Marist Community

Farewells

2009-01-16T12:45:00.009-06:00

In 1989 I was invited to come to live and work in the Rio Grande Valley. I worked in Harlingen, La Joya and Cameron Park. Each one of these places marked my life with unanticipated blessings. After all of these years, I have decided to move on, leaving, with deep sadness but profound gratitude, one of America's treasures, the border between Texas and Mexico.

During my time here, I discovered the Rio Grande Valley as one of our nation's hidden secrets: a culture all its own, a mixing of northern Mexican ways, Rio Grande Valley mores, and American derring-do, perhaps best captured in our language, wrongly called "Tex-Mex" or "Spanglish" or "Pocho-Guess." I learned to delight in the wordplay, the subtle nuances and the brilliance of a language that moves between Mexican and American English and the particularity of life along a border.

And while I reveled in the joy here, I discovered much to grieve over. This is an economically-devastated place (Cameron Park, for instance, has a lower per capita income than Guatemala!). And yet we belong to the state of Texas, a place that generates more money than Austria or Australia.

The Rio Grande Valley, alone in the United States, is a militarized zone. Nowhere else in the USA are grandfathers "checked out" by armed officers while fishing with their grandchildren. Nowhere else in the United States are mothers of American citizen children afraid to go to church or to walk their children to school. The norm in our lovely Valley is often not the trust and respect that is such a part of our culture, but the suspicion and fear that comes from living amidst a drug war, a war on terrorism, and a war on people of color.

That suspicion and fear, and, in the end, hatred, has seeped into our way of life here as well. It is not unusual for a family member to “turn in” a cousin or an uncle to the Border Patrol; it is no longer surprising when elected officials take some of the billions of dollars that flow through here in exchange for turning a blind eye to business as usual.

In the end, we are a border community. A twenty minute drive from my home lands me in the midst of Mexico. My favorite place is a neighborhood called Colonia Juarez, where for the past 18 years I have enjoyed the deepest sort of fellowship with some of the noblest people on God’s earth. These are poor people—living in tarpaper shacks and knowing hunger’s face all too well. They are also extraordinarily strong people—when we have gathered together I have always been impressed with the latent power that pulses there beneath the surface.

I was in such a gathering the other day—a time to say goodbye to these good people. In the midst of the group was Yahaira. I had used a photo of her as a Christmas card some years ago, so much did her expression remind me of Sacred Hope.

But in this gathering, twelve year old Yahaira had also come to say goodbye—to me, but also to the community. That night, she was going to be handed over to a smuggler, who was to bring her to San Antonio so that she could be with her father. She was going to swim the river, and then would have to walk the four or five days it would take to cross the Wild Horse Desert, which lies between the Valley and the rest of the country.

I asked the community’s wise woman what was going on, why on earth was her mother going to put her twelve year at such risk? And she looked at me with her infinitely sad eyes and said, “Sometimes people just don’t think.”

And so Yahaira set off in the evening. She was going to cross the border, a border which remains unsecure—and I don’t mean that the way the Michael Chertoff means, but in the way that the Gospel means. Yahaira will not be safe; the border will not be a secure place for her.

The cynics and the terrified might make noises about her “illegality” and whine about another individual who would be a “burden” on society. I only saw a little girl who was going to be with her father.

It is to this place and these brave people that I take leave now, as I move onto to other places of blessing. I leave with deep gratitude for the lessons offered me. And I pray in a special way for those others, like Yahaira, who take much greater risks than I can imagine, to move on to new possibilities, with hope and in faith.

Deep thanks to all who have supported the work in Cameron Park and Colonia Juarez over the years. God Bless, Michael Seifert, SM

Update: I discovered that, in the end, Yahaira never made it across the river. The Border Patrol was out in force that day and the smuggler decided that it was not worth the trouble. Thank you, Border Patrol!

New Year's Wishes

2008-12-31T17:01:00.006-06:00

1. The Dream Act is passed within the first one hundred days of President Obama taking office. This piece of legislature would legitimize the presence of thousands of our nation’s young people who have lived their entire lives in the shadows of their parents’ decision to immigrate to the USA. These children know no other country than the USA. The Dream Act would only offer legalization to those who have stayed in school and stayed out of trouble. The Dream Act is not a piece of immigration reform, but a relief act (http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/DREAM/dream_basic_info_0406.pdf) (http://sanfelipedejesus.blogspot.com/2007/02/dream-act.html)

2. Compassionate, humane immigration reform. A law that will protect those who live and work and pray alongside of us from those who would exploit them. I think especially of those who work as maids and earn $100 for a 72 hour week. Of those who prepare the chickens we eat for less than $2.50 an hour. And with this legislation, although it is perhaps too much to ask for, although never too much to hope for—a conversion of our American hearts from seeing strangers as enemies to seeing strangers as friends who share a profound commonality with us—a heart-felt desire for a blessed future for all of us.

3. Affordable health care for everyone, but starting with the poor. For once.

4. Affordable housing for working families.

5. And, finally, a wish of a truly dream-like quality: a conversion of our national politics, in which we stop trusting arms and military might and begin trusting education and the building up of community resources as the most effective way to enjoy peace and security in our world. Take the example of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea and make it an international policy.

I Don't Believe That This is Rocket Science

2008-12-28T20:49:00.008-06:00

The story below was printed in Saturday's (December 27) Brownsville Herald. The photos are by Daniel Lopez. The Brownsville Community Development Corporation has done a marvelous job of providing low-cost housing for thousands of families in our area. But there are hitches every now and again, that have nothing to do with BCDC and everything to do with the way we treat poor people in general (suspiciously and without much mercy). In this case, the 68 year old woman for whom a new house was built had to live in a shack because the light company (a public utility that became privatized in more ways that I can figure) simply couldn't be bothered to hook her up. Despite the fact that she is ill, older, and that it has been a cold December.

She is our neighbor, living five houses down the block.

When we moved into our home, we had no trouble getting our electricity turned on. But then again, we had some money.

IN THE DARK
Residents receives new home, but has no electricity yet By Kevin Seiff

Maria D. Garcia had been waiting for months for her Christmas present to arrive: a new home courtesy of the Brownsville Community Development Corp.

