March and Mass

During the past few months some convents in various places in Haiti have been broken into, burglarized.  Last Wednesday the religious of the diocese of Cap-Haitian and many lay supporters gathered together to bring attention to the problem or crime in Haiti and to pray for those who have been victimized and for an end to the crime sprees.  Together, we marched from one down town church to the cathedral, Haitians and foreigners, elderly, middle age and young, religious, and lay, men and women.  When we arrived at the cathedral we, the sisters, were directed to sit in a section at the front of the church to the right of the altar.  At first I wondered why they were going to squeeze us into that section when the pews of the large cathedral were all empty.  What I had not realized, since we had arrived as the march was starting and joined towards the front where other Holy Cross sisters were, that so many people were behind us or at least would be joining us for the liturgy.  The entire cathedral was full to capacity; people were sitting on the steps that lead to the altar, and on the raised floor near the sides of the altar, while others stood filling the isles.  At communion the priest came to the pew and leaned over me to give communion to the others in the pew since there was not enough space in the nearby isle to form a line.  When I think a pew is full to absolute capacity, and would probably be considered so in most American churches, there is always room for at least one or two more people, if any space exists between any two people in the pew another person may and probably will squeeze in.  I was very touched that so many people would come to this mass to stand with the religious as we try to stand with those who have been victimized.  Many of the hymns we sang had justice and solidarity themes.  A higher percentage of the liturgy was in Haitian Creole when compared with the daily mass we sometimes attend in the early morning hours at the same cathedral.  I left the church with a sense of hope, peace and renewed energy, feeling connected with God and with all those who had gathered.  There may be a few people committing crimes against religious and others in this country but there were so many more willing to spend their Wednesday morning marching, praying and singing for an end to crime, people desiring peace, justice and people creating a sense of solidarity.                      

  The blog may look different in a week or two.  There are a lot of blog templates that just were not available when I started blogging that are much more attractive and have other advantages as well, so I'd like to give mine a face-lift one of these days.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Take care.