This is the End of a Long Day

The day started with some pretty shocking news. Then classes. Then some missionary work in Mexico City. Then a movie. And now I have received the following picture, which brings the whole day full circle. With the Archdiocese being sede vacante ("vacant see"'-- that is, no bishop), Archbishop Burke's episcopal crest, which hung above his chair (a cathedra), has now been taken down.

I'll see you all on Monday.

This is Bittersweet

In a personal note from His Grace to us, the seminarians of St. Louis, Archbishop Burke let us know that he has been appointed by His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, to go to Rome.... This is good news for Burke-- but really sad news for me. I love the man and he has been a true father to me. He has been a real light in my life and in the life of the church here in St. Louis-- not to mention the Church as a whole.

Now is the chance for the local media to get their last digs in on him. I pray that the Holy Spirit sends us another faithful and holy man, a strong man, and a good father....

"Do you promise obedience to me and to my successors...?"

Yes, Your Grace. Yes.

This is Real Christianity. Really.

For a while now I have had a picture of Mary in my Liturgy of the Hours volumes. I kept it placed next to The Magnificat (the prayer/exclamation of Mary when she visited Elizabeth and which we, today, pray every evening). It has been a pleasant reminder that these words which we pray and which are written in Luke were said by a real person at a real time and facing real, human experiences-- like carrying a child at a time when carrying a child was hardly convenient.


I haven't known much about Mary as she is known in this picture: as Our Lady of Guadalupe. I don't suspect there is a vast majority of people who know of her, much less know her-- and even fewer outside of Mexico know of her by this name. Even more, I'm sure there are many who balk at my title of this entry, Real Christianity, when I immediately dive into an image of Mary.

"There he goes again, a Catholic worshipping Mary..." "Isn't Christianity about Christ?"

Yes. Christianity is about Christ. ... And all the things Christ did... and all the people he met and healed and spoke with... and commissioned. It would seem that, if we should want to know more about Christ, we should get to know better his mother. Anyone who has been over to the Gerber household has learned a lot about me just by sitting down and having a chat with my mother. I don't mind that people have talked with my mom. Usually that's a sign that I have a good friendship with them anyway. So it goes with talking to Mary....

At any rate, one of the things which Christ did was to come to save the world (ahem... duh). But, this was new at the time. The Jews thought the Messiah was coming just for them. Yet Jesus arrives on the scene and brings salvation to Jews and Gentiles-- that is, to the whole world. In order to do this, he appealed to the very core of our human person: our heart, our soul, our body, our mind.

He entered into the human drama not as some overbearing Being, but as... well... one of us. (Now, don't get me wrong, he was still God-- and even creation itself reflected it: in celestial events around his birth, earthquakes at his death, and inexplainable miracles in-between). But when we think about it, the fact that he came as one of us is pretty amazing: not only does it tell us about Who God is, it also tells us a lot about How God works:

He is personal. He gets into the middle of the fray. He is truly concerned with our well-being. And He chooses to be born of a woman-- to have a mother.

He didn't have to have a mom. He could have been anything and done anything-- anything!-- else. But he chose to have a mom. Enter, stage right, Mary.

"My soul magnifies the Lord," she says, "and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior." God is her savior, she says (and thus implying that she is not). And her soul magnifies the Lord. This is interesting. How can her soul magnify the Lord?

"For He has looked with favor on his lowly servant"-- that is to say, God the Father has given her, his lowly servant, the Holy Spirit and has impregnated her with his very self: Jesus. Her soul magnifies the Lord as she carries Him in her womb. Her very person shows, up-close and personal, that God is creative and powerful and tremendously loving. As she carries Him in her womb, the world sees-- although the world can see Him not-- that God is personal. He is real. He is alive. And He is here.

We turn then, to contemplate Christ by looking at this woman, Mary, pregnant with our Savior.



As we look at this image of Mary, seen below as it is in the cathedral where it currently stands, we see that she is clothed in a robe of stars and standing on the moon-- she appears as the woman in Revelation, chapter 12. Her hands are folded in prayer, around her waist is tied a black band, and her clothing is decorated in many images and flowers. The center of the image is not her face or her hands or the moon, but her womb. As she is dressed, in what at the time would be considered the dress of a pregnant woman, the focus of the image is the child with whom she is pregnant; namely, Christ.