Garcia was one of 10 Cameron Park residents who received new homes this fall from BCDC after the organization received a federal grant.
“If you give a person a decent place to live they’re going to be able to do decent things with their life,” said BCDC board member Father Mike Seifert.
But as the holidays neared, Garcia was still living in a makeshift shanty, waiting for utilities to be installed in her new home. Winter came, and the cold sliced through gaps in Garcia’s plywood walls. Child Protective Services told her it was an improper place to raise her two 15-year-old grandsons.
For six weeks, Garcia waited for services. TXU Energy placed an installation order which was pushed back by AEP, the local electricity provider.
“We did everything right. We put in the service order,” said Sophia Stoller, a TXU spokeswoman. “(AEP) has their reasons for moving the date.”
The BCDC home is now complete. But until utilities are installed, the corporation will not allow Garcia to move in. Of the BCDC grantees, she is the only one who has not yet been able to move into her home.
“We call every other day,” said Garcia’s daughter Adriana. “They get annoyed, but what can we do? We want my mom to have something.”
After a cold front came to Brownsville, Garcia’s children took her to their homes in Austin and San Antonio. “We couldn’t let her stay here,” Adriana Garcia said. “Everyone was getting sick.”
AEP is expected to install the services at some point next week.
“It’s too bad,” Seifert said. “It would have been a great Christmas present.”
ksieff @brownsvilleherald .com

Merry Christmas! Proof of citizenship?

2008-12-18T07:15:00.003-06:00

If Jesus and Mary were fortunate, there was a midwife around at the time of Jesus' birth. Or maybe there wasn't. Certainly there was little or no paperwork done--Jesus' birth, like that of most of the people on the earth (poor people, that is), would have been an event of little note (save for the extreme interest of God and Mary his mother).

In the Rio Grande Valley, the same lack of concern about poor people lives on. For instance, a person born to a midwife (a common practice for poor families) is immediately put into a category of doubt. While the State of Texas will recognize the newborn as a citizen, the State Department imposes an extreme set of criteria, making it practically impossible to obtain a passport, and thus travel to the home of the his or her ancestors.

In the end, 2000 years ago, Jesus had it a little better. All the Holy Family needed when they headed off as refugees to Egypt was a sturdy donkey, a wise Joseph, and a strong Mary. 2,000 years later, a person born to a midwife and seeking his or her right to travel, needs a slew of attorneys (which we have, thanks to Lisa Brodyaga and the ACLU) and some good guardian angels.

The lawsuit launched against the State Department in favor of people born in the Valley to midwives continues forward. What a grand Christmas gift it would be to have that settled, once and for all.

(Christmas card, by Fr. John Giuliani and available from Bridge Building Images, Inc; PO Box 1048; Burlington VT 05402)

¡Que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

2008-12-13T07:28:00.002-06:00

It is 3:30am and we are three hundred faithful gathered in the parking lot of the church. With a shout "¡Que Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!" we begin our five mile walk to a neighboring parish. More than half of us are under 25 years of age. There is prayer, and song, and quiet talking and long moments in which all that can be heard are footfalls.

More than anything else, there is a sense of homecoming, of belonging.

Last week, the border patrol began asking families who were crabbing and fishing at a local creek for proof of citizenship or residency. The agents could not know how outrageous it is for someone's little boy to watch his father publically humiliated by men with guns. "Are you a US citizen?" is the question asked, but the unspoken accusation is "You are a Mexican, aren't you?" A question often posed by a Mexican Americans who have become Border Patrol agents as a way out of desperation.

The Virgen of Guadalupe is many, many things--inspiration, source of hope and healing, a call to prayer--but she is also Us.

She is deeply tatooed upon our hearts, a reminder that we are Mexican and that there is nothing but goodness in that.

It is like coming home after a long walk in the night.

Proyecto Niño Jesús

2008-12-02T22:18:00.004-06:00

Project Baby Jesus

Eight years ago, Miguel and Perla's fourth child was born with severe physical problems. After a long fight for his life, little Jesús passed away, causing a grief for Miguel and Perla that I myself cannot imagine.

A year after his death, they decided to honor their son at Christmas by organizing a gift-giving project. This is something that happens all across our nation at this kind of year. Generous people looking for a way to share their gratitude do this with poor children at Christmastime. Miguel and Perla, however, take that a step further, bringing the gifts that they gather to the children who live in the appalling conditions of the hospitals and poor neighborhoods of Matamoros, Mexico.

It is a lot of work--Miguel tells me that each year with a deep sigh. And it is a lot of blessing. "If I could only bottle the looks in the eyes of those children when they receive a gift. . ."

If you would like to be a part of this, you can send donations to Proyecto Niño Jesús, PO Box 8093; Brownsville, Tx 78526.

Death at the Border

2008-12-01T01:14:00.003-06:00

It was some years ago that I took this photo. At the time, I was seated on a bench just by the Chisholm Trail marker (cattle would cross at this point in the river and then would be herded down Elizabeth Street, the main drag in Brownsville).

I noticed two young men getting into the river from the Mexican side. I took their picture, and then sat back down. (You can barely make them out, in the center of the picture).

When the men reached the US side of the river, one of them managed to crawl out of the water and up onto the bank, but the other fellow--Luis, I learned his name in a sad way--floundered. I got up from the bench and began wondering what I could do. As Luis thrashed about, his companion threw him a long branch, which the man managed to grab hold of. I sat back down.

And then Luis disappeared beneath the waters.

His friend began screaming, "Luis! Luis!"

And so I learned his name, shortly after he drowned.

Some years ago, the Roman Catholic bishops of the dioceses that run along the US/Mexico border published a startling piece called "Strangers No Longer: Together on a Journey of Hope." In this letter, they argue strongly for a secure border. But they mean this in a different way than Michael Chertoff, the Secretary for Homeland Security, and the members of Congress. While those people want a border wall--a barrier between our two countries, the bishops argue for a space along the border in which all people enjoy security. Even those attemting to cross from one country to another.

People like Luis.

Familia

2008-11-21T19:49:00.003-06:00

Rachel has raised her children and now she is a grandmother. Two years ago, Rachel’s mother passed away and her father was left alone at his ranch in a small town in Mexico. He was not doing well, physically, or emotionally, so she brought him to her home here in Brownsville, and set him up in the back bedroom. He doesn’t sleep well and often becomes confused at night, wandering throughout the house. Rachel loses her sleep caring for him, but he is, after all her father.

Sara is Rachel’s niece. Sara was born in the USA, but raised in the same small town as Rachel’s father. A couple of years ago, Sara entered the third grade. Sara’s father discovered that, for the third time, Sara was going to have the same teacher and the same books. He sent her north, to Rachel. Rachel set Sara up in the front bedroom, and sent her off to a real third grade class.

Sara require a bit of attention. But Rachel cares for her. She is, after all, family.

The lessons for me in this are too many to count, although startling to contemplate.

Yes We Did

2008-11-13T14:50:00.004-06:00

The San Felipe de Jesús congregation did its part in this election, turning out 20% more voters than the 2004 election. They joined with Latino voters across the country in hopes for a change in the political climate—one less fear-filled, one that would embrace those who live and work amongst us as brothers and sisters, but without a legal status in the country. The specter of an “illegal alien” can indeed be frightening.

