Semana Santa – The Holy Week
Semana Santa (Holy Week) has arrived in Honduras. It is a time when the whole world is on vacation—everyone leaves to see family, to go to the beaches, to drink, to party.
Hondurans love life and they love enjoying life. They have a unique sense of the present, different from the American future-oriented point of view. For this, they always seem to come up with something to party with, no matter how poor they are. But there is also usually, I am told, an increase in violence and danger. The week highlights the Honduran mix of life and death—the enjoyment of life in the light of their fatalism, violence, and crushing violence. Life and death are thrown to the wind and drowned in parties this week.
And the emphasis here, in this Catholic country, seems to be on the death journey of Christ. Friday is the climax. It is Christ on the cross, the image of the Catholics.
It is a week filled with images—images of Christ on the cross, images of Christ in those 12 steps to the cross, images of saints…. And the Protestants have their own images as well. The Protestants here often do not have any crosses on or in their church to differentiate themselves from the Catholics, the Catholics of the occupied cross.
In this new culture, I have been challenged to view my images of Christ—cast in my own culture. Who is Christ for me? How do I see him?
Subtly, the christ of magic creeps in—"Believe in me and I will make your life go smoothly."
The grand martyr christ creeps in—like Napoleon Bonaparte, Che Guevara, George Washington, he had a grand cause and calls us to join in a noble purpose, for which we can find fulfillment in serving a grand cause…
The spiritual christ, who reigns from above but has nothing to do with the business and economics and struggles of the modern life. Life was easier and different back in the Jerusalem of old, and, after all, Jesus was God too. Does he really understand my life?
The new-and-revised-now-for-$19.99-as-seen-on-TV christ creeps in, the god who evangelicals offer as the quick and pat answer, the key to a better life. We'll smooth down the gospel, water down sin, just come and have fun in our services, enjoy the music, enjoy the show, but come to our church.
There are many other images of Christ that creep in. In my life.
There is the Black Christ in Honduras, a statue of Christ on the cross, painted black for some reason. Many people truly believe that this Black Christ offers miracles. A friend of mine recounts when her grandmother brought her to the Black Christ for a sprained arm, and forced the frightened child to touch the statue. The arm healed, and the grandmother was deeply convinced it was a miracle by the Black Christ.
I want to offer a few different images of Christ, all offered in Taylor and Nunez's Crisis in Latin America. I do not—nor do I believe the authors do—mean these as representative of all Catholics.
"A Christ known in life as an infant and in death as a corpse, over whose helpless childhood and tragic fate the Virgin Mother presides; a Christ who became man in the interests of eschatology, whose permanent reality resides in a magic wafer bestowing immortality; a Virgin Mother who by not tasting death, became the Queen of Life—that is the Christ and that the Virgin who came to America! He came as Lord of Death and of the life that is to be; she came as Sovereign Lady of the life that is now" (John McKay, The Other Spanish Christ, quoted by Taylor and Nunez, p. 133)
The images and pictures of Christ, brought by the Spanish conquistadors, "awakened deep sympathies in the people: after all, Christ is little more than a helpless infant in the protective arms of His mother—as sweet and inoffensive as any tiny child. How could He possibly be a tyrant or despot? Although He may not be able to free the people from their ominous chains, He is equally incapable of having forged the chains with His weak little hands. He is the child that cannot talk; only Mary, who holds and protects Him, can at times understand His infant babblings. This tiny infant God is most incapable of scolding the white masters for their abuse of power…He poses no threat to anyone…There is nothing he can do to stop either one from sinning: He is merely the image of a child that forever smiles, indifferent to the enormous tragedy going on around Him" (p. 217).
The image of the suffering Christ is prevalent here—the religion of the conquistadors "was the religion of the crucifix, of the Christ that dies, powerless, nailed to an ignominious cross. While it is true that official dogma affirms the resurrection of Christ, that teaching seems not to reach the masses: the high point of the church year is not Easter Sunday, but Good Friday, when Christ is seen as the prisoner, flogged, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, and laid in a casket where He reposes year after year, for centuries" (p. 218).
