This is Mexican Me.

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This is Teotihuacan Evangelization

That's "tee oh tee oo wah kahn"...

Today we visited the ancient, but not terribly ancient, city of Teotihuacan. Click here for a more in-depth, although I cannot guarantee completely accurate or unbiased, article. Some Cliff Notes for you:

Teotihu... is located about 25 miles to the northeast of Mexico City and about 50 miles from where I live. Teot... is in a fairly remote-- but not too remote-- part of the country. It is just beyond the city; farms and mountains begin to be easily seen. Without traffic (wow! no traffic today!!! a miracle!!!!), we made it in about one hour.



Teo... was a huge city in its hay-day and, from what I've heard in lectures and read in museum signposts, it was the hub of a pretty advanced civilization. The Te....'s did, however, like to engage in a human sacrifice now and again, as a means to "feed the sun" and, as well, to dedicate their temples. Pretty gruesome at times.

In and of itself, Te... is pretty interesting. What is even more interesting is that the civilization disappeared in the 800s. I haven't found a really convincing reason why, either. At any rate, when the blood-thirsty Aztecs arrived on the scene years later, they found the abandoned city and gave it its name: T........

Yet, somehow (I'm not sure how), T..... and records of T.... were lost. It was overgrown and covered-- only to be re-discovered again in, I think, the early 1900s. Imagine un-earthing one of these things on an archealogical dig.

Ummmm, I think I got something over here......



The pyramids themselves are huge. They aren't as huge as the mountains that surround them, but they are enough to make one seminarian quip that "I nearly lost my lunch" after finishing the stairs to the top. I leisurely ascended the ol' cozy place of human sacrifice in my dress shoes.



At the summit of the Sun Pyramid (not to be confused with the Moon Pyramid-- really), the view is spectacular. No picture can adequately convey the beauty of the landscape surrounding the pyramids (7-9,000 foot mountains in the area) and the sheer, steep drop to the bottom. As I took pictures, I was amazed by how steep the climb to the top of the pyramid was. There were a couple times where I had to scramble (that is, put my hands down to keep balance). And, had I lost my balance backwards... well, let's just say that there would be no more blog.

While in T..., I was surprised by the number of foreign visitors. It is a tourist spot, yes, but there were quite a few Americans around. You can tell them out very easily-- not only because of their language or their skin color or their dress, but mostly because they are loud. I'm guilty too. What was interesting, though, was that at the top of the Sun Pyramid, some people were engaging in some New Age seance mysticism kind of stuff.


{A view of the steep descent down}

And what was really disturbing was that shortly after they began offering whatever it was to whomever it was they were offering, clouds began to form and the wind began to pick up. In short order, a thunderstorm was on the way and I found myself heading down the pyramid. I could literally sense something demonic going on.



For the next hour, it showered and drizzled and showered some more. I became pretty wet and concerned with protecting my camera as I explored the ancient grounds. It was perfectly dreary. Eventually, I made my way over to the Moon Pyramid. For some reason, you can't climb all the way to the top, but only to the halfway point. There, I found some more New Agers doing things that people in their right mind shouldn't be doing. They were speaking in English. Great. (*sigh*)


{Looking towards the Moon Pyramid in the distance}

I stood there, half looking at them and half looking at another amazing view; the climb to this point was even steeper than any of the stairs of the Sun Pyramid. Yet, as a I looked out and imagined what must have been going years ago in this very spot on which I stood, I began to get one of those tugs on my heart:

Tell them about Jesus.

Who?...

The people next to you that do not know me.

But, we're tourists-- and who wants to hear about religion and all that at a time like this?


I descended the stairs and began busying myself with other things (this is a nice picture-- and oh, look at that!)...

You're being called to talk with them.


I did a lap around the general Moon Pyramid area, all the while being pursued by Moon Pyramid Gifts and Accessories vendors.