The face of a little sister from Mexico who brings and shares her hopes with us is. . .lovely indeed.

Día de los muertos (All Souls' Day)

2008-11-03T16:03:00.005-06:00

This past weekend, while the children dressed as the spirits of Halloween, the adults prepared their home altars for the yearly visit of the spirits of those who have passed on. The feast of All Souls (November 2nd) is an ancient tradition—in the Americas, one that goes back long before the Europeans arrived—a celebration of the presence of those who have died.

The altars are elaborate; the symbols many. Tissue paper with ornaments cut into the center hangs along the edges of the altar, the better to catch the breeze, representing the breath of God moving amongst us all. There are candy skulls and pictures of skeletons dancing and playing guitar. The message is clear: death may be respected, but it is not to be feared.

A candle is lighted for each loved one who has died. One other candle is lighted for those who have died and have been forgotten. On this day, all are welcomed home.

Bright orange flowers—marigolds—are laid out in a path that leads the spirits to the altar. Incense is burned, reminding us of the transformation from death to life. Photos of the dearly departed are arranged amongst plates of the food that they used to enjoy when with us (tamales, mole, atole).

And one or two details are place here and there on the altar—a baseball cap that grandpa used to wear, the old watch of a favorite uncle. The last bit of adornment is perhaps the most important: silence. The family gathers beholds the altar in silence, and in silence receive the blessed memory of those who have gone before us.

(Altar de los muertos, San Felipe de Jesús, designed by Elizabeth Garcia and parishioners)

God Votes

2008-10-24T20:44:00.005-05:00

Karina turned 18 just a short while ago. On Wednesday, she cast her first vote as a citizen.

A bit intimidating, that whole song and dance of showing id and signing two sets of papers and then picking a ballot. And then reading the ballot.

And making a decision.

But she did it. Happily.

God keeps sending us people like Karina. They give me great joy and hope and a grand sense of well-being.

I see it as God voting.

I think I know who God is for.

Ending Violence Against Women

2008-10-18T10:45:00.005-05:00

Throughout the month of October we take time to reflect on violence done against women. In our border area, the violence has taken particularly vicious forms, including torture and murder.

In the midst of that curse, there are moments of promise. Groups such as the Friendship of Women offer clear avenues of escape for victims of violence. In our parish community, I have seen more and more women come forward to denounce the abuse that they have suffered. I have been encouraged by the increasing number of young women who are growing up with the expectation that they will serve their communities as leaders. I am impressed by the number of women who, even as girls, are learning about the different manifestations of violence, as well as how to respond to it.

Our parish community prays and watches, in hope, for that day when the hold that violence has upon us is broken, once, and for all.

Mother Teresa in Federal Prison

2008-10-10T12:30:00.012-05:00

There are some things that pierce the heart. Seeing a desperately sick child in a hospital room; observing the grief of those burying a loved one; watching a proud woman, bound in chains, have to stand before a federal judge.

Last week I watched my neighbor Teresa C. as she underwent that humiliation and I was deeply saddened and angered that this sort of thing could happen to anyone—but especially an innocent, good woman.

Teresa is one of those rare gems in humankind that mysteriously, wondrously catches the shared light of our days and refracts it into colors that light up the souls of those who know her. She is a woman who, finding a teenager living on the street, takes her into her family’s home and treats her as her own daughter. She is generous, but also a funny woman. I think that Mother Theresa would enjoy sharing the same saint's name. Teresa is just plain good to have around.

She was born in Brownsville back in 1968, to a midwife, her parents being poor, and birth by midwife a rather common occurrence. Her parents moved back to their native state of Durango, Mexico, where Teresa was raised. After she finished high school, Teresa came back to Brownsville, married her husband Jose and had three daughters.

Five or six years ago, Teresa applied for a passport. In 2004, she received it in the mail, from the Federal Government. She used it for travel back and forth to Mexico.

Until three weeks ago, when, returning from a Sunday afternoon visit with family and friends in Matamoros, she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and trotted off to the “Icebox” as the local holding cell is called by those who have been inside it (“you feel like you are buried away—and it is freezing cold, like the way I imagine dying” was the way one young person described the place).

At her arraignment, the government insisted that Teresa not be given a bond. When the federal judge disagreed, offering to accept the couple’s home as collateral, the Immigration Services stepped in and with their authority (different court, different judges, different justice), refused to let her go.

The charges? As far asI can understand them, Teresa is charged with having a fraudulent passport. She is not being charged with creating a fake passport, but with having applied for a passport using the birth certificate signed by a midwife (and approved by the State of Texas).

She is accused of not being born in the United States, although her mother and her father, her midwife, the state of Texas and the Federal Government all agreed that she had been.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

Now she languishes in jail. She has lost her job; she is away from her children. She is being treated like a criminal. Her husband, a grocery stockboy, has wagered all of his meager savings on a local attorney.

We all wait, wondering just how something this bizarre will turn out. I worry, knowing that we live in the culture of Guantanamo Bay and justifiable torture, and knowing that she is poor and a woman and a Mexican American, and that our government is proud and afraid and, perhaps, unbending.

I pray, too, that her good heart, filled with the precious hope and love not be dried up as she awaits her fate, trapped behind those bars that we have erected in our own exercise of terror.

(To read the local paper's story, go here: http://amorehumanborder.blogspot.com/)

(Photo by Sr. Sharon Horace, DC. The original (below) is from a tire repair shop in Matamoros, Mexico)

Cameron Park Votes

2008-10-06T16:41:00.011-05:00

For the first time in history, the people who live along Florencia Avenue exist.

Florencia Avenue is a two mile long road in the parish that is home to ninety-seven families. For the past thirty years, people who lived along this street, located in the fifteenth richest entity in the world (Texas), did without a paved road. There were no police patrols, intermittent garbage pickup, and unreliable school bus service. If it rained, cars slid off of the road into the ditch; when it was dry, axles were broken and wheels were bent. Residents kept mailboxes on the side of the county highway, where the mail was routinely stolen.

Although monies had been appropriated for paving, county leadership never acted on the projects. "Why would we?" they responded to requests for help, "You people don't vote. It is like you don't care. You are lazy."

The residents were not lazy, not by any civilized measure. Everyone in the household that could work does work--otherwise, there is no food, there will be no electricity and the water would be cut off. They paid their taxes, proportionately more than the wealthy neighbors on the other side of the highway. But the services that the rest of America takes for granted were denied to these folks. It was as if they were invisible.

In 1998, the parish got involved in politics. Not partisan politics--the parish never said whom to vote for--but we encouraged people to exercise their right and honor their obligation to be heard. We organized debates and meet-the-candidates fora.

