Paul Brant, SJ -- Johnny Appleseed in NC

Johnny Appleseed - Newton Grove and the Station in Four Oaks, NC

Since returning to the Diocese of Raleigh, NC after a nine month hitch working in Charlottesville and Galax, VA as the field practitioner for IMCM, I have been assigned to the Parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Newton Grove, NC, which has for more than 20 years been a central point for Hispanic Ministry in the Diocese. Except for three months when I was subbing for the pastor, I have been engaged in my “Johnny Appleseed” ministry once again, including responsibility for establishing a mission in the town of Four Oaks, 18 miles distant, in the midst of 12,000 Spanish-speaking residents and a couple thousand migrants served by OLG and the Church in Smithfield which I once pastored. My official assignment is as “parochial vicar.” There’s no canonical slot for what I actually do!

I resonate with much of what Bill and Shay and Bruce have written about the “parish ministry” aspects of their own assignments. The differences I will leave to discuss on another occasion. But I can’t overemphasize the importance of ministering personally to Latinos, getting to know their families, even if it means visiting them in their country of origin. When I visit a family in Mexico, for instance, I learn about the context in which their US resident children and grandchildren were raised and to which they still principally relate, even though because of our immigration laws, many haven’t has a “home visit” for 10-20 years. I ask the parents for permission to “jalar las orejas” (pull the ears) of their children here and usually get it. When I return, in loco parentis I use that permission to get them back to the sacraments, especially marriage in the Church. The parents give me their authority and I am able to exercise it without being a part of the tangle of family conflicts and resentment, which I have usually also learned about, not to mention lack of geographical proximity, which when the parents try long-distance, frequently weakens it.

First Aspect: "Planting of a church."

There are two features of my ministry which I would like to elaborate on in this blog. The first deals with the “planting of a church.” The process in the Diocese is first “station,” then “mission”, then parish. The station is essentially a “mass of convenience” in a place apart from the parish church which sponsors it, and if oriented to establishing a “mission”, includes extensive outreach to the Catholic (and non-Catholic) population. In my previous incarnation in the Raleigh Diocese, I established five stations “Down East” (New Bern Deanery, of which three were discontinued because the people were able to get to the Parish church. These were in existence from between 3 months to 2-1/2 years. Two other stations were combined into one mission (Sta. Teresita) in Pink Hill, NC which is now attached to a large Hispanic Parish 20 minutes away. Footnote: I also worked with parish leadership in seven other parishes belonging to the Deanery (well, almost!) to establish a weekly Spanish Mass and sacramental preparation.

The station in Four Oaks is under the patronage of St. Francis Xavier (if anyone reading this knows of a spare statue of FX that could be donated, please let me know). We began with a meeting of members attending Mass at Saint Ann’s, Smithfield and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Neither parish has a complete registry of Hispanic members, so we went to the phone book and wrote out as much information as we could find of those Hispanic-surnamed individuals living in the Four Oaks/Smithfield/Selma area, and then arranged the cards by street to identify the areas of denser Hispanic population. We add to the cards as we turn up new data, especially from those people bringing children for baptism. There is a nice clustering. (Our information is confidential, so that ICE can’t use it to round up the undocumented).

On Palm Sunday, April 1, we inaugurated the new station with a procession from the Elementary School to a park in “downtown” Four Oaks. About 200 people participated in the Mass. No other location was available. We have had Mass outside in the park since then, except for 10 occasions when we have been able to obtain the American Legion Hall. It’s hard to believe that seven months have passed. We’re in the midst of an extreme drought in NC, so rain hasn’t been a problem since April.

In May, the St Francis Xavier leadership and I arranged for processions with the Missionary Image of OL of Guadalupe (who has traveled with me for 10 years!) in several trailer parks to advertise the Mass and to get to know and animate the people to practice their faith. Singing hymns and praying the Rosary, we went from trailer to trailer, knocking on the doors of those who had indicated an interest in being visited and blessing habitation, inhabitants and everything else in sight. Like the Pied Piper, Our Lady drew a larger and larger crowd. Children carried baskets for donations, and I had a chance in the few brief moments of personal contact in each trailer, to address solutions to some of the problems which the people raised with me, or I with them. The result was a better attendance at the Sunday Mass and lots more work at the Parish. Our monthly baptisms now average 18, up from 10. We have a marriage or two scheduled on most Saturdays, mostly convalidations.

