and write, I also treasure the time spent in community with others. I think this is one of the reasons I never tire of participating in outdoor processions during special feast days or for an important cause. We are family, in good times and in bad times, walking together on this pilgrimage.

St. John Paul II in his encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis said it best, “We are all one family in the world. Building a community that empowers everyone to attain their full potential through each of us respecting each other’s dignity, rights and responsibilities makes the world a better place to live.”

Pope Francis called for a “revolution of tenderness” as we participated in the Jubilee of Mercy in 2016. He wants this revolution to continue.  “Mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church,” he said in his apostolic letter “Mercy and Peace.”

“Like a gusting but wholesome wind, the Lord’s goodness and mercy have swept through the entire world,” he said. Now we must put that mercy into action.

At the closing of the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis said that while the Jubilee ended and the Holy Door is closed, “the door of mercy of our heart continues to remain wide open. We have learned that God bends down to us (cf. Hos 11:4) so that we may imitate him in bending down to our brothers and sisters.”

He pointed out, “The culture of extreme individualism, especially in the West, has led to a loss of a sense of solidarity with and responsibility for others.” He added, “Mercy impels us to roll up our sleeves and set about restoring dignity to millions of people; they are our brothers and sisters who, with us, are called to build a “city which is reliable.”

In December, two young women whose parents and grandparents have been in exile in the United States, worked with interfaith leaders to organize a prayer vigil at the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle in solidarity with the people in Syria. Families there have been devastated by a five-year civil war. We came together, people of all faiths, to pray for the people of Syria. We came together in solidarity. Throughout this New Year, we can find ways to express our solidarity with others, to walk with them sometimes on roads paved in uncertainty.

As Pope Francis notes, “We are called to promote a culture of mercy based on the rediscovery of the encounter with others, a culture in which no one looks at another with indifference or turns away from the suffering of our brothers and sisters.”

Following a procession in December for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Bishop Daniel E. Flores reminded us “we walk together as brothers and sisters, as children of God.” And this requires, he said, “that we respond with care to those who are suffering, those who are living through difficulties and darkness.” In his homily at the Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he said we must raise our voice to protect those who are vulnerable.

In January each year, we celebrate a March for Life giving voice to the unborn and to remember the millions who have been lost to abortion. In our diocese, we will walk together on Jan. 21 from St. Joseph the Worker Church to Sacred Heart Church in McAllen.

“The Power of One,” the national theme for the march scheduled Jan. 27 in Washington, D.C, recognizes “One person can make a difference in the world, whether in the life of one person or many,” as noted on their website. “Sadly, in the U.S. alone, one million babies are not even given the opportunity to live and change the world each year,” according to organizers. “Building a culture of life and ending abortion takes each and every person. Starting with your family or neighborhood, our collective efforts will change hearts and minds, save lives, and build a culture of life.”

Pope Francis in his message “Overcome Indifference and Win Peace” for World Day of Peace 2016, said, “There are many good reasons to believe in mankind’s capacity to act together in solidarity and, on the basis of our interconnection and interdependence, to demonstrate concern for the more vulnerable of our brothers and sisters and for the protection of the common good.

For me the words of Elie Wiesel in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 also resonate. He said, “Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.” This is certainly counter culture in a world drunk on individualism and indifference.

In this New Year, I recognize more than ever I cannot stand on the sidelines. We cannot turn away with indifference from our family close to home or in other parts of the world. We walk together, we practice mercy, we raise our voices. For our New Year’s resolutions let’s look for ways to include more moments of solidarity, mercy and action.

(Originally published in January 2017 edition of The Valley Catholic newspaper) 

The Paschal Triduum & the Altars of Repose

At the start of the Lenten journey, 40 days seemed like a long time. But while they passed too quickly, I look forward now to these holy days of the Paschal Triduum. Each year I marvel at the graces that flow during each of the Holy Week observations.

A year ago I made my first Holy Thursday pilgrimage to seven “Altars of Repose.” Here is a story I wrote about my experience.

Spending time with our Lord: Visit to seven Altars of Repose an ancient tradition

BROWNSVILLE — This past Triduum my husband and I shared a new pilgrimage experience, new to us as it is actually an ancient tradition of visiting seven Altars of Repose on Holy Thursday. The practice is linked to the early Christian custom of visiting sites which were significant to Christ’s Passion.

In Rome, pilgrims visit seven basilicas (St. Peter, St. Paul Outside the Wall, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, St. Lawrence Outside the Walls and St. Sebastian). In recent times, when seven churches are not possible, making it to at least three suffices.