In the 1996 presidential election, only 151 people out of the more than 1,500 registered voters actually voted. In the 2000 election, the parish helped turn out a 1,000 voters. We became one of the highest voting precincts in the region.

We do indeed exist, and in a time of close election races, we had to be taken seriously.

Slowly the fruits of that effort have been seen. This morning, ten years after we launched our Get Out the Vote campaign, trucks began laying down asphalt.

The Florencia Avenue mailboxes stood attentively, awaiting their opportunity to serve.

(Top photo by Anthony Padilla, Brownsville Herald. Other photos by M. Seifert)

Visitors

2008-10-06T16:32:00.008-05:00

The writer Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street) is one of those people gifted with the ability to peer inside the hearts of others and bring forth those jewels of beauty hidden beneath the layers of the ordinariness that marks our lives. She passed through the parish last week, asking questions about the Border Wall. For a couple of hours she just sat and listened and observed. She had no notepad, but you could hear her heart filing away notes for later consideration.

Lights in the Night

2008-10-03T20:36:00.005-05:00

Along Florencia Avenue there is line of pearls, a friendly glow in the dark night. For the first time ever, some of the streets in the community are now lighted at night. There is much more to do--less than a fifth of the community has lighting--but the community leaders smiled at this small victory.

I changed my predawn running route. I like to see where I am going. The light along the way seemed to calm the usually vicious dogs along this route. Perhaps it was because they could see my face and know that I meant no harm. Or maybe because they could see my skinny legs and knew that I could do no harm. That is the grace of a little light in the deep darkness.

Building Walls

2008-09-26T10:26:00.003-05:00

(Produced by Nat Stone)

"You are the Salt of the Earth."

2008-09-18T15:50:00.005-05:00

Each Wednesday afternoon, an hour and a half before their children begin returning from school, a group of between fifteen and twenty women gather in a neighbor's front yard. Only three of them read with any sort of facility. Although they love music and song, not a single one of them can carry a tune. They are acutely of aware of this fault, but sing their hearts out anyway.

Each time that they get together, one of the three women who can read shares the Gospel of the coming Sunday's Eucharist. In turn, they reflect on the reading, offering opinions that are at times strongly expressed and other times offered as a guestimate. Jesus can be confusing--this they readily admit.

This particular group has been at it for more than ten years now. They are friends, for they trust each other. They are sisters, for they live the same fate--poverty, too many children, not enough water, weariness--and joy in the midst of it all.

They are Church, for they care for themselves and for their neighbors, sharing out the little they have in times of trouble, offering shoulders for the burdens of life, and space for the celebration of life, all of this after the example of Jesus.

They salt our world, preserving it in hope, as it were, in this particular space, for what comes next.

Fear

2008-09-11T21:00:00.004-05:00

We are more afraid of ICE than of Ike
Posted to the Rio Grande Guardian
September 11, 2008

BROWNSVILLE, September 11 - I have lived in the Rio Grande Valley's colonias for the past 15 years and have come to love the resilience and the energy that these communities contain and nurture.

The homes in the colonia neighborhoods are nearly all works in progress - visible testimonials to the Valley residents' tenacious hold on hope. Outsiders see poverty and misery; those of us who live here see the fruits of people working far harder than most other Americans to build something for their children and their children's children.

Works in progress, however, are often risky ventures. A working family doesn't always have the material resources to build the strongest homes and can't always locate their family's homestead in the best geographic space.

Many of our colonia neighborhoods are in flood plains, exposed to the whimsical wrath of storms such as Dolly. House blessings are particularly touching - some of my neighbors' homes are indeed depending upon some divine protection. Hurricanes are particular threats to our neighborhoods. All of us are all too aware that a storm like Gilbert would leave us but memories of what our neighborhoods once were.

We tenaciously hold on to hope, looking over our shoulders, every now and then, hoping that fate isn't creeping up on us unseen.

Hurricane Ike is being seen, and as it makes its way east and north, I have been speaking with my neighbors. They all vividly remember that day in May when Rio Grande Guardian reporter Joey Gomez discovered the Border Patrol checking for citizenship documents during a practice evacuation. The word spread quickly—during a hurricane evacuation, the Border Patrol will separate people according to their documentation.

I asked my neighbors, in light of Border Patrols' recent claims that they wouldn't "necessarily" be checking for documents, that if an evacuation was ordered, would they leave? Those families composed of legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens all told me "Yes indeed! We aren't crazy people." Those families composed of people with mixed immigration status - a grandfather whose application for residency is in "process," or a niece who had submitted a request for a visa under the Violence Against Women Act, or a family with children who are U.S. citizens, but whose parents are Mexican nationals - they all told me, every last one of them, "No way are we leaving." When I asked those neighbors why wouldn't they leave, they said, again, every last one of them, "We don't trust the Border Patrol. We would rather take our chances with Ike."

While I admire the bravado, it is clearly that - bluster bordering on foolishness. The families with small children are the ones whose eyes open wide as they consider their options - the tragedy of a catastrophic storm or the icy efficiency of our government's security apparatus.

This sort of worry would have seemed inconceivable 15 years ago - we lived in a different time, a time when someone's identity had to do with their character more than with their documentation. It seems to be that we have given in to terror, a terror so deep that as a nation we are willing to take actions which would place our poorest, most vulnerable families - yes, those with children - at risk.

Today’s memorial of September 11th will be another opportunity to reflect on what sort of national community we have created in the face of enemy attacks. Have we become a stronger people because of that experience - or have we become shrill in our fear? As this hurricane blows up the waters in the Gulf, it might well lift up the veil that covers some of the shameful realities of our national character - we have become a fearful people.

The hurricane will indeed be a tragedy and a disaster, wherever it makes landfall. And, as in all such events, heroes will emerge. People will share, generously, with those in need. Locally, and nationally, purses will open, helping communities rebuild. I pray that we are blessed with courage and wisdom - and much less fear. I put my own hope in that - tenaciously.

Photo by M. Seifert. The child is an American citizen; his mother has her papers in process. Would they be separated during an evacuation? I am not sure, but I do know that this would be no place for children during a hurricane.

Passports and Midwives

2008-09-10T21:30:00.005-05:00

David Hernandez is a tough guy. He has done his time in the army and has stood by his family over the years. He grew up in San Benito, Texas, a small town just up the road from Brownsville. His mother is a sweet woman who is obviously proud of her son.

When Mrs. Hernandez was ready to deliver David, she did what so many working-class families down here do--she sought out a midwife. The "parteras" as midwives are called were much less expensive than doctors, and the experience a much more human one than that of a hospital.