In March, we dutifully prayed the Novena of Grace asking St. Francis Xavier to help us find a place with a roof over it , and set out optimistically looking for the place. It couldn’t be a storefront (Town ordinance), or in public school space (custodians don’t work on Sunday), American Legion (a couple of Sundays month they rent for family reunions, etc.) or the Methodist and Baptist churches (although the pastors were open, they have too many Sunday afternoon activities to promise us a regular use)

Then, the Baptist pastor suggested I contact Rev. Nick Dejesus, at Beulah Hill Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) a mile outside of Four Oaks. Nick was enthused at the possibility of having us there, and I am waiting the response of his Board to our request and his recommendation as I write this blog.

I should have seen the connection, whether St. Xavier had anything to do with it or not. Beulah Hill! My first station in eastern NC was in a laundromat at Beulaville. A year later, we were invited to use Beulaville Presbyterian Church, where we stayed for four years, until the congregation merged with Pink Hill. And, my (unpaid, volunteer) pastoral assistant at St Ann’s in Smithfield (1993-6) was the saintly, peppery Beulah Abdalla, whose parents migrated from Lebanon to NC and were in the business of planting Catholic, Roman if not Maronite, churches.

Nick Dejesus is a Four Oaks native whose grandfather was Puerto Rican. In five years as pastor, he has overseen the growth of Beulah Hill Christian’s congregation from 20 active to 90 active. The facility is made to order for us. Thanks be to St. Xavier and St. Beulah!

Second Aspect: The Cursillo, Confessions, Aschenbrenner’s 3-level diagram, on the way to Development of Spiritual Leadership and a link to the Spiritual Exercises.

I lived my Cursillo experience in NC (1963) several years before entering the Jesuits and then lost track of the movement as I became more and more immersed in giving the Spiritual Exercises during the 70's and 80's. In January, 1997, on a visit to Luvianos, Edo. Mex. In the Diocese of Ciudad Altamirano, Mexico, by chance (!!). I was pressed into service almost from the moment I arrived by the spiritual director of a Cursillo in his Parish, Fr. Gabriel Jaimes, who had pneumonia. First hearing confessions, then staying up late to prepare a talk so he could get some rest, then subbing for him at the Sunday Masses and hearing confessions in between in his Parish where I came to know the lives and spirituality of the people of “La Tierra Caliente.” It’s not just a place, it’s a culture. The first Bishop of the Diocese sums up what has been my experience of this people, whom I have come to love: “Never have I met a people who are so good and who do such bad things.” (Bp. Juan Navarro). I was struck by the response of these macho types to the message of Christ’s love as presented by Fr. Gabriel, and I arranged with him to come to NC and revive the Hispanic Cursillo, which had fallen on hard days. In October, 1997, he came. We divided the 60 candidates into male and female and arranged the schedule at the Retreat Center, so they wouldn’t interact. Fr. Gabriel did both, with a little help from me. Since that time, we have had at least 30 Cursillos in Spanish for men and another 30 for women, with over 1,700 participants. Many have become the backbone of ministry to Spanish-speaking in their parishes.

The Cursillo provides an opportunity for the candidates to come to terms with their life situations, deal with resentments and conflicts left over from childhood (abuse is a big one) and poisoning their lives and their marriages, to start off anew with a sense of Christ’s love and their mission. I’ve found George Aschenbrenner’s scheme (please pardon the imprecision, George) involving moving from the surface of our lives through the nexus of conflict and resentments which block our access to the place of communion with God to provide a graphic way to persuade people set aside their worries long enough to touch down in their real center where God resides. It pays off in real interior peace.