I had heard about the tradition, but had not paid much attention until an intern last year recounted how he and his friends delighted in their visit from one church to the next. Bishop Emeritus Raymundo J. Peña for years practiced the tradition, and Bishop Daniel E. Flores shared photos of his own visits on his blog one year.

Bishop Flores said it gives him great joy to see how the faithful prepare a place to receive the Lord after the Sacrament is taken in procession at the end the Holy Thursday liturgy, and to see young people and families spending time in adoration and prayer. The procession with the Sacrament symbolizes the Lord going out to face the Passion.

For my husband and me it was a grace-filled experience and a perfect start to the Triduum. God’s graces overflowed that evening as we visited the Altars of Repose at seven different churches. We started at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville and made our way to our home parish St. Anthony Church in Harlingen. My husband and I chose churches that connected us to our families and sacraments. 

Among the churches we visited were Our Lady of Guadalupe Church where I was baptized; St. Joseph Church where my husband received all his sacraments of initiation and St. Luke Church, my parish church until I moved away and where we were married 26 years ago. The pilgrimage filled us with immense joy. We also visited Holy Family Church in Brownsville and St. Benedict Church in San Benito.

As empty nesters we are still adjusting to our children, young adults now, living away from home. I miss our family tradition of walking the Stations of the Cross together on Good Friday and preparing Easter baskets and painting cascarones in the days leading up to Easter.

Our Thursday pilgrimage took us on a nostalgic “This is your life” tour. Fue un recordido de memorias. As we visited the different churches in Brownsville we drove past places bursting with history from our youth and growing years. We drove by both our elementary schools and playgrounds that are nearly gone now; we passed by my husband’s middle school and our high school – Homer Hanna High; we passed by old neighborhoods, favorite hamburger joints, streets where I learned to drive.

Each Altar of Repose afforded us time with Christ, time for prayer, and time to remember the blessings in our lives, and always the Lord was at our side. During our drive time from one church to the next, we shared stories and talked about how some things have changed and how some remain intact.

Some churches felt particularly like home. At Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, where I was baptized, I could hear my mother’s voice. I remember the pews we sat in at the time toward the back of the church. I remember she pointed to the altar and told me Christ was behind the closed doors in the gold tabernacle. “Ahi esta Cristo,” she said. Maybe I was four or five. I remember I puzzled about her comment for a long time, trying in my child’s mind to make sense of what she meant.

I wanted to spend more time in each of the churches, but conscious of the time, we had to move on to make sure we made it to all seven before midnight when Adoration ends on Holy Thursday. Each altar was surrounded with bouquets of flowers and candles that flickered to give light in the darkness. Each carefully prepared and adorned so that the faithful could spend time in silence and meditation before the Lord. No one was sleeping. Everyone was keeping watch in the “Garden of Gethsemane.”

Along the way we saw people we knew who were taking part of the ancient tradition of visiting the different Altars of Repose that evening. You could feel the joy that lifted each of us on our Maundy Thursday pilgrimage.

At St. Luke Church, it was comforting to hear the familiar voice of Helen Vargas, who was leading the children in prayer before the Altar or Repose. It felt like home. Helen was my confirmation teacher and the choir director 32 years ago when I attended there. How beautiful that she continues to teach new generations the traditions of our faith.

When we arrived in Harlingen, we ended at St. Anthony Catholic Church, our home parish where our son and daughter received their sacraments. The Altar of Repose was set up in the original church which is now used as a parish hall and as a cafeteria for the Catholic school. The doors opened out to the street where passing cars could glimpse the glimmering candles before the Blessed Sacrament.

What a blessing to see so many keeping watch with Christ, and continuing the ancient tradition. Our pilgrimage reaffirmed how God has been constant in our lives and remains so. I pray for the grace to honor the days he provides and that I may be constant in my attempts to listen and follow his direction in the days to come. 

(Originally published in May 2014 edition of The Valley Catholic newspaper) 

Making time to climb a mountain

New Year, new possibilities. As much as I like the start of a New Year and the possibilities it brings, I don’t like how quickly the calendar fills with commitments, sometimes to the point of leaving no room to be still. I can only blame myself and my inability to say no, added to my tendency to fill any extra hours to capacity.

As I begin to mark my calendar this New Year, I want to make certain to include time to retreat and climb a mountain. Jesus taught us to retreat, to go up to a mountain top and find time alone to pray. “But he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.” Luke 5:16

Finding time to be alone is one of the reasons I enjoy camping and hiking. In past years I've had the grace to climb some incredible mountains – Mount Sinai in Egypt, Machu Picchu in Peru, Mount Rose in Nevada. Reaching the summit was challenging but the view of God’s creation and the silence was worth each strained muscle. Not only did each hike help me slow my pace, each helped me set aside distractions from my day-to-day routine. The hikes helped me pay attention, to take in the view. The long climbs also gave me time to think and to pray.

