The Role of the Priest
in Rabinal, Guatemala
By Fr. Timothy Conlan, O.P.

I work in the small town of Rabinal in the Chuacus Mountains of Guatemala as a parish priest. I work with two other Dominican priests. I thought I would try to explain what it feels like to be a priest in this setting.  I suspect that it would not be any different from being a priest in any other place, but maybe we all presume what that would be.  Just for the record, let me describe what we do.

I have occasionally written about the general aspects of life here with the colorful fiestas, the indigenous rites, and customs.  But here, let me give the behind- the-scenes view of the daily routine.

hat is it that I enjoy about being a priest for these people?  What is it that I hope my ministry will accomplish? I suppose it would be most true to give a very theological explanation since that is at the core of anything I do, but let me start with more tactile impressions. 

What is it that these Mayan farmers really want from their priest?  They want the priest to go out to the hilltops, which were the sacred places of tradition and which have come down through history in the sacred books, in order to celebrate Mass at the times of year when they are hoping for rain and after the rain comes in order to give thanks. They also want the priest to come as often as possible to celebrate Mass for the dead, which is the deepest need of all.  If the priest will read all the names of the dead at every Mass that would be the most important thing he could do, even if it took an hour. They are not counting time when it comes to fulfilling their religious acts.  It is as if they really are entering into the eternal time, which is what we say the liturgy is.  But then again we count the time and make judgments on how long is too long for an act of worship; they don’t. 

Here in our area the people will do vigils on several nights before feasts. They get started about noon and continue all night until the Mass begins in the early morning. The members of the indigenous confraternities gather and  join   the  prayer  leaders   in these long prayers, maintaining the burning incense and keeping the candles lit while they keep awake. They chant at intervals what they call the Three Mysteries, which are praises of God. The prayer men will recite long lists of the names of all the saints in the Church, the names of the dead, and pray for all those in need, whether far away or in their families. The museum has even produced a book that is simply the long prayer of one of these vigils done in the two languages – Achi and Spanish.  As the men sit up in the cold mountain air they keep warm with the local alcoholic beverage.  This has brought a lot of condemnation from our evangelical brethren, and from the priests, but the traditions are hard to change.  The women bring food at times and wait for the prayers to end, but they remain apart. 

The people want the priest to anoint the dying and visit the sick as often as possible.  It is a great joy to the people when we celebrate a Mass in the home of the sick or offer a Mass for the sick.  They want the priest to come and talk to the youth who are preparing for Confirmation. Most years we confirm 400 to 600 young people at the age of 16. The catechists want the priest to come to talk to the children in First Communion at least once a year.  We have First Communion classes in most villages every other year and in town every year for almost 600 children a year. 

They want the priest to support their lay groups and offer spiritual guidance and talks on Christian faith, and they mostly want him to help them to promote their devotions in the confraternities and the fiestas.  They expect the priest to be an authority figure in the town. If he is against some civic activity or takes a stand against some social program, then the leaders of the community need to come to make peace or find a way to go around the priest without ending up in confrontation.  At times there have been political forces that would like to reduce the influence of the Church or isolate the priests, but generally they prefer to give great respect for the Church hierarchy and not enter into conflict, because it is the accepted wisdom that the Church is powerful.  Whether this is really true is hard to say, because at this time there are many groups who have found ways to take over many of the Church’s past functions of being a leader in social causes.  But still the social life revolves around the great fiestas and people respect the religious values the Church offers.

Any day of the week people will come to the rectory to ask the priest to bless their home, car, motorcycle, business, or medals.  Now I realize that many priests, and maybe some Dominicans, would groan if someone came to ask them to go to their home or business to bless it, or to bless medals or bibles etc. since we as priests are often very busy with things that seem so much more important. Much of the time I myself feel I should be studying a lot more to prepare for some very important courses that we must give. 

This year I worked on an updated course for marriage for the catechists in the villages who are the ones who prepare the couples. Also I gave a course on the best way to involve more people in the ministry of celebrating the Mass in the villages, as well as some seminars on the aspects of globalization.  These are issues that require a lot of study and investigation.  Any one of these projects deserves lots of time to study, and we as priests in a busy parish often feel like we have to guard our time and make use of every moment to be able to keep up on so many issues.  Plus we have so many lay confraternities with their continuous fiestas and Masses, that one would wonder whether such blessings of the houses, cars, medals etc. could really be that important.  At least that is what crosses my mind whenever people come to ask a blessing.  Of course, here I am exposing my inner feelings about my own life and ministry, and obviously I speak only for myself.  Perhaps I am the only priest in the world that at times feels  such things cannot be so important in the total scheme of things.