Confession has a special place in the Cursillo, and I spend as long as 15 hours of the 80 hours the Cursillo lasts “in the confessional.” If there’s a second priest available, it may go up to 25 hours. These confessions (some are the first since First Communion) are not only an opportunity for the candidates to desahogarse (unburden themselves, catharsis), but to experience the mercy of the Lord, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and to begin to undo their resentments by pardoning others. The rest of the Cursillo provides them with a chance to cement the foundation of a real conversion to the Lord.

In our Raleigh Diocese Cursillo operation, we need more attention to preparation of candidates and follow-up. In Cursillo lingo, that’s Pre-Cursillo and Pos-Cursillo, and it involves a lot of discernment. I realized in a pinch on one Cursillo when I had 50 candidates, several emergencies and I was the only confessor, that a lot of what happens in a Cursillo confession (apart from absolution) could be done by people who were adept in distinguishing the stages of the spiritual life and knew a little about discernment (i.e. incipient spiritual directors). So I asked several of the women on team, whom I knew very well, if they would be comfortable “having a spiritual conversation” with some of the candidates who needed to desahogarse, or who couldn’t receive absolution because of their marriage situation, and were not likely to enter the confessional. Some said yes. Their experience was humbling and wonderful (as was that of the candidates), and it opened these wise and well-anchored people to want to learn and do more. So I invited a group of 40 of them, men and women, some of them married couples, to meet monthly to learn the basics of spiritual counseling, discernment and how to when they should draw the line and refer the people they were working with to a priest or someone with more experience. Thirty-five of them finished the 8-month course and they are still working inside and outside the Three Days of the Cursillo. It’s time for a second round of training.

One of the best of these leaders is a man, beset by a host of health problems which keep him very close to the Lord, who when he finished his Cursillo 8 years ago, couldn’t read any of the materials and could barely write. He developed a system of hieroglyphics to jot down his notes until his wife and daughters helped him learn the alphabet and recognize a basic Cursillo vocabulary. He now reads the Bible and is a master speaker, but is even more effective at spotting people who need immediate attention during the Three Days. He talks to them in his simple, respectful and very humble manner and they open up to him. Just this past weekend, he interrupted the line waiting for me to bring a young man (whom I had known for 12 years, since he was a child) in for confession, and a life was saved and a disciple formed, just like that. When Don Sigi speaks, I listen!

I will write more next time about the connection I see between the Cursillo with its phases: Pre-Cursillo, Three Days (tightly structured to enable a process of conversion) and the Pos/Cursillo (Fourth Day) and the Spiritual Exercises, and its phases: Pre-Exercises, The Four Weeks, and the Fifth Week.

Fr. Edgar Sepulveda, a priest of the Diocese imbedded in the Charismatic renewal, is fascinated by the process of the Cursillo and the connection which can be made of both movements to the SpEx. The Renewal also has the problem of what to do with the leaders who emerge from its basic training to help them continue their growth in the spiritual life. There’s the link!

So, in a future blog, some thoughts on movements and the Spiritual Exercises and how we might help intercalate them.

Paul Brant, sj

Bill Rickle's note: Please post your comments here on the blog, or respond to Paul directly at paulbrantsj@yahoo.com

Brother Ricardo Greeley, SJ from Albemarle, NC. (En español)

Sin fronteras en la misión de la Compañía (primera parte)

Picture is of Fr. John Starczewski, pastor of St. James, Hamlet, NC and Brother Ricardo Greeley, SJ at Comité Hispano retreat conducted by Bro. Ricardo, Oct 14, 2007

Nací en Guadalajara, México (1966). Desde mis tres años de edad viví entre San Diego, California y Guadalajara: cada cuatro años toda mi familia y yo regresábamos y luego volvíamos. De esta manera fui “migrante” por muchos años, gracias a lo cual pude conocer las diversas realidades y culturas que separan los dos países.

Durante los Ochenta conocí a mexicanos, guatemaltecos y salvadoreños muy pobres, que atravesaban Tijuana para llegar a Los Ángeles u otros destinos en California. Historias de hambre para los mexicanos, y de guerra para los centroamericanos eran tan comunes a todos ellos. Por muchos años fui testigo de sus sufrimientos cuando escapan de la “migra”, de los asaltantes o hasta de los abusos de los “polleros”.