Granted, we do not have any mountains in the Rio Grande Valley, but we can set aside time to claim our own space, our metaphorical mountains, to sit in prayer and silence with God. One of my favorite spaces is in my backyard porch, either early in the morning before anyone wakes up or midmornings on weekends when I can sit and listen to the wind playing with the leaves.

While advances in technology have helped us become more efficient, it feels like all the latest gadgets also serve to keep us on a leash around the clock. Not only are we connected 24 hours a day, information streams in from all directions, making it a noisy world to navigate. Sometimes we have to disconnect, make time to be still, to go on a retreat, even if for a few minutes. Silence, solitude, and space help us become better listeners. In our noisy world, given all our distractions, how can we respond to what God is calling us to if we are not attentive to his direction?

“When messages and information are plentiful, silence becomes essential if we are to distinguish what is important from what is insignificant or secondary,” said Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his message for World Communications Day in 2012. “Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected, to make evaluations, to analyze messages; this makes it possible to share thoughtful and relevant opinions, giving rise to an authentic body of shared knowledge. For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ‘eco-system’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds.”

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also said, “Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist. In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves.”

Pope Francis reminds us as well, “In the history of salvation, neither in the clamor nor in the blatant, but the shadows and the silence are the places in which God chose to reveal himself to humankind.”

The Annotations to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, note “the more our soul finds itself alone and isolated, the more apt it makes itself to approach and to reach its Creator and Lord, and the more it so approaches him, the more it disposes itself to receive graces and gifts from his Divine and Sovereign Goodness.”

There are different ways to disconnect, different spaces for prayer and silence – hiking outdoors, participating in a contemplative prayer group, signing up for retreat, Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, or taking time to garden. Each of us has to find our own mountain where we can retreat to in this New Year.  So instead of making New Year’s resolutions, this year I am going to focus on scheduling time on my calendar to slow my pace and climb a mountain.

(Originally published in January 2015 edition of The Valley Catholic newspaper) 

The Altars of Repose

Spending time with our Lord

God’s graces overflowed at the Holy Thursday Mass and as we visited the Altars of Repose at seven different churches. My husband and I started at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville and made our way to our home parish St. Anthony Church in Harlingen, Texas

Among the churches we visited were Our Lady of Guadalupe Church where I was baptized; St. Joseph Church where Cesar received all his Sacraments of Initiation; and St. Luke’s Church where we were married. The pilgrimage filled us with immense joy. This was our first time to practice this ancient tradition. It was a grace-filled evening and a perfect start to the Triduum. 

Into the Desert

I look forward to Lent more and more each year.  I see the desert journey as an opportunity to reflect on my ways, on my steps and missteps. It’s a chance to get back to where I need to be, to readjust my direction according to God’s will. The desert provides an open space free of distractions. It’s up to us of course to eliminate the distractions that present themselves in our day to day walk.

Pope Francis said, “Lent calls us to “give ourselves a ‘shake-up.’” In his homily on Ash Wednesday he said, “With its calls to conversion, Lent comes providentially to rouse us, to shake us from our torpor, from the risk of moving forward [merely] by inertia.”

I need the shakeup. I need to be roused. Already, I feel the energy that comes from refocusing and putting aside all that weighs us. I’ve learned that the penitential practice of giving something up for Lent, may seem like a sacrifice at first, but actually it’s a blessing.  In the end, we are better for the experience. I find that fasting and giving something up makes more room in my life not only for prayer but also for family time and writing.  

As for the prescribed days of abstinence from meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays, I can’t count these days as sacrifice as I crave, year round, the desert dishes served during the Lenten season, starting with nopalitos en salsa.

I do have some challenges ahead of me. By the grace of God, I pray I am roused into action.

A ver que nos espera en estos días en el desierto. 

Our Lady of Lourdes in Río Grande City

Grotto built in 1928 honors the Immaculate Conception of Mary

By Brenda Nettles Riojas

The Valley Catholic

RIO GRANDE CITY – Lourdes in southwestern France draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year as the site where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubiroux, in 1858.

The Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times. During the ninth apparition, Bernadette, as instructed by the Virgin Mary, dug a hole in the ground with her hands, and a gush of water was released from an unknown spring. She was instructed to drink the water and wash herself there. The site is known around the world for its healing waters. During another apparition, the Virgin Mary identified herself saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Closer to home, Our Blessed Mother draws people west to Starr County where pilgrims come, in smaller groups, to Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto, a replica built in Rio Grande City 70 years after the apparition in France.

While there are no healing waters in a county where drought conditions persist, the man-made setting provides a quiet prayer space. One can choose to kneel in the grotto built on the north side of Immaculate Conception Church or sit on a stone bench shaded by the oak trees nearby.

Our Blessed Mother always in prayer, a rosary over her arm, the seven-foot statue brought from Paris, France stands in a hollow of the grotto. She stands above another statue of the child Bernadette who kneels before the Immaculate Conception. The agave cactus which grows on the concrete formed into the grotto reminds us we’re in south Texas, as does salmon-colored bougainvillea and the lavender periwinkles that surround the area.

A German priest, Father Gustave Gollbach, a missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate who moved to Rio Grande City in 1924 as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, built the replica in 1927-28.

According to the historical marker, “Father Gustave had dreamed of building a grotto to resemble the shrine of Lourdes in southern France.”

“Father Gustave fashioned the grotto with his own hands, and received help from many including a Baptist minister. It took 14 months of work before the grotto was dedicated on April 27, 1928,” reads the marker.

The grotto replica, which measures 33 feet high and 90 feet wide, cost an estimated $5,000 to construct.

“All of the rocks were brought from the surrounding hills of the petrified forest that once existed near Escobares.”

My visit to the grotto in Rio Grande City, reminded me of my first pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1998. Our group from the Diocese of Brownsville attended Mass at the grotto early one morning and participated in an evening procession and Rosary. As a lapsed Catholic some 15 years ago, my devotion and understanding of Our Blessed Mother grew during that early pilgrimage to the Marian shrines.

I remember wanting more time to sit in silence in Lourdes, but our busy schedule dictated otherwise. In Rio Grande City, I felt blessed to have an entire hour to sit in the grotto to pray and listen to the kiskadees splash in the water while the mocking birds added their own tune to the church bells ringing for evening Mass.

In my head I hummed the tune to “Immaculate Mary.” For me this song, particularly the refrain, which is both soothing and meditative, reminds me of that first pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Immaculate Mary, thy praises we sing;

Who reignest in splendor with Jesus our King.

Ave, ave, ave Maria.

Ave, ave Maria.

Pope Benedict XVI, who visited Lourdes on the 150th anniversary in 2008 said, “Mary teaches us to pray, to make our prayer an act of love for God and an act of fraternal charity.” He said, “A quiet encounter with Bernadette and the Virgin Mary can change a person’s life, for they are here, in Massabielle, to lead us to Christ who is our life, our strength and our light.”
They are in Rio Grande City as well, in a replica made 85 years ago by an Oblate priest who wanted to bring the message of the apparition to south Texas.

(Originally published in the June 2013 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)

Via Crucis: Walking the Way of the Cross

By Brenda Nettles Riojas

The Valley Catholic

SAN JUAN – Walking the Stations of the Cross helps us recall Christ’s final hours.   While images of the 14 stations are displayed inside churches and sometimes outdoors in gardens or prayer paths, the life-size statues of the Passion of Christ, which are situated on the grounds of the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle-National Shrine, help bring to life Christ’s suffering in an especially dramatic way.

A traditional Lenten devotion on Fridays and Good Friday, I thought the Stations of the Cross would be an ideal way to start my own Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday.

During my walk, I talked to one pilgrim, Juanita Aguiñaga of Pharr, who plans to attend daily Mass and walk the Via Crucis each of the 40 days of Lent.

“I want to offer up this sacrifice of love to God for my sins and the sins of the world,” she said, adding, “This is an effort to grow closer to God and grow more in love with him.”

Aguiñaga said seeing the images, life-sized, remind her of how much God loves us and how much his Son suffered for our sins. Confronted with his suffering, “It should truly hurt me to offend him,” she said.

The custom for the Via Crucis originated in the Middle Ages when Christians could not make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

The basilica grounds shaded by mesquites, oaks, elms and palm trees provide a beautiful setting for the Way of the Cross. Benches placed along the way make it convenient to sit in prayer and reflection.

Spending time before each station, gazing on the images, imagining the scene, we can’t help but recognize the tremendous sacrifice that Jesus Christ made as he proceeded on this path in agony and out of obedience to his Father. Station after station he continued no matter the weight of the cross or the suffering he endured, he continued following the will of his Father. Christ’s pain is real.

