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. 

Sixto Rodriguez

I did not know who he was before this week. Today, I stand inspired by Sixto Rodriguez, a son of a Mexican immigrant who grew up in Detroit. I am moved by his story, by how his words and music traveled without his knowing and resonated with thousands in South Africa.

I spent this weekend listening to his music and watched the documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” by Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul. Bendjelloul said the documentary was supposed to be a seven-minute feature for Swedish television. What a blessing that the film, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, introduces us to a man who remained unknown here in the United States. Thanks to this documentary Rodriguez is now being brought to the center stage.

60 Minutes Interview - Rodriguez: The rock icon who didn't know it.

Each time I think about his story or tell others about this legend, I come to tears. Here is a talented poet and musician who remains humble in his new-found fame. Perhaps his story reminds us that our words matter; we never know where they will reach and who they will impact. It’s not about fame and fortune. It’s above moving forward with the life before us.

Searching For Sugar Man Trailer

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.)

Walking with Him

“El pan que del cielo baja es comida de viajeros…” da “fuerza en el camino”

Fiesta del Corpus Christi: Secuencia

June opened with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, and the fire of Christ’s presence continues to guide my days.

Walking in the Eucharistic procession through the downtown streets of Brownsville on June 2 for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi filled me with peace and joy as we, some 400 people, gave witness to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.

Some of the signs read, “Soy Yo en medio de ustedes” (It is I among you); another read, “Cristo está vivo en la Eucaristía” (Christ is alive in the Eucharist).

The Knights in full regalia; the children dressed in white scattered rose petals before the Blessed Sacrament; the evening never felt the darkness as the choir led us in song and we walked in procession; the matachines danced in celebration.

People peaked from their windows as the procession passed by; some came to their front yard fences; all of them drawn by the power of his presence.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores reminds us, “Dios eterno bajo del cielo para acompañarnos, el quiso estar con nosotros… El señor desea acompañar nuestra peregrinación de la vida.”

Those of us who walked together felt his presence. I am certain his presence impacted us in ways beyond our understanding. One thing I do recognize, the road ahead is less daunting knowing that we do not walk alone.

No Passport Needed

Pilgrimages and retreats help us grow. They take us to unexpected places, some we never envisioned. I’ve traveled to some of the major pilgrimage sites in the world, some religious, some secular. Three weeks ago I embarked on a journey that does not require a passport. It is a pilgrimage that is transforming me day my day.

I began an Ignatian Prayer Adventure, an eight-week retreat provided online by Loyola Press. The retreat is based on The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brian, a Jesuit priest.

Each morning I can’t wait to wake up to begin the day’s retreat. I find that offering my reflections in the form of poems makes me stay focused on what God wants me to learn.

Here is a draft of a prose poem I wrote on week two, day two –

An April Psalm of Thanksgiving

Sunday morning without rush; the house keeps silent the hour. I want to make my day a psalm of thanksgiving. No matter what may come, “let the day go through you.” Thankful for the music in the wind as it rushes through the palms, the yellow kiskadee who greets me, for open eyes, for the gift of one more day, for second chances, for a third, fourth, 100 more to find my way. He, in all things, my constant guide. I, his work in progress. The gardenias perfume my backyard even without my asking.

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.)