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Three Novices in Mexico;
Two in Colombia

The Basilians have three novices currently in residence at the novitiate in Mexico. One is Mexican, one is from Canada and there is one American. They are: José Del Toro, Benjamin Martin, and Glenn McDonald. Novices Oscar Fernando Gomez and Jose Edward Escobar are studying at Casa Annonay in Bogota, Colombia.

All A’s for Freddy

Freddy Viafara, of Cali, Colombia, finished his second year of studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston with a straight A report card for the second semester. Here on a Basilian scholarship, Freddy is a former student in the Basilian High School in Cali, Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion. Freddy says that after the Basilians came to his parish, “My whole family, my whole place has changed — it is better. The violence is still there, but for many of us Catholics we have a peace inside.” This summer, Freddy is enjoying his first visit home since he came to Houston in the fall of 2000. Congratulations, Freddy. Have a good summer and we pray for your safe return next fall.

Summer Preaching

A number of the missionaries spend their summer vacation preaching in parishes around the U.S. for the missions. St. Joseph Center, our mission headquarters in Sugar Land, is busy during the summer months welcoming the missionaries who are flying in and out to their preaching duties. Father John Boscoe, C.S.B. is one of the missionaries “on the go” this summer. He is stationed at Caltepec, Mexico. While in Houston, he took a brief time out to visit the shrine of Blessed Miguel Pro, the merry Mexican martyr, in Houston. The Basilian missionaries in Mexico routinely carry the correspondence received by the cause in the U.S. to the vice postulator in Mexico.

Webs Aren’t Just for Spiders

Please visit our renovated website at www.basilianfathersmissions.org for more information, pictures of our missionaries at work, and this Newsletter in color.

Rosary Workers in St. Lucia

A small group of women in St. Lucia have learned to make rosaries. After being trained in the handwork by an instructor sent from Canada, the women continue to meet at the parish Center to work on the rosaries as a way to earn money. Originally, the plan was to establish the rosary making as a “cottage industry” where the women could take the materials home and work on the projects there. However, small beads and small children are not a good mix. In addition, most of these women are too poor to have a table in their home to work on or a cabinet to safely lock up the materials. Thus, the work continues at the parish Center. In the missions, Flexibility is often the name of the game!

Books for Colombia

Father Frank Amico, C.S.B. spent the past year on sabbatical in Rome. He returned to Cali in June. Although he was physically away from his mission, the mission never left his thoughts or his heart. While in Rome he was able to obtain at good prices French, Italian and Latin textbooks for the high school as well as audio-visual materials. Father Frank is determined that the students at Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion have a quality education.

You may recall that students from this school were among those chosen to go to Rome as workers for World Youth Day 2000. They were chosen for their ability to speak several languages. Three students from this high school are currently on scholarship to the University of St. Thomas and the University of Windsor.

Can you help provide the books to help us continue to give the students at Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion a quality education? Click on the bookplate to the right, print it out, fill in and mail it along with your generous donation to the Basilian Fathers Missions in Sugar Land. Please do not fold the bookplate. Your bookplate will record your sentiments and your gift to education in Colombia. This is a perfect time to honor someone, living or deceased, with a gift that will continue giving. The book plates will be put on the altar at our chapel in Sugar Land and our mission fathers will remember all donors at a special Mass of Thanksgiving on the feast of The Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15th. Then, the book plates will be sent to Colombia to be put in the front covers of the donated books in time for the beginning of the school year.

Please mail your bookplate to:

Basilian Fathers Missions
PO Box 708
Sugar Land, TX 77487-0708

Thank you and God bless you!

Dressing Jesus

The Mexican people are devoted to the Christ child. Many images of Jesus as a baby or young child are found throughout the country. Some of these have established a miraculous character, such as the images of Santo Nino de Atocha, the Holy Child of Good Luck, the Infant of Good Health, the Child of the Doves, and Jesus Doctor. In Mexican homes, too, images of the Christ Child are given a place of honor, usually on the family altar.