The sculptor captured it in his face, in his entire body. Barefoot, his face solemn, Jesus carga con su cruz. We see him fall; we see him continue forward. Lou Rodgers, from Boulder, Colo. drew the designs for the statues at the basilica. Italian artist Edmund Rabanser brought the images of the Via Dolorosa to life.

Life-size statues crafted in bronze and resin in aged hues portrays the human form in a size we can visualize. Each scene is set in natural stones to isolate the setting.

The Way of the Cross was a project that took more than five years from initial concept to its dedication in October 1993. It consists of 30 life-size bronze figures located along a path that spans almost one mile.

Rabanser first made a smaller set of the stations (18-inches tall) and worked on them for approximately one year. “I never realized how big this project was,” he said. The Most Rev. John J. Fitzpatrick, bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville at the time, visited the sculptor in to see his work in northern Italy, near the Alps in a town called Ortisei.

It took four and a half years to complete the full set of sculptures for the Stations of the Cross. A master woodcrafter, Rabanser created detailed expressions of each different station. He sculpted each one in order. He said he felt the suffering of Christ as the work proceeded.

Meticulously carved in Italian linden wood, the life-size figures were then reproduced in bronze. He made the crosses from solid oak.

Rabanser, who last visited the Basilica in 2007, to view his work, said he feels a part of them. “I will never make something like this again. Few sculptors have a chance to work on a project like this.”

Thousands of pilgrims come to the Basilica each week, and the Via Dolorosa stands as a permanent invitation to follow Christ’s Passion.

I find the stations where Jesus falls particularly painful, but most painful is the scene in station 11 – Jesus is crucified. He looks to heaven, to his Father; two soldiers hold him down, while another holds a nail in one hand and a hammer in the right. I imagine the nail as our sins and that we hold the hammer.

Walking his last steps, recalling the final hours of our Savior’s pain truly serves as a visual reminder of his love for us and for his Father. Each station provides a different narrative to reflect on and internalize in our own lives.

Pilgrims walk silently along the Via Dolorosa, some leave flowers, sometimes roses. Most often they leave red hibiscus cut from a nearby bush; the flower placed in Christ’s hand or on his crown of thorns.

We finish the fourth station – Christ buried in the tomb. “But the buried Christ,” notes the prayer from the basilica, “is the seed of hope in new life.”

—

Different resources are available for the Stations of the Cross. Copies of the prayers and reflections are available in English and Spanish in the basilica. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has the stations based on those celebrated by Pope John Paul II on Good Friday 1991 accessible on their website (usccb.org). Also, a variety of apps have been developed for I phones and android phones.

(Originally published in the March 2013 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)

Go Outdoors:

 

God Created Natural Pilgrimage Places

By BRENDA NETTLES RIOJAS

The Valley Catholic

WESLACO – Surrounded by the sounds of the black bellied whistling ducks, northern shovelers and other varieties feeding near the shallow ponds in Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, I was reminded the outdoors serve as a natural pilgrimage site.

Sometimes all it takes to embark on a pilgrimage is a step into our own backyards. We don’t have to travel far to find an hour or more to sit in a garden or beneath a tree and spend time in prayer and silence.

We might choose to travel a little further to the beach, a city park or one of the state parks or national wildlife refuges. The Rio Grande Valley is blessed with thousands of miles of natural habitat.

In this New Year, as I continue on these pilgrimages close to home, I want to include the outdoors. During my first pilgrimage to Estero Llano Grande State Park, on a cold and cloudy day in January, the ducks weren’t complaining about the cold, so how could I. I went bundled and made it a point to sit in silence.

Sitting still can be a challenge, but the natural rhythms of the wildlife in my midst created a perfect setting. Among the honey mesquites, Texas Ebonies and Huisache (Sweet Acacias), the kiskadees, ducks and even the alligators, I felt at peace.

Blessed Pope John Paul II valued his time outdoors. “Whoever really wants to find himself,” he said during one of his vacations in the Dolomites mountains, “must learn to savor nature, whose charm is so intimately linked with the silence of contemplation. The rhythms of creation establish so many paths of extraordinary beauty, along which the sensitive and believing heart easily catches the echo of the mysterious, loftier beauty that is God Himself, the Creator, the source and life of all reality.”

Msgr. Heberto Diaz, Jr., vicar general for the Diocese of Brownsville and pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Brownsville, said he finds peace outdoors and likes to pray in his garden. He said everyone needs to find their own “prayer space” and some people find it outdoors.