No, gracias (I do not want a rock with an ancient mythical polytheistic deity, thankyouverymuch).

Do you believe that I am more than these? Doesn't Love motivate its beloved to tell all the world that he has found Love?

I stopped. I looked back up at the pyramid.

Ok, then what am I supposed to say to them?


I was truly frightened by this endeavor. I was about to climb back up a long flight of steep stairs and talk with people I didn't know about a topic that is hardly P.C.: namely, J.C.

As I ascended the steps, I prayed and I formulated "in-lines"-- quick statements that can get you "in" to a group and gain their attention:

A little while ago, I saw you up here praying... and I was wondering if you wanted to pray.... Hi, are you American-- where are you from?.... Quite a view, eh? Come here often?


{Looking down from the Moon Pyramid. In the distance is the larger Sun Pyramid}

This was not going to work. I felt like I was practicing pick-up lines. But, too late: I'm standing next to the group now.

Where are you guys from?-- that's how I started it. Pure plunge. Simple vulnerability. No games. Confidence.


They were from El Paso and studying in Cuernavaca-- not too far from where I'm at. We exchanged pleasantries about Mexico and where we had visited and why we were in the country anyway. They were studying spanish and archaeology (go fig, there's archaeology at T....). I asked about what they knew of the history of the place. They gave me the low down on it-- pretty well educated-- and stopped their summary at about 1525 AD.

Huh, that's interesting. Do you know about the conversion of millions of indians shortly thereafter?

No, they said.

Have you heard of Our Lady of Guadalupe?

"I've heard something of that-- like apparations that told a man to build a church...?"

Yeah, Our Lady of Guadalupe.


They were looking at me with squinting eyes. And the sun wasn't out. I froze. What do I say about her? I'm starting to come off as one of those "religious freaks." I was like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, holding on to the slide as he tried to remember to tell Santa about Red Ryder: Think, stupid! Think!


{An inclined wall of the Sun Pyramid, looking upward. This and all the walls were once covered with stucco. A nice parallel for my mind at that moment}

Not a single thing. All the classes, all the reading, all the prayers, and all the insights-- none of it was there. I mentioned how I thought it was interesting how she wasn't mentioned in their studies, what with millions of converts shortly after her appearance (thanks be to God that that was there).

They again were still looking at me in that "well, thanks for interrupting us, now you're being awkward" kind of way. And so I wished them well, a safe journey down the pyramid, and all the best in their studies.

Complete Humiliation.


The walk down the stairs was pretty tortuous the first time-- now it was just torture. What had I accomplished? Ok, God, I went and talked with them and I bombed-- now what? What am I supposed to learn in all of this?



A few things. Twelve to be exact.

1) Evangelizing people who do not want to be evangelized is really, really tough.
2) Evangelizing people who may be thinking that your talk about religion is not PC and an exercise in "forcing one's beliefs upon them"-- evangelizing them is really, really, really tough.
3) Even though this took place on the Pyramid of the Moon, it could have happened on any street in the USA-- which leads me to
4) When you are called to talk with someone about Jesus, you must follow that prompt of the Holy Spirit, because
5) Who knows what may happen
6) We're being obedient
7) We may learn something from the experience
8) We may become more confident for next time, and
9) other may learn something about Jesus and Mary and the Church-- if even just a simple little detail like how, after Mary's appearance, millions of people were converted.
And, 10) the most important lesson I learned: have a pure intention. Evangelization is not motivated by wanting to change someone. At no point can our motivation be to change. This sounds counter-intuitive, I know. But if we look at a person as someone to be changed, we are not looking at them as they are now-- we are not looking at them as God sees them now.

Evangelization is not the process of changing someone. It is, instead, announcing to someone the vision with which God-- and you!-- sees them. A vision that is powerfully pure and purely loving.

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.

This gaze causes change. It is life-changing.