Next year, in order for David to visit his extended family that lives in Mexico, he will need a US passport to be able to come back into the country. Some months ago, David filled out an application, paid his $112—and then got a letter from the State Department telling him that he needed to produce a bundle of secondary proof establishing that he was in fact a US citizen.

David did the paperwork. He got a second letter: the State Department had denied the application, but encouraged him to reapply, "once you establish your citizenship.”

David then went to the local immigration office and told them that he wanted to become a US citizen. They responded, “But you already are a US citizen. You were born here, and you have a valid birth certificate.”

But they couldn’t help him get a passport. That was another branch of the government. Moreover, David had committed the sin of being of Mexican descent, of living on the border, and of having been born with the help of a midwife.

In post 9/11 USA, David was now a suspicious person.

And he was being punished for it. House arrest. No Cancun for him, no visits to his cousins, no leaving the USA.

David said, “I have pledged allegiance to the flag every single day from kindergarten to high school. I traveled all over Europe on the basis of my Army identification card. And now this.”

Although women along the border have been using midwives for decades (one woman noted that she delivered more babies in a year than the local hospital), someone in Washington DC, apparently with too much time on his hands, decided that the para-professionals were untrustworthy, despite the fact that the State of Texas (the tightest state in the union) had long decided otherwise.

On behalf of David and thousands of others from our community, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the State Department. When the whole mess finishes, I hope that we can all have a nice meal on the other side of the border.

We will, of course, have our passports with us.

For more information, you can see this website: http://www.aclu.org/racialjustice/gen/passports.html

Another interview is here:

http://www.aclu.org/multimedia/passport_seifert.mp3

School Days

2008-08-29T07:15:00.008-05:00

A new school year opened this week, and so did the San Felipe de Jesus after-school tutorial program. All last week, mothers came by the parish office to pick up school supplies—pencils, notebooks, backpacks. A lovely group from the Catholic Daughters of Texas drove all the way from Roundrock, Texas with a van packed with things to share. Nearly thirty-five children pack our two classrooms, where they have a place to do their homework—and someone to check it for them. Most have parents who are not home until late in the day (everyone works down here); all of the children are proud of their work, excited to be back to school, and give us the gift of youth—unbridled cheer and boundless hope.

(Photo by Michael Seifert)

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

2008-08-29T07:10:00.003-05:00

I have known Angel since he was seven years old. Even as a boy, he wanted to be an engineer. He loved thinking about how to design things.

He is now 19 years old, the oldest of seven children. His mother is a true hero, raising her family the best way she can, working at what she can, fighting, scraping by, doing the right thing by her kids. Her children adore her.

Angel is bright, and a good student. He managed to get into a magnet high school for science. In May he got his engineering degree at the local university. He would love to design cities. "Civil engineer! That would be me!" he says.

He came by the parish office the other day, as he needed internet access to make an online application. I thought, “What a great thing. Angel is going to begin his career.” I felt like a proud, but elderly uncle.

Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. He was applying to the US Border Patrol. I asked him why, and he told me that it was the only secure job in town. And that the government offered health insurance as part of its benefits. I said, “But you always wanted to be an engineer!” He looked down and said, “I still do, but I have to support my mom.”

He then looked up and said, “You know, I have already had three interviews with the Border Patrol. The last time I went, I had to meet with four agents. They told me that they wanted to see what I was made of. So they said, ‘We are going to give you a scenario. Pretend that you are out on patrol with your partner, and you are loading up some immigrants, and one of them gets your partner’s gun and holds it to his head. What would you do?’

Angel continued, “Well, I thought for a moment and then told them, ‘I would pull my gun and then try and negotiate with the guy so that no one gets hurt.’ And then the captain shouted at me, “No! You will take out your gun and shoot that illegal five times! We are Border Patrol. We don’t negotiate with anyone.’

Angel finished, “Now I see how they really are. It is not a very attractive job, but it is all that there is.”

Angel’s mother was brought to the USA by her husband, a legal resident who refused to help her straighten out her immigration status. While she has now applied to "regularize" her immigration status through her son Tony, a US citizen, she still remains in the limbo of awating approval from the United States government.

She could be one of those people that the Border Patrol would not want Angel to negotiate with.

Rocio

2008-08-22T11:20:00.005-05:00

Rocio is eight years old and lives in the neighborhood called “Los Comunicadores” in Matamoros, the Mexican border city that sits just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville. She seemed to be a healthy child—bright, inquisitive, active—until she turned three years old. She quit growing, lost a lot of weight in a hurry—and her bones became fragile. She suffered repeated fractures, often from incidental contact.

Her skeletal system, that lovely invention of God’s nature, had turned into a torture machine. She began to shrink in upon herself.

A group of evangelical Christian doctors discovered Rocio during a quick missionary trip to Matamoros. The circumstances of her life, the vibrancy of her spirit, the hopelessness of her case--it is hard to know what moves a group of people from observation to action. In any case, the missionary doctors wanted to save her. But their time was limited, as were their local contacts, and, in the end, they headed home, unable to do much of anything other than raising false hope.

The hard truth was that there is not much that can be done, not now. Rocio had been through the Mexican medical system and the doctors had in fact done good work. She had received a plethora of examinations at no cost to her family. It doesn’t seem that she has rickets, but there is a possibility that she has an metabolic disorder. Rocio is being afflicted by something that is extraordinarily complicated, something that would be very difficult to treat, even in the best of circumstances.

The circumstances of Rocio’s life have made such treatment an impossibility. Rocio’s mother, Enriqueta, is raising her three children alone. She works on a factory assembly line where she earns about a third of what is needed to feed, clothe, and shelter her family. At 26 years of age, Enriqueta is worn out.

Taking Rocio across town to a doctor’s visit is a journey of pain for the little girl, who only breathes with any comfort when she is sitting up.

My friend Dr. Marsha, a pediatrician from Brownsville, and I pay the little girl a visit. Marsha sat with her and gently lifted her arm. Rocio indicated where they had taken a bone biopsy from her collarbone. She quietly told Marsha, that, yes, she was in pain. Marsha then asked the mother about Rocio’s medical history. The mother answers perfunctorily, her gaze out beyond the small sadness of her yard.

When Marsha asked Rocio what she would like to do, her eyes lit up. “Go to school!” she says. Her mother, for the first time during the visit, smiles, “She knows how to read!” she proudly exclaims.

As we continued the visit, Rocio turned in her little wheelchair so that she could better see the neighborhood kids scampering up and down a tree. “Rocio loves to watch the kids play,” her older sister says, helpfully.

We take our leave, promising to come back.

Once in the car, Marsha sighs, “I doubt that she will live out the month. Did you notice how much trouble she was having breathing?”