En 1986 emprendí mi viaje hacia el Sur de la Frontera para luchar por superar las causas de la migración, intentado evitar que esa gente pobre tuviera que dejar a su familia, sus tierras y de que aquí cayeran en otro tipo de esclavitudes, o de perderse en el materialismo, las drogas, en el fundamentalismo de las sectas, etc., en este “país de la libertad”.

Primero llegué a la Tarahumara, territorio indio en el norte de México, en donde trabajé en la construcción de una clínica rural. Allí conocí a más jesuitas, gracias a quienes me entusiasmé por la vida religiosa, como forma de entregarme en el servicio a los más pobres de los mexicanos, los indígenas. A los dos años fui admitido al Noviciado con miras al sacerdocio. Allí resolví mejor ser Hermano, no Sacerdote, sintiendo que con esa vocación religiosa podría ser más feliz, y más útil para la misión de la Compañía.

Durante mis estudios de filosofía (1990-1994), con otro estudiante y un sacerdote jesuitas comenzamos una experiencia apostólica en Soyatlán del Oro, en una zona muy marginada a unos 150 kilómetros al occidente de Guadalajara. La población mayoritaria era “cuyuteca” (de familia nahua, quienes sufrieron que su lengua se extinguiera desde medidos del siglo XIX). Cada fin de semana acompañamos a esta gente en actividades pastorales.

Aunque me despedí de Soyatlán después de 4 años, muchos más escolares jesuitas continuaron participando en esta parroquia por otros 6 años más, que sirvió para el desarrollo social de la gente, pero también constituyó parte esencial de nuestra formación jesuítica.

El 1º de enero de 1994, entrado en vigor del Tratado de Libre Comercio de Norte América (TLCAN), también aparecieron los zapatistas (indígenas que se alzaron en armas en el Sureste Mexicano). Las cosas no se veían fáciles para que realmente avanzara el país hacia mayor democracia y desarrollo. Lo único seguro era que éstos dos implicarían mucha lucha y dolor para los más pobres, con resultados o beneficios inciertos en el corto y mediano plazos.

Les decía a la gente que en algunos años ellos dejarían de sembrar su propio maíz. Incrédulos, contestaban que ni acudiendo a Guadalajara para trabajar (en temporadas) de peones les convenía tanto como vivir de su maicito. Anticipé que era cuestión de varios años, en donde al comenzar las importaciones de granos de los países del Norte, ellos ya no podrían vender bien sus productos. Les decía que incluso acabarían por irse al Otro Lado para contratarse ya no sólo de peones, mozos, lavacarros, lavaplatos y hasta para levantar las cosechas de los “gringos”. Aunque triste por no poder continuar en Soyatlán, en julio de 1994 me despedí para acudir a mi nueva misión, precisamente entre más indígenas, en el estado de Veracruz.

Desde agosto de 1994 fungí como promotor educativo dentro del Proyecto Istmo de Fomento Cultural y Educativo, A.C. Mi trabajo no se circunscribía sólo al desarrollo social con los popolucas de la zona alta de la sierra, sino también con los nahuas de las comunidades de la parte baja de la sierra, donde atendían otros compañeros del Equipo.

Durante los primeros años de mi presencia en Veracruz constaté que las políticas de desarrollo oficiales respondían más a los intereses de las corporaciones extranjeras que a los de México. Los efectos del TLCAN se dejaron sentir muy rápido: el conjunto de la economía del sur del país se desplomó: importantes cultivos de Veracruz (café, azúcar, naranja, piña, ganadería, etc.) comenzaron a sufrir tremendamente. Sólo despuntaron algunos emporios de huevo y de pollo, así como la harinera de maíz Maseca (sin generar suficientes empleos). Desde entonces, nuestros presidentes han seguido dócil y fielmente las condiciones que les han impuesto los organismos financieros internacionales del Norte. A tal punto están las cosas, que las privatizaciones (de salud, educación, biodiversidad -incluyendo germoplasmas, el agua y el aire-, así como de la propiedad intelectual) de México están a la orden del día.