Msgr. Diaz, who vacations each year in national parks and served as a park ranger at Big Bend National Park in the 1980s, said he encourages his parishioners, as part of establishing a discipline of prayer, to set aside a space. He added, “There are so many beautiful, natural places that God created. To me these are natural pilgrimage places,” he said.

Msgr. Diaz said as one observes the natural beauty of the outdoors, “each tree, each branch, you can’t help but think, ‘God’s hand was in this.’” One of his favorite spots is Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (in Colorado). “I like to go on early morning hikes to be the first one there (Emerald Lake) to be in a quiet space by myself with God.”

Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 after a midday Angelus, talked about nature as a “magnificent gift that presents to us the grandeur of the creator.”

“Contemplating the beauty of creation inspires us to recognize the love of the Creator, that love which “moves the sun and the stars,” he said in his message for World Day of Peace in 2010.

Closer to home, I returned to Estero Llano Grande on a sunnier day and enjoyed the visit as much as the birds and ducks relished their chance to leave their shelters and hunt for food. Estero Llano Grande State Park is one of the nine locations for the World Birding Center. The World Birding Center in the Rio Grande Valley features nine sites from South Padre Island to Roma. As a migration corridor, more than 500 bird species have been recorded in the four-county area.

The centers include, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission, Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, Estero Llano Grande (Weslaco), Harlingen Arroyo Colorado, Old Hidalgo Pumphouse, Quinta Mazatlan (McAllen), Resaca de la Palma (Brownsville), Roma Bluffs and South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center.

The state parks and national wildlife refuges draw birders from around the world. Some days can get busy, but even on a busy day visitors can find some quiet near one of the ponds or trails. Estero Llano Grande, which sits on 176 acres, has more than five miles of hiking trails. The shadier spots are near the Alligator Lake. There are also some nice sitting areas near the butterfly gardens.

Susan Keefer, a volunteer at Estero Llano Grande from Vermont, said the stillness in nature energizes her. “It charges me.” She and her husband who retired 15 years ago started coming south when they started following the migration of the birds. “We became a migratory species,” she said.

Keefer and her husband lead educational programs at the park and have led them as well in Maine where they volunteer during summer months. One of the lessons she teaches students is to stop and sit still. “Magic moments,” she said, those moments when a butterfly will rest on your shoulder or a bird will approach to eat nearby, “only come when you stop.”

As I attempt to visit each of the state parks and national wildlife refuges in the Valley this year, I am thankful for the inspiration the Lord provided in January as I sat and hiked at Estero Llano Grande, “the wet place on the big plain.”

(Originally published in the February 2013 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)

 

 

Un Pueblo de Guadalupanos

Feast day celebrates patroness of the Americas

By BRENDA NETTLES RIOJAS

The Valley Catholic

BROWNSVILLE — Priests on horseback, matachines dancing in the streets, the voices of the faithful, hundreds, joined in prayer and song, as processions from three directions converge on Lincoln Street for a Mass commemorating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

On Dec. 12, the feast day of the patroness of the Americas, you can feel the energy of the community coming together to celebrate.

While millions make a pilgrimage each year to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City for the feast day, local celebrations draw hundreds and thousands here in the Rio Grande Valley.

In the Diocese of Brownsville, three historical parishes (in Brownsville, Mission and Raymondville) and three mission churches (in Expressway Heights, La Villa and El Sauz) named after Our Lady of Guadalupe can serve as pilgrimage sites closer to home. Her feast day is an ideal time as each church prepares a full schedule in honor of their namesake.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores, during an outdoor Mass in 2011 for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Brownsville, said, “We recognize the importance to publically manifest the faith we have of God’s closeness through the presence of the Mother of Christ in our lives.”

He said, the Virgin Mary announces with her presence the new hope of the world. “Dios se acuerda de su pueblo. (God remembers his people.)”

The public manifestation joins parishioners from different parishes. Some parishes celebrate with midnight vigils, mañanitas, processions, and plays honoring the Virgin Mary.

In the Brownville procession in 2011, while some walked and sang, floats carried representations of the apparition with young girls dressed as the Blessed Mother and young boys as Blessed Juan Diego. Our Lady’s image, multiplied on banners, paintings, and t-shirts, was carried through the streets.

The faithful also bring her roses on Dec. 12, some cut from home gardens, some purchased, some made of silk and others hand made from paper.

Father Jorge Gomez, chancellor of the diocese and pastor of Holy Family Church in Brownsville, said it is important to continue the traditions of the Dec. 12 feast day. “We are one family and she gathers us together on that day,” he said.