Actually, I hadn’t noticed that. I was caught up in the luminosity of her eyes, when she spoke of looking forward to the opening of school, and in the brightness of her smile, as she watched the kids from next door act like monkeys.

“The people asked him, ‘What, then, are we to do?’” (Luke 3: 10)
(Photos by Michael Seifert and Marsha Griffin, MD)

Matthew 25: 36

2008-06-11T13:34:00.006-05:00

Yesterday the Border Patrol began Operation Streamline in the Rio Grande Valley. They intend to catch all undocumented people who are here and jail them for at least three months. They have not said what they would do with children--or with the maids and gardeners that most Border Patrol officials themselves hire.
Which of these is illegal? The chicken, the duck (already in a cage!) or one of the girls? Or perhaps it is all in my head (or my soul).

(This is from the New York Times):
The Great Immigration Panic

Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. We don’t mean dollars, though those are being squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it.

A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully. The evidence is all around that something pragmatic and welcoming at the American core has been eclipsed, or is slipping away.

An escalating campaign of raids in homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat. After the largest raid ever last month — at a meatpacking plant in Iowa — hundreds were swiftly force-fed through the legal system and sent to prison. Civil-rights lawyers complained, futilely, that workers had been steamrolled into giving up their rights, treated more as a presumptive criminal gang than as potentially exploited workers who deserved a fair hearing. The company that harnessed their desperation, like so many others, has faced no charges.

Immigrants in detention languish without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill. Lawmakers are struggling to impose standards and oversight on a system deficient in both. Counties and towns with spare jail cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to bursting. Unbothered by the sight of blameless children in prison scrubs, the government plans to build up to three new family detention centers. Police all over are checking papers, empowered by politicians itching to enlist in the federal crusade.

This is not about forcing people to go home and come back the right way. Ellis Island is closed. Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago this month. The current strategy, dreamed up by restrictionists and embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, is to force millions into fear and poverty.

There are few national figures standing firm against restrictionism. Senator Edward Kennedy has bravely done so for four decades, but his Senate colleagues who are running for president seem by comparison to be in hiding. John McCain supported sensible reform, but whenever he mentions it, his party starts braying and he leaves the room. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost her voice on this issue more than once. Barack Obama, gliding above the ugliness, might someday test his vision of a new politics against restrictionist hatred, but he has not yet done so. The American public’s moderation on immigration reform, confirmed in poll after poll, begs the candidates to confront the issue with courage and a plan. But they have been vague and discreet when they should be forceful and unflinching.

The restrictionist message is brutally simple — that illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is not an identity; it is a status that can be mended by making reparations and resuming a lawful life. Unless the nation contains its enforcement compulsion, illegal immigrants will remain forever Them and never Us, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.

Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.

The New York Times
June 3, 2008

Litter

2008-06-02T19:25:00.008-05:00

I take a half-finished Coca-Cola can from the car. I empty out the leftover soda and toss the can to the side of the road.

I am not littering.

This can is for Elvira or for one of the Martinez children. They are the most prolific of the scavengers who wander the neighborhood each afternoon, loading up large plastic bags with aluminum that can be recyclable.

They are our equivalent of those Guatemalan Indians that I have seen bent over in half by the load of wood they have scavenged from their hiways and byways.

We are foolish if we think that we are a more advanced civilization.

I think for a bit about what it means to know the name of the person who will pick up what I consider trash and find a better use for it than I have.

(Photo by Michael Seifert)

Pieta

2008-01-26T06:54:00.001-06:00

January 26, 2008

The pieta in the church is small, and old and well-touched. When people conclude their prayer, they like to caress the Virgin. I believe that they are offering her condolences, and that that gesture is a part of their prayer.

As a result, the little statue has become chipped in places and looks like it could use a touch up. I like it that way; it is a sign that others have been here and have prayed here as well.

The pious lady who comes to daily Mass and who will not say hello to anyone and who refuses to hold hands during the Our Father or offer a sign of peace and who will only take communion from the priest (all of this within her rights) wants to take the statue home to have it re-touched. “It looks horrible and is disrespectful,” she tells me. She will not tell me her name.

A neighbor is going through our garbage. She is pulling out the remains of a very picked over roast chicken when Br. Albert walks out the door. She looks up at him with a question, “Can I have this?” He says, “Well it has been in the refrigerator for more than a week. It’s your call.”

There are more pietas than I can count.

Some of them need different kinds of re-touching. Some of them can’t share even their names. Some of them just need a meal.

Thanks Be To God

2007-11-23T10:21:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

We all remember the beginnings of this festive week. One of the things that binds us together as a people is the experience of having been dressed up (while children, in most cases) as pilgrim women and men, Indians, or turkeys (those of us who were being prepared at an early time in life for social sacrificial roles).

We remember but perhaps we don't realize that the pilgrims were amongst the first foreigners to come to America (I don't know much Biblical Hebrew, but I believe that aliens are called maguwr, as in Genesis 17, 8, wherein Abraham is promised by God legal permanent residence in the Promised Land). The pilgrims were surely undocumented. Although the native Americans did not have as complicated an immigration law as we do, they did know who was whom and which tribe had rights to settle in which coast and valley. Unprotected aliens as well, these first Other Than Mexicans. They proved as resilient as most desperate refugees tend to be: they survived that first hard year and then settled in amongst the native peoples.

So to speak.

Cristina is a pilgrim who came to these shores five years ago. Two of her children are native born and so are citizens. She and her husband are undocumented, and according to radiospeak, "potential terrorists." In reality, they are simple people who are doing what they can to get through one crisis after another. They live in Brownsville, Texas, and are grateful not to have to be braving the New England winter that nearly wiped out the first pilgrims.

They had turkey this Thanksgiving, but would have happily passed on the meal in exchange for some peace of mind.

Cristina told me that she is afraid to go to the store, as the "Border Patrol are everywhere and they are arresting everyone. I don't think that I could live separated from my children."

The question on the tip of one's tongue, always, is "so why not go back to your home country?"

I wonder what a pilgrim would have answered to that question.

I confess it is hard to imagine them getting back on their boats and going back to England. I wonder what would have happened if our "Father in Faith" Abraham had returned to where he came from.

Perhaps there wouldn't have been a Jewish people, and therefore no Christian people, and certainly, then, no pilgrims. Or thanksgiving.

Perhaps we would all be reading and writing in Cherokee.

And practicing that most ancient American virtue: hospitality.