However, such blessings are truly signs of the deep faith of the people, although it has taken me a while to come to understand their value.  This may not be easy to explain, but let me try. 

ow, I suppose it is obvious that the blessings might not or should not be put on the same level as other aspects of sacramental life, such as preaching at Sunday Mass which has to be one of the highlights of my life as a Dominican priest.  I have grown accustomed to preparing my homilies well in advance. It is such a blessing to be able to take the time to sit and read the Scriptures and a few commentaries on them, and then to sit back and think about what I want to say. I enjoy the creative process of saying things for myself or trying to communicate with others in the way I think I can stir up in them a challenging response or hook them into thinking about their faith.  It is such a high to be able to grapple with the Word of God and discover  its  richness.`I guess I always feel so blessed just to find some few things to say and feel that it is God who has wrung those things out of me, because left to my own insight, I would be stammering  It is what St. Paul said to Timothy, his beloved disciple, “Preach in season and out.”  The preaching deserves the best each one can give. It is not just that the people deserve to hear our best; we owe it to the Word itself to mine that truth and serve that truth, who is the Lord Himself.

Now to be perfectly honest with you, about 70% of those who hear our homilies at a given Mass are the indigenous women who have either never been to a school or at most might have gone up to second grade of primary, so what will they really understand in Spanish unless it is translated for them by a catechist, which we do?  So if someone was thinking that by the pure beauty of all his preaching the people were surely going to be lifted up in faith, well think again.  The preaching will not convert people, unless God touches minds and hearts. It is a humbling thing, but nonetheless requires that we lend God the instrument He can work with, namely that creative word.

Nor do the blessings of the homes or medals or bibles or other items rise to the level of the value of the Sacraments we celebrate such as baptism, Eucharist, or confessions. On the average we baptize 20 children each Sunday morning,    their parents and godparents first having received their talks on baptism either in town or in the villages.  The moment is a very important one which animates me to give some solid teaching to those who are gathered around the baptismal font inside the church.  Although the parents and godparents have received some talks, often they are reluctant to respond to the simplest questions about the faith, which may not be due to not having understood the catechists as much as to the idea that ordinary people are not expected to speak out their beliefs.  It always seems that no one understands anything and so requires that we offer a bit more to help them trust in their ideas.

Yet as I say even though the blessings do not seem to have the importance that these other aspects of ministry have, I have begun to value them highly.  Why?  First of all let’s take a house blessing. Oftentimes it is a newly bought or constructed house. It is a moment of hope for the family. You walk into their midst in a personal way. You enter into the rooms where they will be living.  Although there may be no furniture, they have their altar set up and candles lit in the four corners of each room with incense burning which they carry behind the priest as he passes to each room.  But what impresses me most is that they trust the priest to be the intermediary to Christ.  The priest is seen as a direct link. They understand that God the Father and His Son Jesus are present in their midst through the Church,   Sacraments,   ministers, and the Word, and they want Him to touch their lives through the blessing of the priest.  They offer us a great example of faith in difficult times.  The day of blessing will be a family gathering, usually after the priest has finished, later in the day. Another aspect is that the children have never had a priest enter their house. They have only seen him from a distance on the altar, a heavenly figure, always speaking about God, but that he sips some coffee and eats a biscuit that they offer, is a new insight that Jesus is not so far away from us. 

t is such a joy to bless a medal or bible because the person is confessing his or her faith in God, as well as someone who wants their car or motorcycle blessed or whatever else is important to them. Someone in one of the parishes where I served in the U.S. some 10 years ago, reminded me in a loving way about a year ago that I refused to bless his motorcycle, because I did not want to encourage him to drive it in our modern cities.  Later he had a very bad accident on it, but survived.  Well I guess out in this part of the world motorcycles are not a luxury item or a hobby, and while they are always dangerous, there are so many other things much more dangerous here that I bless them as well.  Maybe I am mellowing a bit.

Many times during Advent people have come to ask that I baptize their baby, and I have often been caught by surprise and imagine that the baby is about to die,  and   then  I  have  begun  to question them about how old he or she is, only to find out it is a statue of the baby Jesus along with the statues of Mary and Joseph. They use the word “baptize” to refer to a blessing. It is amazing that in our day when so many people were influenced after Vatican Council II to reduce in importance the role of the saints, here in Rabinal we continue with the 19 confraternities and the images that each one guards of their saint and we have such a great devotion to the baby Jesus and the crèche scene at Christmas.

 I wonder if people in the wealthy nations of the world retain this simple faith to call upon God to bless them and their lives in such tactile ways.  As a priest, it is a privilege to be asked to pray with them in such an intimate way that touches their lives. Those contacts should be moments of wonderment that persons trust the priest to be the sacramental presence of Jesus.  Yes, it can be tiring and distracting from so many other important things, but blessings can bring us into union with God, and after all, that is the most important thing that our religion can do for us. 

 Speaking about the role of the priest also brings to mind that there are so few priests in our area.  Most are from other countries and only one in the whole diocese is from the Achi Mayan people in our area.  There is a great need for prayer that the Lord will call men to this vocation and help us to be good examples for them.  So please ask the Lord for that.  Peace.