In the little evangelization this afternoon, I was initially motivated by the power of God, that is, by love (the only motivator, it seems, for true evangelization). But, as time progressed, my motivation became sheer obedience (which is still ok), but it became forgetful of the original motivation-- I forgot the original motivation: that I love Jesus; that Jesus loves them; and that Jesus wants me to love him so much and them so much that I tell them about this Love, Jesus.

The message may be simple: Do you know Jesus? He is God, a personal God, who loves you, personally!

Or it may be complex. But whatever it is, Jesus wants you and me to be able to see others as he sees them. With mercy, with tenderness, with devotion, and with love. And to proclaim that!-- that He is mercy, tenderness, the fulness of devotion, and love!

And this comes to Lessons #11 and 12:

11) Evangelize. You must. It's like speaking a foreign language at first, but you get better with each time you try.

12) Don't lose hope. So you think that you fail-- often... have hope that God is doing with you precisely what he wants with you. And keep working hard, keep praying hard, continue being purged and refined. And don't lose hope!


"Hear and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son: let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Also do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?"
{Our Lady of Guadalupe}



Missionaries of the world, unite!

This is Still Legal

UPDATED ***

I'm going to Teotihuacan on Saturday-- that is, the place where, just prior to the Aztecs, indian tribes sacrificed human beings to the sun. They did this (that is, cut out people's hearts and place those still-beating hearts into boxes) because it was believed that such murderous killing influenced the rising of the sun. Oooops.

Today, it is believed that by sacrificing a woman who lives in her mother's womb, that killing that baby girl will somehow influence her mother's being woman.



All of the unborn babies in this video can be legally killed in the United States.

... oops.



In other news, Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) has this to say about my posting:





(you can catch the entire interview here-- or as a transcript!)


Well, that sounds... eugenic. Very Hitler-esque.




Ok, but Ms. Sanger, do you believe infidelity is a sin?

SANGER: Well, I'm not going to specify what I think is a sin. I stated what I think is the worst sin.

Yes, but then you asked me to say what-- and I said what and ah-- you refuse to answer me?

SANGER: I don't know about infidelity, that has many personalities to it-- and what a person's own belief is-- you can't, I couldn't generalize on any of those things as being sins.

Murder is a sin...

SANGER: Well, I naturally think murder, whether it's a sin or not, is a terrible act.


Well, that's interesting....



And many people agree with Ms. Sanger...


... like Barack Obama-- who "will not yield" to pro-life concerns, and will continue in the "tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her."


UPDATE: Over at the blog "Heirs in Hope," there is an amazing piece that concerns this issue. I post it here because it hits on the oft-forgotten point that those who are in the throes of abortion and its culture are often in a lot of pain-- and need our prayers and help.

This is Rosendo

Here at the Curso de Hispanidad, we love our professors. They do good work and we try to make them happy by doing good work too. For example, today, we did our classes and we worked very hard. Good job us!

We also like to have fun with them whenever we can-- not out of spite, but because they are truly good guys. Take Rosendo, for instance. Hard worker. Lawyer. Spanish teacher. Here he is holding our Final Exam....



Yesterday, he and his lovely girlfriend went with us to see Kung Fu Panda. Rosendo's girlfriend thinks that Rosendo is The Panda. In honor of her sentiments, we spent part of the early morning scouring the internet to see if Rosendo is, in fact, The Panda from Kung Fu Panda.

Well, after much ado, we found this picture. Come, I show you!

This is Spanish Kung Fu

So Montezuma has been conquered (... again) and studies have been moving right along.... In order to facilitate greater hearing comprehension (and perhaps improve our spoken vocabulary), all of us guys, with our wonderful profe Rosendo, spent our free time this afternoon at the movie theaters. Hmmm... what to choose!



Eenie meanie miney, MO!



But... but... IT'S IN ESPAÑOL!!!! (... excellent!)