En este contexto, entre 1994 y 1995 la migración en Veracruz se convirtió en una opción para los jóvenes, mujeres y hombres. Comenzaron a salir semanalmente autobuses llenos, directo desde poblaciones del Sur de Veracruz hasta las ciudades en frontera con Texas.

En mi trabajo con los indígenas, comencé a virar en lo que era mi trabajo, incidiendo cada vez más en los procesos del desarrollo rural. Cada vez con mayor claridad me ocupé en favorecer las estrategias de la economía campesina, particularmente desde la agroecología. En Veracruz mi trabajo fue intenso, pero con “poco frutos”, pues veía que los jóvenes seguían emigrando.

A principios de 1998 me incorporé a la Misión Jesuita con Mayas de los Altos de Chiapas profundizando en el desarrollo rural. Créanme, en medio de mayores retos de marginación y pobreza que la realidad chiapaneca nos presentaba —todo agravado por la guerra de baja intensidad que implementaban los gobiernos estatal y federal contra los indígenas—, paradójicamente, estos años fueron los más felices de mi vida. Acá sí con mayores frutos y efectos multiplicadores. Sin embargo, dolorosamente, también desde finales de los Noventa la migración comenzó a hacerse presente dramáticamente en Chiapas.

Entre los veranos de 2001 y 2003 acudí a la capital del país para concluir mis estudios de teología. Este tiempo lo aproveché también para convivir con migrantes indígenas en el área metropolitana. En vacaciones acudí a pueblos de Puebla, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, Hidalgo para apoyar sus estrategias de sobrevivencia y de organización social. Aprendí de su organización social, de sus técnicas agropecuarias y de sus heroicas luchas por salvar la vida del planeta, contra la depredación del sistema “moderno”.

Volví a Chiapas en el verano de 2003, ampliando mi convivencia con indígenas ahora incluso con zoques y choles. Profundicé en los proyectos de autosuficiencia y soberanía alimentaria. Aplicamos metodologías participativas y desarrollamos cuantas tecnologías apropiadas sirvieran para que los campesinos satisficieran sus necesidades inmediatas, al mismo tiempo ir mejorando los paradigmas del desarrollo sustentable, desde la agroecología.

Con todo y lo fecundo de los proyectos que estábamos desarrollando, fui constatando que los jóvenes continuaban migrando, ahora incluso hacia dentro de los Estados Unidos.

Poco a poco fui comprendiendo la gravedad de los retos —y valorando también las oportunidades— que la migración nos presenta al conjunto de la sociedad, ya no sólo mexicana, sino a nivel de Norte América. Comencé a considerar que mi aporte a la misión de la Compañía puede ser más fructífero si sirvo ya no desde los territorios indígenas, sino desde los Estados Unidos, en donde grandes cantidades de migrantes están, y que lo más factible es que no regresen a sus tierras para morir sin prosperar.

Muchas circunstancias se acomodaron en un espacio de aproximadamente de dos años, en que se presentaron las oportunidades de trabajar pastoralmente para la Diócesis de Charlotte, NC, una de las zonas de mayor y rápido crecimiento de hispanos en los Estados Unidos. Llegué aquí en Mayo de este año. Aunque ahorita sólo les digo que me encuentro muy contento de estar aquí, ofrezco terminar de platicar a qué se debió que acepté hacer este cambio tan drástico desde la zonas marginadas del Sur de México en donde era muy feliz, hasta esta zona “del país más poderoso del mundo”. En mi siguiente aporte les narraré sobre la realidad con que me he encontrado en este lugar y algo de las perspectivas hacia el futuro.

Correo eletrónico: RGreeley@CharlotteDiocese.org

Hno. Ricardo Greeley, SJ

Fr. Shay Auerbach, SJ Reports from Richmond

I am Shay Auerbach, a Maryland Province Jesuit serving as admin- istrator of Sacred Heart Parish in Richmond, VA. We are a parish of about 800 families, over half hispanic and the other half white, African American and African. The Hispanics are largely from Mexico (the majority) El Salvador and the Caribbean.