This is where our focus of the image is. She is presenting Jesus to us.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is Christocentric-- that is, Christ-centered. These were the words of Father Eduardo Chavez, a very holy priest from Mexico who, in his vocation, was the postulator of the cause of the canonization of Juan Diego. Basically, what that means is that he did a lot of research into the above image, how it got where it is, who was involved, and whether or not the person involved-- that is, Juan Diego-- was a truthful, holy, and (this may sound funny) real man. Father Chavez also investigated the miracles surrounding Juan Diego.

There is a tremendous amount of information to say about this image, its history, its place in current-day Mexico, and all of the meanings which are found in the image's strokes and symbols. Father Chavez gave a three-and-a-half hour presentation on Our Lady of Guadalupe and, at the end of it, we all could have sat and listened to another three hours.

If ever you get a chance to hear this priest speak-- or if you have an opportunity to bring him to your parish-- DO SO.



Here, there is so much to relay to your from his presentation. First, I must say that if you have access to Father's book, I highly recommend you pick it up. Second, if you know of any place that has his other book, please let me know-- I want a copy! Third, what I didn't know about the image and what I now know has transformed my entire (but limited) notion of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her story is amazing.

In order to understand better, but knowing that this blog is already too long, let me just give you some highlights.

° Before the appearance of Mary to Juan Diego in 1531, the Catholic Church in Mexico City and the surrounding areas was floundering. In fact, the bishop wanted to pull all of the priests out of the area because things were so bad.

° Before the appearance of Mary, the indian tribes of the area (who had been conquered by the Spanish) were extraordinarily depressed: 1/2 of them died with the smallpox epidemic; many died in the conquests of 1521; and they had all realized, when they stopped doing human sacrifices (which they believed kept the sun rising each day), that they didn't have to do human sacrifices anymore-- yet that was what they were raised to believe all their life. Their entire lifestyle was thrown upside-down.

° Over in Europe, in 1517, Martin Luther had posted his 95 Theses. And by 1530, the Protestant Revolution was in full swing.

° Back in Mexico, a poor indian farmer and widower, Juan Diego (who didn't speak Spanish) was walking through Tepeyac on the way to his parish in Mexico City. Mary appeared to him.

(For those who love Theology of the Body, there is a huge link between Adam in Genesis, Juan, and "Redeemed Man"-- that is, Juan is an archetype of all men. He isn't the New Adam, for that is Jesus; but Juan does represent humanity. Click on the link and read it in light of Genesis and TOB. Quite astounding stuff there)

° Mary asks a lot of things of Juan Diego (I'll leave you to read about them in the link above); one of which is for a temple to be built. In indian culture, the temple is the heart of a civilization-- in warfare, if you take the opponent's temple, you take the entire civilization; if you build a temple, you build a civilization. Mary wanted a temple; and she wanted a new civilization: a civilization of believers. (Here is where Our Lady of Guadalupe is often called the "Star of the New Evangelization")

° Juan Diego carried flowers in his tilma (the cloth on which the image was miraculously imprinted when Mary appeared to him). Flowers are a perfect sign for the Mexican indians-- a perfect sign of Truth. And a tilma is a sign of life (for in it the indians would carry food), of protection (eg, against cold or sun), of marriage (for it was integral to the wedding ceremony), and of dignity (one could tell the status of an indian by how it was or was not decorated). As Mary had her image upon Juan's tilma, we are to see her wanting to transform life and marriage and dignity and provide protection.

° The tilma which Juan Diego wore was rough and colorless. He was poor. After the apparation, his tilma was filled with color and flowers. In her so doing, Juan would be considered of high dignity.

° In the image, Mary takes the color of the Mestizo-- a spanish term for those people who were both indian and spanish. But, at the time-- and this is most important-- those who were the Metito were mixed-raced in a racially divided culture. Even more, this mixed-race had only existed for a couple decades; they were, for the most part, the products of war and rape. As a result, they were the most rejected members of the society: the indians rejected them becuase they were the products of rape; the Spanish rejected them becuase they were the products of war. They were the lowest of the low. And this is the color that Mary took.



° In the image, Mary's hands are folded in prayer-- in the way Spanish Catholics would pray and in the way that indian women would pray in their prayer dances.

° In addition, Mary took the name "Guadalupe." In the 700s, the Arabic people started to invade Spain. One of the results of this is that there are many Arabic words mixed in the Spanish language (most of the jeh and gah sounds, for example). "Guadalupe" is one such word of Arabic origin. It means "the river bed"-- it is not the river itself, but the channel in which the river flows.