All in all, it was an ok movie. From a cinematic standpoint, the animation was superb and the "choreographed" fight scenes were pretty much flawless. From the perspective of plot, it was predictable (but, what do you expect? It's a kid's movie!), yet nevertheless endearing. The element that brought down the movie for me, however, was its zen-centering-new-age-yin-yang-dualistic-pantheistic-you-are-the-dragon, Dragon, overtone. I've encountered too much of the "I'm one with the universe and the universe is one with me" kind of thought to spend much more energy discussing it. After all, isn't it socially acceptable to believe whatever it is you want to believe, so long as it doesn't hurt anybody? (Whereas having a movie that indoctrinates kids in Christian moral thought would be entirely scorned as "close-minded," of "dark ages" origin, and ultimately "bigoted").

Thankfully, these guys already say everything that I want to say. KUNG *POW!*


On our way home, we found some pretty interesting things. Thanks to Craig, we noticed that the trees along San Fernando (the big street that runs parallel to our house)-- we noticed that the trees are numbered. Interesting.



Here, Craig is pointing out how this tree, number 39, is of a different species than number 40; however, this tree is related to number 36-- the relation comes from a weird genetic mutation wherein the bark on tree 39 somehow reverses itself and forms a 36.

Come, I show you!



See? The bark on 39/36 is much different than the species 41!

In other crazy things that we saw on our way home, Tony pointed out a bird cage on a car. Wow, Tony!-- that IS interesting !!!



And, lastly, from our fun-around-town folder, here below is a picture from yesterday on our "drive" home. I place "drive" in quotation marks because it was more like a "saunter." And by "saunter" I mean crawl. In fact, traffic was so bad...

... how bad was it?....

It was so bad that vendors were selling tortillas and refreshments on the major highway.



Mmmm, nothing makes the drive home for dinner more tolerable than having dinner on the drive home! Yummy!

This is Mission.

Over the weekend, we went southwest to a place called Malinalco to do some mission work. It's only about 40 miles away from where I'm studying, but it takes about three hours to get there. Part of the reason it takes so long to go a short distance is that the roads are pretty horrible. Here, think of one-lane highways and pot-holes like those after a harsh St. Louis winter. It's a pretty rough go. Although, the views were spectacular.



We arrived in town of Malinalco on Friday night. It is surrounded by mountains and history, what with many of the churches there having originated from the 15- and 1600s. Many of the original church buildings are still in use.



Beyond the mountains and the history, Malinalco is a small town by Mexico City standards-- it has about 40,000 people (as opposed to 40 million) and not much of an industry of which to speak. There is a lot of mom-and-pop commerce, as well as a lot of farming. From what I gathered of the numerous farms and horse-riding men in the area, Malinalco seemed to be more of an agricultural town than anything. We slept there for the evening.




On Saturday, after prayers and breakfast, we traveled up into the mountains (even more than what we already were) and arrived at San Simón parish in, what I believe was Tenancingo or Tecomatian. Sadly, I cannot remember.

There, we visited the missionary parish-- which was, if I may say so, was brilliantly and beautifully well constructed. It was built about 15 years ago. There have been missions there on a fairly consistent basis during those 15 years, and here I was about to engage in that activity.

After prayers, we were divided into groups of five or so. I was with Nick Winker, Roberto (a missionary native to the area), and two of our host-family's children (age 9 and 14, I think). All but Nick and I could speak fluent Spanish; nevertheless, we were expected to do as much as we could in the native tongue. We grabbed our stash of rosaries, pamphets on the Catholic Church, and our courage, and were off!



Once again, I was struck by the poverty in the area. As our merry missionary band visited door-to-door, we encountered a people who lived in one or two-room homes. There may have been a line of electricity into the house, and there was no plumbing, from what I could tell. Some houses had dirt floors, others had cement. Some houses had thatch roofs, others had tile. Most homes had solid walls-- some had lean-to planks of wood. Stray dogs ran everywhere.

