Palm Sunday: “…The church of Las Mercedes was so packed in the aisles and sides of the sanctuary that hardly another body could fit.  It was so hot and all the bodies didn’t help that, yet no one seemed to complain.  There was just strong singing and looking out for the other.  Little children could move in and out trying to get a better look now and then.  No one seemed to matter – after all, isn’t that how our journey with our God is so often: moving in and out to get a better look? … I, too, want a better look – to come to know God more deeply as I am witnessed to by this people, by this land.”

Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday: “…With the Semana Santa break, I have the chance for my own retreat…at a center appropriately named “El Tabor”…And here I’ve come away only to see more clearly that the journey of suffering, death, resurrection continues… Here in this country of 4 million people I have come to know a deeper yearning for the justice of God.  I look south and know that just beyond that mountain ridge lies Nicaragua, a country and a people so often misjudged as Jesus was in his trial.  And not far to the west of me, El Salvador, “The Savior”, who still hungers for what saved means literally when so many are in refuge still in this country (Honduras) and others…”

Holy Thursday: “…I thought tonight, as I had thought of often throughout today, the words of Jesus: ‘Remember me.’  As the celebration of Eucharist is stretched to be more than a special time in church together to truly be extended to daily situations, these words really take flesh for me.  ‘Remember me’: the orphan because of low-intensity warfare, the campesino father who is trying to learn to read at night, the youth becoming conscientious of the responsibility in the call for justice and equality, the soldier who is full of questions, the mother who walked with a sick baby for eight hours from a mountain aldea to a clinic in the town, the stranger who longs to understand, the crippled who can’t walk because malnourishment never allowed one’s legs to develop… Yes, the list could go on and on.  Simply: ‘Remember me.’ Jesus continues to say this daily.  The many faces of God’s presence are endless and each carries the message that our God dwells deeply within.  Yes…remember me.”

Good Friday: “The passion of Jesus is not hard to discover today as I walk these streets of a little Central American town.  It is not merely a re-living of the passion but a continuation of it in the day-in-day-out life of the majority of the people… Two faces of women especially struck me today during the afternoon services in the church.  They were both ‘viejitas’ –little older women – who appeared in their 80’s, although I’m sure that was deceiving.  Neither had shoes and each carried a towel to wipe their faces and take care of any other need.  I couldn’t help but wonder how they made it this many years, so thin and skin doubled over.  Somehow a hope carries them much further than I had realized.  They may not know or understand all the rituals of the celebration, laws of the church, or duties or obligations, but they appeared to me to have that deep faith and hope in the redeeming power of our God, in the continued living out of the life of Jesus…”

Holy Saturday: “…Sitting in our little chapel early in the morning I somehow was trying to understand the ‘tomb’ experience here.  Perhaps it’s that feeling very often of many people here wondering where the next meal will come from, if one’s children will be able to go to school, if the little house that’s been built on unused land will be torn down by a reclamation act, if the water will be turned on today, if one’s son will return at night or be put into military service.  Perhaps the tomb is the feeling of not-knowing if one has been abandoned or not.  Surely for Mary, for the women, for the followers of Jesus those days of the tomb brought great expectation, some fear, and waiting.  And, as the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are continuing to be lived out here today, so too is the experience of tomb…”

Resurrection Sunday: “…The words of that messenger the first Easter morning hit me:  ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He has arisen and goes before you into Galilee.’  Yes, why should I look for a sterile tomb?  Jesus goes before me and is alive, as the life of these people.  Life goes on.  And that life here in Central America must be accompanied by a Resurrection hope if it is to be life.  In the daily, moment-by-moment struggle for survival of so many, there has to be a reason for hope…”

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