° Aged indians were considered to be the roots of the culture, of wisdom, and of life. They were highly respected and revered. Juan Diego's uncle-- the old man of Juan's family-- was dying at the time of the apparations. After one of the appearances, Mary appeared to Juan's uncle-- and healed him. This was miraculous in a personal way; but also in the symbolism of the healing: Mary came not only to heal this one person, but to heal everything that he represented. She wanted to heal the culture, the wisdom, and the life of the people.

° A mere five years after the apparitions, 5,000,000 people in Mexico City and the surrounding area were baptized. The 30 priests who lived in the area of the time (yup, just 30), did upwards of 1,000 a day. The priests would go to bed with their arms sore from having baptized so many people.

° In 1539, the bishop of Mexico City wrote "from here, the worldwide evangelization has begun."

° If we take all that has been said above-- how Our Lady of Guadalupe takes the image of the poorest of the poor, how she heals the culture, how she arrives at a time of desperation both in Mexico and in Europe, and how she is a mix of indian, hispanic, arabic, and the lowly-- it is easy to conclude that she appears not simply for the Mexican people (or even for American people), but for all people.

° Mary appears to Juan Diego during the indian celebration of the winter solstace which was the moment when the sun began breaking through the darkness.



Those are the highlights. There is a lot more to say-- about the image, about Juan Diego, and about all the miracles that have happened since. Here, though, I end this lengthy blog with a simple thought and a last picture with the most comforting words of Mary to Juan and, really, to the whole world: how similar are the worlds of 16th Century Mexico and our current day! How impossible it seems to evangelize the world and inculturate the faith! But, this is what we must do. This is our mission.

And Our Lady of Guadalupe, who vists us as she visited Elizabeth, bringing us the child Jesus-- still in the womb-- comes to our aid as she did at the wedding feast at Cana. Let us not be afraid to "Behold, [our] mother"-- let us not be afraid to be with her at the foot of the Cross-- let us not be afraid to "do whatever [Jesus] tells us."

Even when we don't think it is our time.

This is Consistency

Mexico City does have great weather... during the day. Although, in the evening, it rains. How often, you ask? Well, see for yourself.

This is Glenn. And This is Breakfast.

Mmm, breakfast! While Honey Bunches of Oats and Frosted Flakes are always available for breakfast, nothing beats the more traditional eats and treats. For example, today for breakfast was served eggs and salsa on top of a soft, corn taco! Mmmm! Glenn, one of the seminarians here and our salsa fiend, approves!



I must agree. Here is my plate.



Notice how there is a distinct absence of beans. That's because they have been eaten! Mmmmm, beans for breakfast!

This is Enrique Fernandez

One of the reasons we are out here studying Spanish is so that we are immersed in the Spanish-- that is, Mexican-- culture. As we all know, immigration is a big topic of discussion in the Estados Unidos (... the United States). And, well, it's a big topic here in Mexico. In order to be able to minister to the growing Hispanic population in the US-- many of which have immigrated to the country, we must get to know the Hispanic culture as well as possible. Every Tuesday here at the Center, we have a "Pastoral Planning" seminar. In this seminar, we are presented on any number of topics involving the Mexican people and culture: what are their struggles, sacrifices, hopes, lifestyles, etc etc.

As in any culture, many Catholics in Mexico try to integrate the Gospel into their daily lives. They ask the questions "What does Jesus do in this country?" and "What does he call me to do?" Many recognize that there are sick people-- so they ask: how can I help them? They see that there there are many who are poor-- so they ask: what about them, Jesus? There are many who are at a loss for meaning in their lives and truly struggle to find real, lasting happiness-- the Christian responds: can I not give them an answer?

Ultimately, such question boil down to one: Does not the love which Jesus gives me call me to love others in return? In a word, am I not on mission to love others as Jesus loves me?

An amazing group of college volunteers and Catholics who are part of Regnum Christi have teamed together to form what is called Red Misión (or, in English, the Mission Network). This amazing organization presented a lecture today as part of the pastoral series. A fine young man of 25, Enrique Fernandez, painted a picture of a wealth of people in need-- and how his group, Red Misión, tries to help.