We would knock on doors or we would shout "buenos diaz" into the general area of a home as we tried to figure who was home or who was in the fields. On many occasions, someone would come out of the house and warmly greet us. I could see children playing in the home or an open fire on the floor. This bothered me at first (for who could live in such conditions?), but then it became commonplace-- which bothered me even more.



We would ask how the family was doing and if they were Catholic and if they wanted to pray with us. Jehovah's witnesses and many other sects have been problematic in the area, so we asked if they had visited their homes as well. Sometimes they had, sometimes they hadn't. Either way, we would give some literature so that the family could learn more about their faith, and usually a rosary too. Nearly all of the families said they were Catholic-- and we could tell that they meant it. Some of the seminarians returned from the mission telling about how they saw small altars dedicated to Christ or to Mary in those homes. Unfortunately, I didn't see any.



Here, I could tell many stories about particular people I met and things I did, but there are too many. I hope some of my seminarian brothers write about their experiences... Here, I give a simple story....


Later in the afternoon, as we were wrapping up our 4 or so hours of missionary work, I happened across an kind of arcade. It was a small hole in the wall of a building with old school video games-- five, I think. Each was occupied by 20-something men, and the room was pretty dark. I knew I was supposed to go in their and invite all of the men to Mass and to Reconciliation which were to be offered at the church that afternoon-- only, I couldn't. I didn't feel comfortable with my Spanish and, even more, I didn't feel comfortable disrupting them. I would be more of a nusance instead of an invitation.

So I thought: how can I get their attention?

A second later, I had my answer. The teenage girl in my group (who I shall call Mary) was right next to me, and so I asked her: "hey, Mary, there's a bunch of guys in there that we need to invite to Mass. Would you feel comfortable going in and announcing that Mass is about to start?"

"Certainly!" she responded.

I was floored by her courage. There wasn't a second thought about it. She was being invited, so she was going. Mary entered into the arcade, interrupted one of the guys, and loudly said to him-- as if he were hard of hearing-- that Mass was being offered soon.

Every single man in that room stopped what he was doing and turned their heads to see who belonged to this woman's voice. I think they were surprised.

Now, I wish I could say that they came to Mass and to Reconciliation, but I do not know if they did. There were a lot of people at Mass that afternoon and many people at Reconciliation. But, I know this much:

For a brief second, those men received an invitation to go to Mass. And they willingly listened to that invitation, if even just for a second. And if even just because it came from the voice of a woman. (After all, how many times has God brought men to the Church through the heart of a woman?)

After missionary work, we visited the Sisters of the Good Samaritan; an amazing order of sisters who are a kind of "first response" to the poor and sick in need in the missionary towns surrounding Malinalco. They are strong, holy women who seem to have no fear when it comes to loving the lowly and serving the helpless. I admire them. Please say a prayer for them!

We at wonderful lunch with them-- and I wondered where they got the food, and the money for the food that we ate. We all were exhausted, but it was a good exhausted-- the kind of tiredness that comes only after a good day of work. And food tastes so much better after such days.



After that, we returned back to our home for some much-needed rest. Some of us watched Braveheart in Spanish (which is quite an experience).

The next morning, we went to Mass and visited a couple churches in the area. But that is for another post.......

This is Cipro.

Cipro says "hello."

Like Cortez, he is here to combat Montezuma. Let the battle begin!

This is What's to Come

Just got back to the house in Mexico City from having done missionary work in Malinalco, Mexico. The weekend was a blur, the pictures are clear, and what is left of my energy will be used to climb into bed. Phew! What an experience.

I will blog on everything Malinalco during this coming week. Also, expect to see pictures from Chalco, as I have received some photos from our Salsa King, Seminarian Glenn. In addition, check back for a future post on the Anthropological Museum that we went to a couple weeks ago. I haven't been able to post on it yet, but there were a lot of cool things to show you.

Ok campers! Time for bed! Tomorrow begins week 4. (....week 4?!?!??!!??)