“Amid the moral and cultural challenges of our time,” Father Gomez said, “she is looked to as model for furthering the new evangelization.”

“Our Lady of Guadalupe has been the greatest missionary that the world has known,” he said. “She is still changing hearts and minds. We continue honoring her as the mother of God, and she will continue leading us to her son Jesus Christ.”

The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was chosen by bishops of the United States to be a part of the Calendar for U.S. dioceses in 1971. The feast day commemorates the apparition of the Virgin Mary to the Indian Juan Diego, at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of Mexico City in December, 1531, ten years after the conquest of Mexico by Spain.

Oblate priest Father Roy Snipes, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mission, said the apparition “tells us she (Virgin Mary) loves us and is with us.”

He said that just as Juan Diego, who was canonized in 2002, responded to Our Blessed Mother’s request almost 500 years ago, celebrations on her feast day remind us “ordinary people in their ordinary lives are in touch with God’s saving love.”

On Wednesday, Dec. 12, Bishop Flores will celebrate an outdoor Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Brownsville with parishioners from all the local churches.

(Originally published in the December 2012 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)

Go west to Starr County

Sanctuary 

found among

the mesquites

in rattlesnake

country

By Brenda Nettles Riojas

The Valley Catholic

RIO GRANDE CITY – Sometimes, we need a break from routine, so I went west. I made my way to an oasis of quiet, hidden among the mesquites, brush and cacti in Starr County where the Sisters of the Benedictine Monastery of the Good Shepherd welcome visitors year round.

Some guests come to visit for a few hours, some to stay at one of the casitas on the property for a personal retreat, and some for a discernment weekend or a group retreat. I came for a combination of field reporting and a mini private retreat.

The rock and gravel road leading to the monastery slowed my pace from the start. There is no speeding, no rush, on Monastery Lane.

It’s a good idea to call in advance and make arrangements. Some weekends the retreat center and casitas fill with retreatants. Plus, the sisters like to be on hand to welcome every guest.

They personalized a note outlining some essentials (the gate code and the code to the Fountain of Life Chapel for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament). Included as well, some advice in case snakes are around: “Just let them pass and continue.”

“The Good Shepherd Handmaidens pray for you before you arrive, during your stay and in your absence,” reads the note.

The monastery exists because of the dreams, prayers and work of these “handmaidens” – three sisters from Crookston, Minn., Benedictine Sisters Nancy Boushey, Luella Walsh and Fran Solum, who moved to the Rio Grande Valley in the early 70s and mid-80s.

“We had $900 and an old car and a lot of people praying for us, and some of them thinking we were crazy of course, and sometimes we thought we were crazy too,” Sister Nancy shared about their decision in 1989 to give up their salaried positions and start their monastery in the remote reaches of Starr County.

Monasteries have a long history dating back to the fourth and fifth century. Sisters Nancy, Luella and Fran live in a monastic community and “live the Gospel in the spirit of Saint Benedict.” St. Benedict is known as the founder of western monasticism.

Twenty-three years since the nuns moved west to Starr County, their monastery serves as an ideal place to visit and find some quiet time for prayer in the remote dry brush land. One of the highlights, however, comes from spending time with the Sisters. Their welcoming spirit and love exemplify Christ’s teachings. Without words, their kindness and hospitality inspire me.

They inspire others as well. Shortly after moving into a rat infested home in El Sauz, the three sisters mobilized hundreds of volunteers and started raising funds for their monastery.

Just eight miles from the Rio Grande River, the monastery sits on 115 acres of land donated by Texaco Oil Company in 1993. But it took seven years to get an easement to what the sisters call their “Promised Land.” Meanwhile, they lived in a mobile home until 2004.

The nuns added the Monte Cassino Renewal and Conference Center in 2008 to accommodate retreats for lay and religious groups. They are now raising funds to add additional rooms.

Visitors staying in one of the casitas provide for their own meals, but during my visit, the sisters invited me to join them for a grilled cheese sandwich and soup dinner. As we ate, an array of cardinals, green jays, house wrens and tree swallows pecked at their own dinner at feeders outside the window. Some days, road runners and javelinas make an appearance as well.

“Our guardian angels are the paisanos (roadrunners). They kill rattlesnakes,” said Sister Nancy.

During my stay I had a chance to spend some time with the women participating in their monthly Ora et Labora Discernment Weekend. Ora et Labora is Latin for pray and work.

Irma Wolcott from Laguna Vista was assisting that weekend as she does monthly with the discernment vocation retreats. She first visited the monastery six years ago. “They (nuns) are absolutely wonderful. Their hospitality is tremendous,” she said. “You feel like you are walking on holy ground,” she added about the monastery.