In pious devotion, and following Spanish custom, many of the images are dressed in real clothing. In the cult of Jesus Doctor, handmade suits of clothes are given as ex voto offerings of thanks. Images in churches are often seen in elaborate dresses, similar to Baptismal costumes. One image in a church in Mexico City proudly sports a hand crocheted baby hat and booties.

Nothing, however, is more touching than the custom of dressing the family image on the Feast of the Presentation. Father Tom Sepulveda sent this description from Tehuacan:

Just as Kings cakes are traditional in many homes in the United States and Canada, on January 6, Three Kings Day in Mexico, it is the custom to have a “rosca.” This is a round donut-type of cake into which has been baked a small plastic doll. The person who finds a doll in his or her piece of cake has to provide the fiesta on the feast of the Presentation, February 2.

In Mexico, February 2 is the popular end of the Christmas season. The Christ child figure stays visible in his crib in the home until February 2. On that day, the infant receives a new set of clothes.

The new clothes are an important part of the celebrations for the feast in Tehuacan. The size of the image varies from small to quite large. Homeowners may choose to dress the child as they wish, in accordance with their own private devotion. The outfits range from costumes resembling the clothing of the family’s favorite saint to a priest’s vestments, or they may be made with representations of the Sacred Heart or Our Lady of Guadalupe sewn on them. Lace, embroidery, and beading are often used to decorate the image’s new outfit. One outfit seen in a religious goods store recently consisted of a little shirt and pair of pants of tan cotton cloth with a matching tilma and the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe beaded in the middle of the tilma. The outfit honors Blessed Juan Diego, the visionary of Guadalupe, who will be declared a saint this year.

On the Feast of the Presentation, each family brings their image of the Holy Child to the church, dressed in its new clothes, to be blessed by the priest.

Upon their return home, the image is placed in a little chair, a kind of small throne. On his throne, the infant King passes the entire year, honoring the home and bringing blessings to his subjects in the household.

After the Christ child is enthroned, a happy fiesta follows.

A Friend’s Broom Sweeps Clean

A good story the Basilians like to tell on Father Max Murphy, one of the original two Basilian Fathers to establish a Basilian mission in Mexico more than 40 years ago, is that once in the old days in Mexico, a poor peddler came to the door and sold Father Max a broom for ten pesos. The cook, Celia, was a bit of a termagant and tight with the pesos. She scolded Father Max, saying “You could have bought that broom for 5 pesos in the market.” Max replied mildly, “But what could I do? He’s my friend!” How typical of our missionaries who, time after time, pay out more in friendship and love to the poor than the poor can find in the market!

A Note From Father Jack:

A Crisis in Colombia

To steal a headline from the national news, there is a “Crisis in the Catholic Church.” But the crisis is not simply one of sexual scandal.

Most Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza, Bishop of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston, expressed my own sentiments well when he wrote: “It is horribly sad that across this nation, the gravely sinful acts of a very few priests have cast a shadow of shame on the priesthood. ... In dioceses throughout the world, the overwhelming majority of priests are men of spiritual depth and moral integrity. They faithfully and joyfully minister to the faithful as a concrete expression of their love of Christ and commit themselves in service to the Church. ... I am grateful to our faithful priests and I ask you to join with me in thanking them and praying for them each day.”

Our mission priests live with crisis daily. In Colombia, the situation is explosive; violence, torture, and murder are common occurrences. Unemployment, poverty and lack of education are strangling the people. In Mexico and St. Lucia, our priests encounter many of the same ills, although the violence is more often of a domestic nature.

Pray for our priests in crisis. Your prayers enrich and strengthen them to continue their labor for the Lord in the midst of a horrible situation. Your gifts enable them to make a great impact against the social evils which beset our mission territories.

With my gratitude and that of all our Basilian Fathers.

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