The amazing thing about this parish is the sense of warmth and welcome. The different communities all get along quite well, and parish meetings are commonly in both Spanish and English, with no one complaining.

People tell the story of how they came here to this parish, for a visit, brought by a relative or friend and then staying because everyone worked so hard to make them feel at home, all quite naturally.

Prior to coming to Sacred Heart in July of this year I lived in Mexico taking part in the final stage of Jesuit formation called tertianship. An important part of my time there was visiting families I had gotten to know and work with in Baltimore and Raleigh, where I had worked before I went to Mexico.

There is nothing like the priest from a young man's church going to his hometown in Mexico or El Salvador and telling a mother that he is doing ok in the US and that she should not worry about him. The life of an immigrant, authorized or unauthorized is one of many challenges and some outright dangers. So many come north to support families. When those families find out that their loved ones are well in the States, that someone in a position of trust personally gives them the message that they are ok, it gives them hope and joy.

It turned out that a group of young men who were part of St. Joseph's in Cockeysville lived twenty minutes from our retreat house in the state of Jalisco. One of them I confirmed before I left for Mexico. Three weeks after I arrived, they all came home and I got to spend much time with them and their families. One of the evenings we gathered, their fathers remembered the hardships and abuse endured in the US some forty years before as participants in the "bracero" program, in which the US government recruited in Mexico cheap labor for agritultural work in the US. In the mid 1960s the program was discontinued because of persistent poor treatment of workers.

In December, I was assigned to the southern state of Oaxaca, very undeveloped and largely poor, with persistent political unrest. A family I knew in Baltimore picked me up at the airport and took me to the Jesuit residence. In May, I visited the remote mountain town they are from, Santa Cruz Tepetotutla, where the language is Chinanteco. It was their parish feast day, and they are so off the beaten track that there are years when the parish priest, who lives eight hours away by foot (the same time by car since the roads are so bad) cannot make it for the town feast day. This year there were two priests, the parish priest and myself.

The reality is that immigrants families live an often painful life of separtion. Parents not seeing their children, husbands and wives not seeing each other for years at a time. An official estimate, which gives an idea of the situation, is that half of the population of the state of Zacatecas lives north of the border--some of them in my parish. The picture on horseback is of Los Soyates a small "ranchito" whose residents in the the US built the town church. The picture of the procession is in the mountain town in Oaxaca--a good number of the residents work in southern New Jersey.

As much as immigration has affected the US and is changing the church in this country, the home towns of the immigrants are thoroughly altered, new homes, new churches, better roads--and families divided. Effective ministry to immigrants on this side of the border must take into account the reality on the other side of the border. I had the privilege to experience that reality, with parents, wives, and children of immigrants who are part of our parishes here in the US. I will never forget the words of a mother and wife of an immigrant in North Carolina. . With deep love in their voices, concern etched on their faces the mother said: "I entrust the care of my son to you." The wife added "Please keep watch on my husband". They knew very well that I lived five hours distance from him. But to them what mattered was that someone also on the same side of the border, someone of the church was keeping tabs on their loved one.

Post a comment here on the blog or you can contact me directly at auerbachs@raldioc.org

Fr. Bruce Bavinger, SJ Chimes in from Rocky Mount and Wilson, NC

Howdy, All!

My name is Bruce Bavinger, and I’m writing from the Church of St. Therese in Wilson, and from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Rocky Mount, NC, each about an hour east of Raleigh, and about half an hour away from each other. There’s one Catholic Church with a resident pastor in each location, and Catholic Hispanic ministry was started here about 15 or so years ago. I have been here just over two years, working not as pastor but as assistant to the pastor, for Hispanic ministry. I replaced a diocesan assistant priest, a Colombian, who had been served both parish communities in this way for two years. I live in Wilson with the pastor at the parish rectory. This my first time in full-time Hispanic ministry, and while I have a decent foundation in Spanish, my skills are still growing.

My mission here is to serve the Hispanics of the area with parish ministry and outreach, and also to bring Ignatian spirituality to those I serve, principally by way of retreats, but also in other ways.

