Candlemas and Handlebars

 

            I’m slowly getting adjusted to life in El Paso, Texas.  I arrived here last August, and at first it seemed rather an arid and empty place, devoid of much life.  But as I grow accustomed to the city, and meet an ever-widening circle of acquaintances, I begin to feel at home.  After visiting family in Massachusetts right after Christmas, I looked forward to getting back to my own house and region, an indication of how well I’m settling in.  It was a matter of time, and still is.

            Occupy El Paso is reputedly still gathering for conversations and decision-making at the San Jacinto Plaza, about three times a week, but I didn’t see anyone there today.  Walking through downtown El Paso is intriguing—a lot of tall historical buildings, built in the early 1900s, are preserved, but empty, while the commercial streets leading to the border with Mexico are busier, with smaller but more numerous buildings, and filled with people.  The closer you get to the two downtown bridges for crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, linking Juárez and El Paso over the Rio Grande (called the Río Bravo in Mexico), in fact, the more crowded the sidewalks get, and the busier the traffic.

            This evening is the Super Bowl, of course.  Like nearly every Sunday, the nine of us—Columban priests and lay missioners on both sides of the border—gather for a meal at 5 p.m. at a local Vietnamese restaurant, tonight probably hanging around for an extra hour or two to watch the game on the large screens placed around the main room of the restaurant.  I’m hoping New England will win, because of my roots there, but I realize that I’ll have to become newly rooted here, and root for a Texan team next year.  I’m not sure which one the majority of El Pasoans support, though, yet.  I’ll have to investigate.

            I’m using my bicycle more often, which is good exercise and saving fuel.  The pickup truck we share here among the three priests in El Paso—including Fr. Denny and Fr. Bill—seems to use up a lot of gas, so I feel good about bicycling around and imagining how much fossil fuel I’m not burning up.  Sometimes I celebrate Mass or teach an evening class up at the University of Texas at El Paso, which is an uphill ride from here at the Columban Mission Center, and I can feel healthier.  It’s getting harder to stay away from consuming more food than I need, and the pounds seem to be accumulating, so this is all to the good, even if I end up walking the bike up for a few blocks, at this early stage.

            Catholics celebrated the Feast of the Presentation recently, which in Latin American countries is transformed into the celebration of the Candelaria, or Our Lady of Candelaria—which has a lot to do with candles, as its name infers.  The Roman Catholic Church universally uses a rite to bless candles on this day, February 2^nd, because the arrival of the 40-day-old Child Jesus at the Jerusalem Temple, and the events surrounding this Presentation, are considered a visible manifestation of Jesus’ divine nature and Messiahship, a “light”, as it were, entering the lives of the prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna, who can see the true significance of Jesus’ presence, as well as into the Temple of God’s meeting with the human family.  The long-awaited brilliance of the One who will restore this relationship to the intimacy it was always meant to have is represented in the candles, sources of light themselves, that will be blessed and brought to the hundreds of families that make up each of the parish communties throughout the world.

            As often occurs in Latin countries, focus leans towards Mary, the mother of Jesus, and devotion to the Virgin of the Candelaria—equivalent to “Candlemas”, the traditional English term for the same festivity—marks the major patron feast days for many towns and villages.  Among the Aymaran villages in the north of Chile, the Virgin of the Candelaria can be the female spiritual figure—replacing the ancient goddesses of their own indigenous beliefs—protecting the population and presiding over a weeklong celebration culminating in the February 2^nd feast.  It’s a comples social institution, with families taking turns in organizing everything, including a kitchen and dining area for feeding the numerous dancing groups that dress in colorful, shining garb and jump about in complex patterns day and night during the week.

            Candlemas brings back many memories of my visits to the north of Chile, and of such events, together with the teams of young adults that would participate, traveling with me from Santiago and Valparaiso.  Now, I find new experiences associated with the date, including the blessing of throats on February 3^rd (using candles blessed the day before, crossing them to bless the throats of the faithful at the end of Mass), which renews a link with my own childhood memories in the U.S., when the feast of St. Blaise was celebrated in this manner—in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter, where concerns over sore throats and such are, indeed, vividly present.  Not surprisingly, the Mexican and Mexican-American cultures of El Paso no nothing of this spiritual custom—nor did it ever take place in Chile, in my experience.

            Adjustment to life in El Paso is an adjustment to various cultures at once, as I bring my own experiences—both the near past and the remote past—to bear on a fresh understanding and appreciation for the shared views and collective wisdom at hand, the hallowed Temple walls of this time and place that God illumines with the arrival of the Incarnate Word.

 

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