He does really amazing work. They minister to kids who are sick with cancer or HIV, or who come from homes that are sorely in need of God's loving kindness. There are a lot of things in particular that Red Misión does here, the list of which is too long to mention right now (visit their website!). As well, they try to affect the culture: they occasionally throw their own fashion show in order to show what true fashion is-- namely, clothes that do not degrade either women or men, but are instead truly complementary to the human person... and truly beautiful. They also permeate the culture with the Catholic culture: they have a Eucharistic Procession through the streets of Mexico, as well as a powerful Via Crucis (way of the cross) during Lent.

Of course, these are only a few events-- they are not the programs themselves. Rather, there is a lot of follow-up, a lot of teaching, and a lot of getting at the core reasons for what causes the problems afflicting the people with whom they live. But none of these services are service for service itself. At the same time, it is not forcing Jesus upon anyone. Rather, the programs find at their core a loving and personal Father and his Son who wish to bring true peace, joy, and happiness to their lives. This is the motivation, the source, and the end of all of their service, of all their mission.



The presentation made me think as I contemplated the fact that there are many college student volunteers in this organization: what are our college students in St. Louis doing with regard to their Catholic faith? Do our college students-- in fact, do our everyday- or Sunday-Catholics-- understand and love the faith so much that they see it to be necessarily missionary? In other words, how many of us see that being Catholic means to share what has been given to us, what has been passed on from Christ through the Apostles and the Church?-- namely, his love that is sacrificial; his love that holds man and woman to a standard of kindness and affection wherein no exploitation should ever occur; his love that calls us to help the weak and comfort the sorrowful (and haven't we been the beneficiaries of such love?).

Surely, there are many college students and Sunday Mass-goers that do share their faith through all that they do. But how many of us are worried that sharing the faith-- either by word or by deed-- may border on prosyletism, on "forcing our beliefs on others"? In our feel-good world, how often do we avoid talking about Jesus because we are worried about how it might make others not feel good? The facts are, however, that people don't feel good right now; people are searching always for something more-- and that providing them "our beliefs" is not simply providing "our beliefs," but providing insight into reality as it really is, that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And He is the source of all real happiness-- a happiness that brings a feel-good joy for all eternity.

Of course, this requires that we know Jesus and that we do not color him or his teachings with our own personal agendas.

If being a Catholic means following Jesus and doing what he said, then what happened to following his last request to "go... and make disciples of all nations, ... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.." (Mt. 28:20) ? These are his last words to humanity before he disappears in the clouds as he descends into heaven. Usually, one's last words to one's family or friends-- like on a deathbed-- are vitally important and are not something flippant. Like a final request, they should be listened to and carried out. Of all the things he could have said before he went, he commissioned us to "go out."

How much of our time is spent "staying in" ?

I've been here in Mexico for eight days now and God is hitting me over the head with the notion of mission. To be on mission does not mean having to be in a foreign country. Nor does it mean that it must always involve helping the poorest of the poor or the sickest of the sick-- it can, but it often involves something more simple: being on mission can be in our very city, on our very block, with those so very close to us. After all, how many neighbors of ours are, in fact, foreign to us?

So, these are just a few thoughts... a little diversion from the usual "this is what we did today" format of my blog. After all, as a future priest, I'm always thinking and asking myself: how can I better serve humanity? What I learned today is not supposed to stay here in Mexico-- rather, it is to come home with me and make a difference in St. Louis.

Perhaps you may find some inspiration in these simple words or through your browsing of the Red Misión site. And may we both always be mindful that we are always on mission, to be "always ready to give a reason for the hope that lives within us" (1 Peter 3:15), whether it be through simple words or simple deeds to neighbor, family, or complete stranger.

This is Where I Live and What I Do

What a crazy week! It’s been full of travel, study, new sights, sounds, and a whole new language. I already have about 150 pictures and a book’s-worth of stories in my mind—not to mention at least 150 Spanish words there too! My mind is feeling full… so I’m very glad that today, Sunday, is a day of rest. I have the whole day free!!!

So I thought I’d take you on a tour of where I live and what I’m doing….

Of course, I’m in Mexico City-- a city built on a lake, in a southern “suburb” called Tlalpan. It’s a pretty large suburb of which I can find no comparison in the US. I’ve learned in my short time here that it is an older part of town and one that is mostly lower middle class. It also has some very poor parts in the south as you head to the mountains.

