One of the aspects of the agenda of this Visitors’ Meeting consisted in just meeting and fraternizing. There were prayer meetings, in particular the morning prayer ending with the celebration of the Eucharist, and the evening Vespers, and several other short but intense prayers in the beginning and at the end of the different sessions. We should also include here the morning retreat, which we mentioned in a previous chronicle.
The work sessions have taken up most of the time. Whether in plenary sessions or meeting by linguistic groups, the Visitors have had the opportunity of listening to one another and of feeling close to one another in the ideals of the same missionary vocation.
But now I would like to inform about meetings in festive celebrations. We could say that in this field the experiences have also developed by degrees, beginning with the short periods of time after dinner, accompanied by mariachis or by an instrumental wind quintet, other times using our modest personal resources, till the explosive show of brotherhood in our Wednesday excursion. This excursion appeared on the program as reserved for a visit to Teotihuacan. This word, which to many of us was a real tongue-twister, but which later one would become still more of a twister through the names of god and goddesses, did not tell much to most of us. But the visit itself went way up over what we could have imagined. We found ourselves submerged in the prehistory of Mexico, amidst a people that lived there from 500 B. C. to 600 A. C. , and who, although they never discovered writing, were capable of leaving so numerous and great showings of amazing buildings and urban complexes, of their religious feelings, of their knowledge of the heavenly bodies, and their great capacity for commercial activities. Regretfully, it seems that they also fell into the vices of our times, and their desire of instant enjoyment impeded their perpetuation in those lands. Deforestation brought about climatic change, and the subsequent scarcity of rainfall changed their rich lands into dry desert which they were obliged to abandon under threat of dying by hunger. When the aztecs arrived there, a place already uninhabited, they named the place “abode of the gods”, Teotihuacan.
The much walking under the sun, and the going up and down the steep steps of the pyramid of the Moon, an effort reserved for the more daring, caused us to desire a much needed rest. We found it in the restaurant where a good repast had been prepared: an abundant buffet menú, accompanied once more by the mariachis and a prehispanic dance which brought once again to our memory the long cultural history of this nation.
We went back home early, after a short visit to the former convent of the Augustinians in Acolman. Another contact with the religious history of Mexico, which precisely in a convent saw the birth of the “Misas de aguinaldo”, or “Posadas” (a nine day popular celebration before Christmas Day), that later on would spread all over the continent in order to replace the celebrations of the native populations in honor of the birth of the god Huitzilopochtli from his mother Coatlicue.
At the end of the meeting, it is time to realize and to thank the confreres of the province of Mexico for their excellent work in preparing all the aspects of this meeting. We have to thank once more the great work of Fr. Silvestre Sánchez and his team, Br..Marcelino, Br. Rafael, and the students Toribio and Joel. They do not miss a single detail. They have foreseen everything literally. And what is still more to be admired, they never give the least sign of ill humor or of being tired, even if they might very well wish that this whole celebration come to its end.