The Feast of All Saints

2007-11-02T15:37:00.000-06:00

Each year, on the 1^st of November, the church celebrates and gives thanks for those special friends of God that we call saints. When the Scripture speaks of the “144,000” enjoying the glorious light of God, it is assuring us that there are an untold number of saints (“144,000” is a symbolic algorithm: 3 (meaning “holy”) times 4 (the four corners of the earth) times three times four over and over again—the complete guest list for the Reign of God, so I am told, the moment when God’s plan to unite all in Jesus Christ is realized. A moment that represents that final day when God’s Goodness breaks down the barriers between all of us and once and for all routs every vestige of evil and of injustice, a time of God’s peace and God’s justice.

Heaven, in other words.

So, today, we celebrate heaven—those of us who have already arrived, and those of us who are making our way, haltingly.

Is heaven a place of clouds and harps, angels and sunsets, good views and great food?

Or is it the place that is the end point toward which point babies’ smiles, gentle acts, poetry which rends the heart and sweetness that heals the wound?

Perhaps all we can do is trust the signs that God gives us, the moments that allow us to peek into the deeper mystery of goodness.

Today I remembered Lupita, a nineteen year old who finally passed after a long and wasting illness. She lived in a working class neighborhood in Matamoros, Mexico, and although I would only see her once in a great while, we had become friends. Her great gift was her sense of appreciation.

In her last year, as she lost her ability to walk, I managed to find her a wheelchair. When she saw it, she managed a heartbreaking smile.

As she lay dying, one of the hospital social workers asked Lupita if she would give her wheelchair to someone who needed it now.

Lupita told her no, that it was a gift “from Padre Miguel.”

At first I wondered how could Lupita had said such a thing. But upon reflection, I realized that Lupita could not just give away something that was given to her in love. No regifting for this young woman.

As we prayed at Mass yesterday, I thought of how God works. There will be no one to replace Lupita. She has moved on—no more hearing her laughter or enjoying her smile. She won’t be repackaged, reincarnated. No one can replace her, as well it should be, for God doesn’t regift either.

And yet some essence of her has stayed behind, etched in my heart’s memory, a space aching to be filled, a seventh note waiting to be completed. A hope, I would call it. A joyful hope that one day death’s barrier is shattered by the power of love, and the 144,000 of us will be finally gathered together, once again.

PS After Lupita passed away, the wheelchair found a new owner. I don’t think she minded at all. Regifting after death--a better name for last will and testament. . .

A Doctors' Visit

2007-10-25T08:08:00.000-05:00

I visited friends in Matamoros, Mexico, last week, with three medical residents. The doctors were interested in discovering which were the obstacles to medical care that faced those who live on the Mexican side of the border. We met in a neighbor’s home, and listened to stories. One woman, about sixty years of age, had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003. She complained that presently she had had to travel about an hour for her chemotherapy. She had recently been struck by a car and was suffering from the effects of the accident. A nice man, also about sixty years of age, complained of chronic bronchitis that he had contracted after years of welding work in factories. He admitted that his smoking habit was probably a contributing factor. He showed us a tube of an albuterol inhaler that the local clinic gave him.

He told us that they charged him a dollar each time they gave him one.

Ten minutes away, in Brownsville, Texas, that inhaler would cost him about twenty dollars. If the woman with colon cancer had been living in the USA, she, being very poor and without insurance, would have died long ago.

After the stories, we shared a soft drink. Our Mexican friends talk gaily away; we mostly sat in silence. I think that they were feeling better than we were.

"God Doesn't Make Trash"

2007-04-14T11:48:00.000-05:00

Just prior to Holy Week, a small group of people interested in children’s health issues wanted to see the worst place along the border. In the world of misery that is the US/Mexico border, the Matamoros, Mexico municipal dump wins hands down. To visit the dump is to be immersed physically and emotionally in the sins of the entire area—the waste, the greed, the corruption smolders in a stench that seems to invade a person’s very soul. The flies hover about in clouds—it takes a conscious effort not to breathe them in. There is metal and glass under foot—it is impossible to find a safe place to stand, it is a terror to walk about.

Yet, this is a garbage dump—what more could one expect? A place of refuse, of junk, of all that we no longer want or deem useful. It is where we send things to rot.

What we don’t expect, although we know that they are there, are the garbage pickers. The men, women and children who busily rip open black plastic garbage bags, poke through piles of muck, looking for anything that might be of use. There are about 150 of them out and about on this day. “Business is kind of slow today,” one of them remarks.

The garbage pickers are friendly and talkative. They gather about us, anxious to talk about the topic of the day—their children’s health. There is an animated conversation about the best way to organize care. It is not a hospital board meeting, but the seriousness of the conversation and the urgency of the group would rival any such group.

As we drive off from the dump, we run across Armando, “El Piojo”, a fellow who has been coming out here to pick through the garbage for more than 27 years. Though his clothing is worn and torn and dirty, he is nevertheless immaculately dressed—his shirt buttoned up, his pantlegs tucked neatly into his boots, his hair combed. Why do you work here, I ask him. He wrinkles up his forehead and says, thoughtfully, sometimes I can make ten or even fifteen dollars a day. That is twice what they make in the General Motors’ factory. Not bad for an old man, he says, smiling in a bright-eyed way that, for a moment, at least, erases the stench, the flies, the hopelessness. He waves good bye and gently steps off into the piles of rubbish, intently looking down, searching for tomorrow’s daily bread.

Humane Immigration Reform

2007-03-15T07:01:00.000-06:00

Parishioners from San Felipe de Jesús wrote more than 600 letters to Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Huchison in support of a humane immigration reform. The letters were part of the 1,300 that were delivered to the local offices of the Senators last week.

Recent raids in Indiana and Massachusetts have resulted in massive arrests of working people. Mothers were separated from their infants (one baby was admitted to the local ICU for dehydration after the nursing mother was shipped to Texas).

Good people wonder how things have come to this in our country. The very idea of massive roundups of people--honest, hardworking, church-going people--taking place in the land of the free is hard to grasp. Those caught up in this sinfullness this time were busy making plastic pipe and leather purses--for our consumption and for our businesses.

On the local scene, the immigration detention centers refuse to allow priests to celebrate the Eucharist with detainees. Up the road, near Taylor, Texas, a privately owned jail has detained children and are not forthcoming about the conditions under which they are jailed. This is not worthy of Americans and we know that it will soon come to a change.

For a touching reflection on the visit of President Bush to Guatemala: http://www.drawger.com/stevebrodner/?section=comments&article_id=2935#comments

The Wall

2007-02-12T07:29:00.000-06:00

The Berlin Wall came to represent all that offended American notions of human dignity. As a child, I remember hearing stories of the brave people who were killed trying to cross into West Berlin and the Promised Land of Freedom. I remember the villains well--the guards who manned that wall and kept those brave people out. During the 28 years of its existence, 239 people died trying to cross it. (Photo: Jay Johnson-Castro)

We are building our own wall now, well-designed to keep out those who are seeking the promised land. The wall is not a new idea--we have been building it since the 1993 Operation Hold the Line. During those 14 years--half the time of the Berlin Wall--more than 2,500 have died trying to cross it.

