Ferguson: Our Lady of Guadalupe and One of Her Stolen Sons

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017

Beauty, sadness, membership, anger, quiet, fear, song, powerlessness, power.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

All of these wavelets lapped around me at the Spanish Mass I attended at Ferguson's Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

Forefront in my mind was the St. Louis Public Radio story I'd read the day before about a parishioner, Jose Garcia. In November, the United States of America deported him to Mexico, yanking him from the arms of his wife, Ana, and his three little girls - Amanda, Julissa, and Dana.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

Who benefited from this action?

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

No one, other than a pyramid scheme of ICE operatives to whom a man is a commodity for meeting quotas and adding ticks to a quarterly report.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

A tiny little stat thrown into a virtual mass grave of thousands of other data blips, all denuded of their names, ties to families and communities - their very humanity.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ferguson, Missouri. December 2017.

Marks on a report that will be covered by a fresh sediment layer when government operatives dump new nameless, faceless expendables into the ditch.


'tis the season.

El Paso: Christmas Eve at Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

December 2016

I'm not a member of a house of worship, but I do like to attend such for cultural events and traditions. Since I move each year, I experience traditions such as Christmas Mass in different parts of the world.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

My Christmas Eve in Lafayette, Louisiana, was memorable. I actually attended TWO masses in one evening! The first was nice, but ohhh, the second - at Our Lady of Wisdom on the University of Louisiana-Lafayette campus - it was a gorgeous visual, auditory, and olfactory bath.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

For 2016, an El Paso friend told me that she liked to attend Our Lady of Guadalupe's Christmas services, and that was a good enough recommendation for me.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

Below is the conveyance of the Baby Jesus to the altar, his presentation to the congregation, his blessing on the altar, and loving placement in the manger, snuggled against a lamb:

Later, a priest and a couple wrap the infant ceremoniously in a swaddling blanket:

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

The Christmas-time altar held many delights. Even a Christmas fish.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

Not to appear disrespectful, but I wish the Virgin Mary above and the cow below didn't look so worried. I don't know; maybe the cow just looks startled.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

It is a special privilege for me to witness so many traditional events that show how richly textured our American culture is.

Bent, New Mexico: Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

On Highway 70, between Tularosa and Mescalero, in Bent, New Mexico.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Bent, New Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Bent, New Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Bent, New Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Bent, New Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Bent, New Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Bent, New Mexico

Tortugas, NM: Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Part 3

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

In Part 1, Carol and I attended the Fiesta Mass, and I introduced you to historical resources about Our Lady of Guadalupe and the fiesta in Tortugas. (By the way, tortugas means turtles in Spanish.)

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

In Part 2, we enjoyed la comida and a day of dances. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

At about 3:30, all of the dance groups convened in front of the church except for one, which assembled just outside the church courtyard.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

Presently, the procession began, with dance groups taking the lead, followed by the priest and la Virgen, accompanied by brothers, mayordomos (fiesta leaders), other fiesta or community dignitaries, and the onlookers. The priest sang. Sometimes the Pueblo dance group chanted. One or two gunmen escorted the procession, periodically firing into the air.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

Here was the most interesting thing to me: The dance groups walked in front of la Virgen and the other processioners. But each dance group took turns to:

1. Turn around to face la Virgen;
2. Dance (in two columns) toward la Virgen; 
3. Each row bow in front of la Virgen; and
4. Then that row would go to the end of its column and face forward again (away from la Virgen and in the direction the procession was going), then the next row would bow and move out ... repeat ...
5. When one dance troupe completed its homage, another dance troupe took its turn

This process occurred throughout the procession.

Below is a video that shows the process getting underway.  A lot is going on in this video. If you watch carefully, you'll hear the singing, hear the shotgun fires, hear the drumming, see the dance troupes approach to give their respects to la Virgen and make way for the next dance troupe.

It is a richly layered, beautiful process, I think.

And it's all a part of America.

Here's a photo slideshow of the day's events:

Tortugas, NM: Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Part 2

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

In Part 1, Carol and I attended the Fiesta Mass, and I introduced you to historical resources about Our Lady of Guadalupe and the fiesta in Tortugas. (By the way, tortugas means turtles in Spanish.) 

With an intermission for la comida, the community-offered lunch to all dancers, supporters, and visitors, Carol and I watched worshipful dancing all day.

It was good to be there.