After our visit, we ended with the Lectio Divina and I returned to the Blessed Marmion Casita just a few feet from the monastic residence. When Sister Nancy assigned me to the casita I had not heard of Blessed Marmion, a Benedictine Irish monk who was beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 2000. After some research I learned that Blessed Marmion’s spiritual writings are highly regarded.

I stayed up past 1 a.m. writing, enjoying the solitude. The next morning, I did not want to leave the serenity of the brush country. I delayed my departure with an early morning walk and some time sitting in the back patio of the casita. My visit not long enough, but I know I will return – si Dios quiere.

(Originally published in the November 2012 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)

In honor of the Feast Day of St. Jude Thaddeus celebrated Oct. 28, here is an article I wrote for the Pilgrimages Close to Home series published in The Valley Catholic Newspaper.

“La Cuevita” de San Judas Tadeo

By Brenda Nettles Riojas

The Valley Catholic

PHARR — Inside a small cave in Pharr, candles flicker night and day before a statue of St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint for hopeless cases.

Each day people come. They come all day said Sister Estela Cantu, a secular sister of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and pastoral administrator of St. Jude Thaddeus Church in Pharr.

They come to pray before the saint and ask for his intercession. They come to give him thanks.

Ignacio and Alejandra Hernandez of Edinburg, originally from Mexico City, come every eight days, “To thank him for all his favors, and for all the ways he helps us,” said Alejandra Hernandez, adding “porque es muy milagroso.”

Ignacio Hernandez wears a green and white habit and holds his miracle, his three-year-old son, in his arm and he walks on his knees approaching the shrine dedicated to St. Jude.

“The doctors said I could not have another child,” his wife shares as she holds her baby daughter in her arms. The Hernandez have three children now. They named their second child, the three-year-old, Tadeo after the saint. Their oldest son is now 13.

Sister Cantu said, “It’s beautiful to see the way people come in. …He just has so many followers who are very grateful for what he has done for them. St. Jude intercedes for them.”

“They keep coming back to thank him every time with flowers, with candles,” she added.

She noted that even though the parish does not publicize “la cuevita” as it has been called over the years, people find it. “He has a lot of followers. We’re here in a little corner, but people find us.”

Buses filled with pilgrims come on the weekend as well; some arrive from Houston and San Antonio after their visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle-National Shrine in San Juan.

While the shrine is popular year round, the saints feast day on Oct.28 draws even larger numbers of faithful who want to honor the saint. Sister Cantu said people come all day and bring mariachis and matachines, and many come dressed as St. Jude.

Also, leading up to the feast day, the parish promotes a solemn novena. This year the novena begins Oct.20 and every intention and petition received will be placed under the altar during the Masses on Oct. 28.

A pathway from the parish church leads to the “Cuevita de San Judas Tadeo,” a man-made cave constructed around 1952 to house a statue of St. Jude Thaddeus, one of the twelve apostles.

The small concrete shrine, which measures 33 feet by 25 feet, was built to accommodate the high volume of faithful and the candles they left before the statue inside the church. The parish community at the time was afraid the church might catch fire because of all the candles.

Oratorian Father Leo Francis Daniel said a chapel with a cross was built adjacent to “la cuevita” to remind people that Christ comes first and that St. Jude is an intercessor.

Who knows how many people have come and have kneeled at the entrance of the cave praying before

the saint who gives them hope? Some clues as to the requests and petitions are left behind on two side bulletin boards and wire grids where the faithful pin milagro charms and notes, thank yous and supplications – their hopes and needs left before the saint. They leave photos of sonograms, newborns, soldiers, quinceañeras, homes, and wrecked cars.

One woman left a note asking for prayers for her surgery scheduled this past July. Another left a photo of her home asking St. Jude for his help. “No quiero perder mi casa,” (“I don’t want to lose my home”) it reads.

Norma Ramos of Harlingen visited on a Saturday afternoon at the sun’s peak hour. She has been visiting the “cuevita” for 20 years. She came with her daughter and grandchildren. Her daughter, Gloria, credits her mother for passing on the devotion to St. Jude.

“You pray and your prayers get answered,” Gloria Ramos said.

St. Jude Thaddeus Church, which is under the care of the Oratorian priests, was established in 1950. Each Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. they display a relic of St. Jude and celebrate a Novena Mass and Benediction. The Sunday Mass schedule includes a traditional Latin Mass at 8 a.m.

(Originally published in the October 2012 issue of The Valley Catholic newspaper.)