Window to Truth

By Jeff Barnet

In the mountain town of San Zacualpan, announcements --the daily news-- blare from loudspeakers posted near the Santiago Catholic Church several times a day.

Father Robert Coleman, a priest in Father Pablo’s Consagrados order, says he is getting used to the sound, just as he once got used to the rumble of El trains outside his rectory window in Chicago.

What he is still trying to learn is the Amuzgo language in which the news is broadcast.

“This is a missionary parish,” he said. “It’s as missionary as it gets.”

Amuzgo is the language of the indigenous people living in the mountains more than 200 miles southeast of Acapulco. Approximately 15,000 Amuzgo Indians live in the 11 villages that form a new parish created by the Archbishop of Acapulco on January 24, 2007. The Archbishop requested that the Consagrados serve in the mission parish, which has been named Parroquia del Santisimo Salvador (Holy Savior Parish).

Father Coleman and three Brothers—all second-year novices-- serve the 11 villages, each of which has their own chapel. The people, farmworkers mostly, live on earnings of about $8 a day, according to Father Coleman. “The people are very poor,” Father Coleman said. “They live in houses made of mud and mortar, with dirt floors.”

It is not uncommon for people to put eggs or even live chickens in the collection basket for Sunday Mass in San Zacualpan, where attendance is now more than 200 every week. Father Coleman’s Spanish homilies are translated into Amuzgo for the faithful.

“As I say Mass, I often have chickens clucking away at the foot of the altar,” Father Coleman said with a laugh. “The people are very appreciative.”

The majority of teenagers in the parish haven’t received the Sacrament of Confirmation yet, said Father Coleman. The Consagrados have begun preparing teenagers and adults for their Confirmation and first Communion.

The area in which the Amuzgo Indians (descendants of the Maya) live has been plagued by drugtrafficking in recent years. The people of the parish are very traditional, family-oriented, said Father Coleman, and the presence of drug traffickers has been “very sad, people can’t get out of it, people get killed,” he added.

Some of the villagers have told Father Coleman that they have not seen a priest in the mountains for more than three years.

“I see it as a long-term mission,” Father Coleman said. “The small pueblos have to be evangelized.”

The mission parish also provides a place for novices to minister to the poor while living in community life. Father Coleman and the Brothers maintain a regular schedule of contemplative prayer, meditation, and praying the Rosary and the Divine Office.

“This way we live a charism of community life,” he said. “It has been a good experience for the Brothers. They work hard, they learn a lot.”

Father Coleman, ordained in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1978, made his temporary vows with Los Consagrados in 2001 and his permanent vows in 2004.

El día de Cristo Rey, domingo 26 de Noviembre, hubo Santa Misa a las 11:00 am y llegaron muchas personas. Y a las 3:00 de la tarde salimos a invitar con el megáfono para la procesión de la Coronilla de la Divina Misericordia, que se empezó en diferentes puntos del pueblo rumbo a la Colonia de Linda Vista Sur y, reunidos todos los puntos, se inició la Procesión del Santísimo Sacramento hacia la Iglesia San Maximiliano Kolbe. Durante el recorrido, muchas familias habían preparado, frente a sus casas, altares para Jesús Sacramentado.  Sobre cada altar por su turno el Padre Douglas (el buen sacerdote encargado de la Capilla San Maximiliano) colocaba a Jeús Sacramentado en la custodia para que la gente, arrodillada sobre las piedras de la calle, hiciese adoración a Jesús Sacramentado.  En cada lugar el Padre Douglas dio la Bendición con el Santísimo. Y luego, llegando a la Iglesia, el Padre Pablo celebró el Sacrificio Eucarístico.  Asistieron 225 personas, y hubo muchas confesiones.  Muchas, muchas almas se reconciliaron con Dios.