There is something macabre and fascinating about this wall we are building--an obviously wrongheaded idea that we Americans stubbornly cling to. Here at San Felipe we have had reporters from Radio France and German television visit us. They all ask the same question: why are you doing this? We all have the same answer: "We don't know."

Schematic for the Berlin Wall.

Schematic for the proposed border wall.

The Dream Act

2007-02-12T07:21:00.000-06:00

Theresa (not her real name) is 22 years old. She is an “illegal alien” as people are wont to say.

Theresa’s mother brought her to the United States from Mexico when she was a seven year old. Theresa was a bright and hard-working student. She became a sensitive young girl and over time realized that she wanted to work in medicine. She finished in the top ten per cent of her high school class and began the University of Texas at Brownsville’s Nursing program.

Apart from the grueling academic program, Theresa had to scrimp and save to afford tuition. Her mother made
$100 a week working as a maid (for 60 hours a week). Theresa could not work, as she was undocumented, but through the generosity of friends and of people who believed in her, she made it through the program, graduating with honors and ready to take the state board exams. But since the exams were given in Corpus Christi, which meant that Theresa would have to pass by the Border Patrol, she couldn’t take them. While she is finishing up her course work for her Bachelors in Science, she languishes, wanting to practice her trade, but unable, unwilling to return to Mexico, as this would separate her from her mother and her sister.

Meanwhile, Valley Regional Hospital, a mile up the road from Theresa’s small home, pays up to $10,000 in signing fees from RN’s. Many of them come from as far away as the Philippines. Hospital officials grind their teeth as they await some sort of change to the immigration laws that would allow young people like Theresa a chance to serve their communities.

Such a change has been introduced time and again in Congress. It is called “The Dream Act”, a piece of legislation that has bi-partisan support and is a way for our country to include students that we have educated and whose skills we need in our work to build a great nation. The Act is only for the students themselves, excludes anyone with a criminal record, and has been praised by Republicans and Democrats.

Those who oppose the bill call it an “amnesty” (which is inaccurate and unfair, as it makes it seem like children could have chosen NOT to have come with their parents).

Please write your congressional representatives and encourage them to support the Dream Act.
(Photo by Michael Seifert)

Las Posadas

2006-12-23T21:05:00.000-06:00

From December 16^th until the 24^th, the community at San Felipe de Jesus prays a novena in honor of the Holy Family. Known in Spanish as “las posadas” (“posada” means “inn”, as in “there is no room at the inn”), the prayer takes the form of a procession through the streets of the parish. Two children dress as the Virgen Mary (in her ninth month of pregnancy) and the stalwart Joseph, looking for a decent place for the birth of Christ. We arrive at a designated home, where we sing the verses of traditional song (“In the name of God, open up and give us a place to stay!” “We don’t know you! If you don’t leave, we are going to beat you with a stick!” “But I am Joseph and this is Mary the Queen of heaven” “In that case, come on in!” (my translation) and after prayer, enjoy a small party, with tamales, hot chocolate and a piñata for the children. The cold weather is a sharp reminder of the original plight of the Holy Family, and a reminder of how God chose to come amongst us—as a family without a home. (Photos by Michael Seifert)

¡Que Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

2006-12-18T08:01:00.000-06:00

December 12th is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Mexican Church, especially, celebrates an event that happened 475 years ago, when an Indian named Juan Diego (Cuauhtlatoatzin was his birth name) was visited four times by the Mother of God, who was dressed as an Indian princess. Juan Diego belonged to the recently conquered (“annihilated” would be more exact) Aztec nation, and the message of the Mother of the Christ was of consolation and solidarity. The Blessed Mother asked that the church build a church on a hillside outside of Mexico City, so that those who were living in misery might have a place to go and raise up their laments to heaven. (Image courtesy of the Divine)

The parish remembers this day with an early morning procession. We started out at 3:30AM, some 150 people, amongst them a great number of young people. We carry our own image of la Guadalupana, and walk about five miles to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. We are accompanied by matachines, Indian dancers, who brought incense and their own special prayers to the moment.

In the evening, the youth group offered a presentation of the apparitions—and the faithful lifted up their particular lamentations to this Woman of God. (Photos by Michael Seifert)

Frontera de Salud

2006-12-18T07:19:00.001-06:00

For the past eight years, parishioners of San Felipe de Jesus and residents of Cameron Park have enjoyed the monthly visits of third and fourth year medical students from Frontera de Salud. Sr. Phyllis Peters, DC of Proyecto Juan Diego coordinates the visits and does the follow up care that is so often needed.

The students spend Saturday assisting at a local clinic and doing home visits. On Sunday, after Mass, the students visit with people interested in checking their blood pressure, in testing their blood sugar levels or in having a chat about some medical problem they might be experiencing. The visits are always interesting, if not provocative. This time, the students happened upon a six year old who had had an appendectomy a month ago. The little girl had continued with abdominal pain, which twice brought her to the emergency room. The complaints continued and the little girl was in pain when the students arrived. A call to the emergency room, a conversation with the attending physician and a check of the records revealed that she had not had a CAT scan, a routine procedure for this sort of complaint. Some complaining, this time on the part of the medical students,
brought the little girl back to the medical authorities’ attention. Perhaps she has some pockets of infection, or a small sponge that stayed behind—in any case, she is being seen again—and her case is being taken seriously. At the end of the Sunday clinic, the students are invited to Mass, where the community prays for them--and prays that some day they come back as medical professionals.

November Feasts

2006-12-01T11:06:00.000-06:00

The church gathers on Nov 2 to remember those of our beloved who have gone to their rest.

On the border, this is a particular day. An altar is prepared, with symbols and rituals that date back centuries. The altar blesses the absence in life created by death. It serves as well as a subtle bridge between our present and the memories of what is now past.

There are chrysanthemums, or "cempasuchil" in the Aztec language, a flower whose bright colors are thought to guide the dead home.

Glasses of water and bread are placed on the altar for those deceased who might suffer thirst or hunger as they make their way to God. Candles give off the light of hope and photos that remind us in a vivid way of those whom we miss so much.

Our first celebration took place on the Mexican side of the border, in the front yard of generous family (the local priest had closed the church to the community). Mostly women and children (the men are still at work) gathered at dusk and in the midst of mosquitos, the stench from the local sewer and the noise of a busy neighborhood street, prayed for those who had passed on.

The second celebration takes place in the parish in Brownsville. The church filled up with families. A list is made of over 350 names (all of which are read aloud). With each name, a family stands up, until the church is filled with people aware, again, that death is not the final word.