Hondurans love life and they love enjoying life. They have a unique sense of the present, different from the American future-oriented point of view. For this, they always seem to come up with something to party with, no matter how poor they are. But there is also usually, I am told, an increase in violence and danger. The week highlights the Honduran mix of life and death—the enjoyment of life in the light of their fatalism, violence, and crushing violence. Life and death are thrown to the wind and drowned in parties this week.
And the emphasis here, in this Catholic country, seems to be on the death journey of Christ. Friday is the climax. It is Christ on the cross, the image of the Catholics.
It is a week filled with images—images of Christ on the cross, images of Christ in those 12 steps to the cross, images of saints…. And the Protestants have their own images as well. The Protestants here often do not have any crosses on or in their church to differentiate themselves from the Catholics, the Catholics of the occupied cross.
In this new culture, I have been challenged to view my images of Christ—cast in my own culture. Who is Christ for me? How do I see him?
Subtly, the christ of magic creeps in—"Believe in me and I will make your life go smoothly."
The grand martyr christ creeps in—like Napoleon Bonaparte, Che Guevara, George Washington, he had a grand cause and calls us to join in a noble purpose, for which we can find fulfillment in serving a grand cause…
The spiritual christ, who reigns from above but has nothing to do with the business and economics and struggles of the modern life. Life was easier and different back in the Jerusalem of old, and, after all, Jesus was God too. Does he really understand my life?
The new-and-revised-now-for-$19.99-as-seen-on-TV christ creeps in, the god who evangelicals offer as the quick and pat answer, the key to a better life. We'll smooth down the gospel, water down sin, just come and have fun in our services, enjoy the music, enjoy the show, but come to our church.
There are many other images of Christ that creep in. In my life.
There is the Black Christ in Honduras, a statue of Christ on the cross, painted black for some reason. Many people truly believe that this Black Christ offers miracles. A friend of mine recounts when her grandmother brought her to the Black Christ for a sprained arm, and forced the frightened child to touch the statue. The arm healed, and the grandmother was deeply convinced it was a miracle by the Black Christ.
I want to offer a few different images of Christ, all offered in Taylor and Nunez's Crisis in Latin America. I do not—nor do I believe the authors do—mean these as representative of all Catholics.
"A Christ known in life as an infant and in death as a corpse, over whose helpless childhood and tragic fate the Virgin Mother presides; a Christ who became man in the interests of eschatology, whose permanent reality resides in a magic wafer bestowing immortality; a Virgin Mother who by not tasting death, became the Queen of Life—that is the Christ and that the Virgin who came to America! He came as Lord of Death and of the life that is to be; she came as Sovereign Lady of the life that is now" (John McKay, The Other Spanish Christ, quoted by Taylor and Nunez, p. 133)
The images and pictures of Christ, brought by the Spanish conquistadors, "awakened deep sympathies in the people: after all, Christ is little more than a helpless infant in the protective arms of His mother—as sweet and inoffensive as any tiny child. How could He possibly be a tyrant or despot? Although He may not be able to free the people from their ominous chains, He is equally incapable of having forged the chains with His weak little hands. He is the child that cannot talk; only Mary, who holds and protects Him, can at times understand His infant babblings. This tiny infant God is most incapable of scolding the white masters for their abuse of power…He poses no threat to anyone…There is nothing he can do to stop either one from sinning: He is merely the image of a child that forever smiles, indifferent to the enormous tragedy going on around Him" (p. 217).
The image of the suffering Christ is prevalent here—the religion of the conquistadors "was the religion of the crucifix, of the Christ that dies, powerless, nailed to an ignominious cross. While it is true that official dogma affirms the resurrection of Christ, that teaching seems not to reach the masses: the high point of the church year is not Easter Sunday, but Good Friday, when Christ is seen as the prisoner, flogged, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, and laid in a casket where He reposes year after year, for centuries" (p. 218).
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” (Ef. 1:17-22).
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