  

The above group are matachine (or danzante) dancers. I talked about them here, when I saw such dancers the first time. Here is an excellent collection of scholarly essays on what the matachine dance is about. Notice the little girl wearing First Communion clothing? From one of the essays: "In the village of Tortugas
she is the spirit of purity and she often wears attributes belonging to the Virgin of Guadalupe."

In the collection of essays, if you scroll down about halfway, you'll get to this essay about the Tortugas matachines in particular: For Her: The Tortugas Danza and the Virgin of Guadalupe.


In the matachine dance in Las Cruces, there was no such little girl. There was a child in scary face makeup and dress, and my understanding is he represented the Spanish conquistadors.

At noon, Carol and I went to stand in a very, very, very, very, very long line to get into la comida - the communal lunch. Carol decided to take a pass on the standing-in-line and went to read a good book in the car.

Waiting for la comida. Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico.

As a long-time festival lover, I get the ebb and flow, the pain/gain of festival activities. This was an ebbing sort of time, with some 100 people just standing and waiting to get in the door. (In fact, the dancers were eating first, which was right.) I chatted with the family in front of me, who'd moved to Tortugas from Chihuahua state in Mexico some 50 years ago. The 92 year-old matriarch was present, as were several of her daughters, granddaughters, and great-great-grandchildren. 

I asked one of the matriarch's daughters - Maria - how old the church was. Her daughter looked it up on her smart phone - built in 1914. A little point of connection: Both Maria's daughter and I are currently reading Bless Me, Ultima, by New Mexican author Rudolfo Anayo. She had the book tucked in her arm while we stood in line.

Waiting for la comida. Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico.

After about an hour in line, we made it to the front. I'd been expecting a buffet line, but it was so much better: long lines of dining tables set up, places set, bowls of food in the middle of the tables, community members serving hot chocolate and cold water. On the tables were albondigas (small meatballs - the documentary I pointed you to in Part 1 has a good story on these), some mac and cheese, bread, and a really good beef stew with nice heat to it. As people finished their meals, we were able to collect dessert, among which were traditional (New Mexican), homemade bizcochitos (cookies). This family-style community-wide meal - the spirit, the conviviality of it - made the long wait worthwhile.     

Matachine headdresses on car while dancers eating lunch. Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico.

I took the bizcochitos to Carol in the car.  

The dancing had recommenced for the afternoon. At 4:00 would be the closing procession, when La Virgen is carried from the church back to her "home" chapel. 

To be continued ...

    

Tortugas, NM: Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Part 1

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico

My mother (visiting from Missouri) and I attended the third and final day of Tortugas' 2012 Our Lady of Guadalupe fiesta on Wednesday, December 12.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico.

The ancestors of Tortugas' settlers celebrated the fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Old Mexico for hundreds of years, and continued the tradition when they made their new homes in Tortugas more than 100 years ago.

The documentary, Our People, Our Faith ... Our Lady, is a beautifully-made film about the village, its early settlers, and the fiesta. You can watch the movie in its entirety here. Great filmwork and still photos, good soundtrack, and interesting story told from various perspectives. The only thing missing was more information on the dances' origins. Much of the soundtrack came from Smithsonian Folkways' Music of New Mexico: Hispanic Traditions. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico.

As with New Mexico generally, the fiesta is an admixture of cultural traditions that began not just centuries ago, but millennia. And as with the matachine dances, the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe has societal and political dimensions along with the religious. 
















In explaining the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the wikipedia authors of same note:

Nobel Literature laureate Octavio Paz wrote in 1974 that "the Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery".

My mother and I arrived in Tortugas just after the fiesta Mass had started. Well, we arrived before the Gospel was read, which according to Roman Catholic etiquette, is the cut-off time before it's really too late to come in. The church was packed, standing room only, and at that, not much room left to stand in. But an usher squeezed us in.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico.

On the right side of church were the dancers in their dance attire; on the left were we vanilla worshippers. Just like in the Mariachi Mass last month in Las Cruces, the priests and brothers celebrating the Mass moved between English and Spanish with liquid ease.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico. Spent shells from shotguns.

At the end of Mass, we heard the sharp reports of shotgun fire, and when we emerged from the church, we saw the Pueblo Indian dance group performing a dance prayer in front of the building.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico. Pueblo dancers.

A man helped keep the passageway clear between the dancers and the church entrance, as the dancers were dancing for La Virgen, currently ensconced inside the church, to the right of the altar. So this man frequently had people move out of the dancers' line of sight so as not to obstruct their homage.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico. Pueblo dancers.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta, Tortugas, New Mexico. Pueblo dancers.

To be continued ...