March 2006 | Vol. 42 No 03 | Index

 

From the Director…

Dear Mission Friends:

As you receive this newsletter, we will have recently observed Ash Wednesday on March 1.  We begin the Lenten season by being signed with ashes, a symbol of penance, conversion, purification, and mortality.  The ashes call us to reflect on what will have value at the hour of our death as we enter into eternal life and our bodies return to dust and ashes.  What will have value at the hour of death?  Through faith we know that at the hour of death all that will have value will be love: love of God and love of neighbor. 

 Ash Wednesday is a very solemn event at our Mexicali Mission.  The friars, sisters, and lay ministers conduct services not only in our churches but also in the nearby factories where many of our parishioners work.

I would like to share with you in this issue photographs of the annual Good Friday “Via Crucis” of our Mexicali Mission.  On Good Friday morning we all gather at one of our chapels to reenact the trial of Jesus.  Then the long procession of the Way of the Cross through the streets begins.  At each station a large flatbed trailer is used to portray a theatrical presentation applying the particular station to a situation in the lives of our parishioners such as drug abuse, domestic violence, or examples of social injustice.  At the end of the four-hour procession  through  the  hot, dusty streets the crucifixion scene takes place several miles from the starting point.

At nightfall, a sorrowful procession begins carrying in silence the statue of “The Dead Christ” on a funeral bier through the neighborhoods around the parish church.  Even non-churchgoers who are in the midst of parties turn off the music and put down their beer cans and look on in awe as the procession winds through the darkened streets.

 All of this is in preparation for the joyful celebration of the Easter Vigil when we recall the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Victory over the darkness of sin and death.

May the Light of the Love of the Resurrected Christ shine in your hearts during this holy season.

 Fr Martin de Porres Walsh OP