I’ll save most of my sweeping statements about Mexico City for future posts so as to be brief, but I will say that it is amazing to live at 7000 feet where the weather is beautiful every day (sunny and 70 for the high, 50 for the low). No wonder twenty-five million people live here! The city is a bustling one, and a congested one at that! Traffic is a mess, smog is a problem, and noise (both sound and visual) is like nothing I’ve before encountered. The number of cars, advertising signs, loud music, and taxi cabs leads me to a simple analogy: living in Mexico City is like living in Times Square.

[Notice how there are McDonalds here... and how Sex and the City is being advertised (sigh). There are also Wal-Marts here... just in case you need salsa by the bulk.]

Here at the Centro Cultural Interamericano, the place where I live and go to school, the air isn’t all too bad and the sound isn’t much of a problem. I live in a former mansion, built in the 1950s, that is currently used as a retreat center for priests and seminarians, as well as a quasi-university for visiting Spanish-learning students like myself.

The mansion is on a huge tract of land and is surrounded by a two-story stone and brick wall—which I liken to a kind of thing you would see in one of the nicer courtyards in London… or at the St. Louis Botanical Garden. Within those walls, the outside city hustle and bustle seems to disappear; there are rose bushes everywhere, finely manicured shrubberies, moss-covered walkways, and an occasional light post which reminded me of what I might see in CS Lewis’ Narnia.

The entire Center is fairly safe as not only is it surrounded by walls that would be fairly difficult to climb, but also because there is only one entrance to it: a door monitored constantly by a guard. In order to enter, you have to ring a bell and he opens up a slot in the door, checks to see who it is, and lets you in. It’s very Wizard of Oz like.

[The outside of the Center]

[The door to the Center]

[The entry to the Center... Note that underneath those bushes are carports]

[Looking back at the entry way, from the courtyard]

[The entry to the mansion house]

[Come in! I show you!]

Inside the Center mansion-house, there is a chapel and dining room, a living room with a couple computers, a few lounges, and several bedrooms. One half of the building overlooks the grounds (like a courtyard) while the other half peers over the wall and faces the street (I hear that this side is noisy, as my room faces the courtyard). It’s a good sized place for only ten students and a priest (all ten are seminarians, six of which are St. Louisans).

[As you walk in to the right, stairs to the bedrooms]

[The living room, from which the picture of the stairs was taken]

[Or, when you enter, you can go to your left and enter our chapel]

[Or would you like something to eat from the dining room?]

[Another lounge... this is where one class is taught...]

[And my bedroom... note the lack of a dresser...]

[And my desk with a view!]

[And what room wouldn't be complete without a bathroom? My, how the shower "door" is skinny!]

Outside of the house, there are other buildings as well: an auditorium, a couple small apartments (where the guard and some housekeeping seem to live), a kind of classroom building (with bedrooms on the second floor), and a giant tennis/handball court. Although there are classrooms in that building, all of our classes are taken at the house: since there are only ten of us, and since there are four sections of Spanish being taught, we have class in one of the various lounges throughout the house.

[There are plenty of roses in the courtyard gardens]

The days are pretty full here: days start at 7:45 with morning prayer, Mass, and breakfast before classes begin at 9am. (Woo hoo! Sleep in, baby!!!). Those go until about 1pm, which is when we have lunch. After which, there is usually a practice lab, where we go to a local school and invade their computer lab. There, we listen to Spanish and, well, … practice. By the time that is done, it’s about 3pm. Here, we either siesta for a little bit or do homework. Usually, it is homework. Dinner is then at 5:15 or 7:30, depending on what is going on in the evening. On a couple nights a week, we go out into a parish to visit the people in their homes, talk with them, and minister wherever and however we can. After all of that, we have evening prayer, adoration, and bed… at about 10 or 11.

Saturdays are days where we are tourists: we attend a lecture at the Center auditorium in the morning, after which we go to a tourist attraction in or around Mexico City. Yesterday, we went to the Anthropological Museum here—which is the best such museum in the world, I am told. I will post many pictures from that in short order. We return from such outings by about 7pm, at which point we have dinner, do prayers, and spend the rest of the evening chilling out (‘cause that’s a long week!).

Sundays are free… so today we went to a local parish for Mass, after which we did lunch here at home…. And then I sat and watched the EuroCup 2008 soccer match between Spain and Italy. Now, I’m blogging… and will do some homework after dinner…

So, yeah…. That’s where I live. And that’s what I do in the course of a day. I’ll post more about all of those trips, stories, and various and different foods/traditions throughout the coming weeks.