A recent highlight of my time here would be the Kermés festival that we had in Wilson on September 15th. The event was an all-day affair on the grounds of the parish school, which is adjacent to the church. It is a project of the Hispanic community there to raise money for the school, and it involves soccer and volleyball games, the serving of a good meal and many snacks, a tómbola raffle, and an evening dance. Why a highlight? God gave us a lovely, sunny day after a night of rain (!), many more people came than last year both during the day and also to the dance, the Knights of Columbus put up their tent in just the right place, and we made more than twice as much for the school as last year. Once again, the people gave so much of themselves, and outstripped my own desire to do the project, and God met them on the way and blessed them. That same experience of God’s blessing folks who are “stepping out in faith” is often repeated for me.

The opportunities of the position I have here are many. As Bill Ameche mentioned last week about western North Carolina (Oct 1), there is also here in the east an extensive Hispanic population, largely Mexican, and largely undocumented. With these two parishes as a base, I have a Sunday Mass in Spanish in both locations, and I have grown in my preaching style so that it’s more spontaneous and I am communicating with people more directly and often more powerfully. Apart from Masses, I am able to meet and serve and counsel many folks in large part through the traditional ministries that Hispanic folks request. Baptisms are done in groups, in each parish, once a month, without a Mass. I have not done the group approach for quinceañeras and wedding preparations, though I am looking harder at that for this year. I do occasional Masses in the “campos,” and I occasionally accompany one parish’s youth group with its outreach to a clinic that serves farm laborers.

My most satisfying retreat experiences have been with a group that I formed from both parishes to create this year’s Lenten retreat, which we offered on different dates in each parish. Meditations and exercises were largely handled by the members of the group, which was very creative and whom I supervised. There was an Ignatian structure to the retreat, and some good dynamics, with guided meditations, group sharing, music and devotions. We were able to offer child-care and a good turnout in each of the two parishes. My desire would be to repeat that this coming Lent, with more active participation by myself. Having been raised on “directed retreats,” the Hispanic-style group retreat that is truly Ignatian is new territory for me, as perhaps for many of us.

Let me finish up by mentioning the challenges before me this year! Accompanying the people in an increasingly anti-immigrant society is an overall challenge. It just pervades so much of the day-to-day conversation. More specifically, in one of the parishes, I will try promote unity, both among the Hispanic leaders, and between the Hispanic and the Anglo community. There is some distrust there which impedes the Spirit. In the other parish, I am focusing on raising up more leaders for the liturgical ministries, for the youth group which foundered, and for social outreach. Finally, for both parishes, I am looking to offer an Advent retreat, with a smaller group of assistants and a more active role for myself.

Any responses to the above are most welcome! I can be reached directly at bavingersj@yahoo.com or post a comment here in the blog. If you don't have a google account, simply indicate "other" in your post.

Mexican Provincial and Social Assistant Visit NC and Baltimore

Fr. Rafael Moreno Villa, SJ, the Social Ministries Assistant for the Mexican Province visited with Brother Ricardo Greeley, SJ in Charlotte and Albemarle areas of North Carolina in late September and early October. Brother Ricardo is the Hispanic Ministry Coordinator for the Albemarle Vicariate of the Charlotte Diocese. They visited four parishes where Ricardo is working with the immigrant Hispanic communities.

On October 2, they were joined by the Mexican provincial Fr. Juan Luis Orozco, SJ in Baltimore to visit with Bill Rickle, see the Institute's office, and visit with Maryland Provincial Fr. Tim Brown, SJ to discuss present and future ways in which the two provinces can and will collaborate on the increasingly important ministry among Mexican migrants.

The following day, Fr. Luigi Cremis, an Italian diocesan priest from Peru, gave the visiting Mexicans a tour of the Hispanic communities in Baltimore, including a visit to the newly opened Cristo Rey School in east Baltimore. After feeding them in classic Italian style as the communty of volunteers working at Our Lady of Pompei church, he took them to the BWI airport for a Boston meeting of all the Mexican Jesuits working in the U.S.

It was a Spirit filled visit and we all parted with great thanksgiving for the work now underway and great expectations for future collaboration.