On New Year’s Eve, members of St. Vincent, Tom Hyatt and Louise Gregg, along with the son and daughter of A.J. O’Brien, Kate and Daniel O’Brien, visited the church’s sister parish in San Juan de Limay, Nicaragua. Tom reports that “the church was packed to the walls with extra chairs brought out and people standing at the doorways and along the aisles. Everyone brought out their finest clothing, from little girls in party dresses to ladies with high heels and bright lipstick who had tip-toed along the rubble and stone streets of the village in the dark to make it to the 8 pm mass. Padre Bayardo, in his slow and meticulous Spanish, welcomed us and the rest of the group from Baltimore. We were given the front row pew feeling like celebrities as the crowd applauded our presence and reached out to take our hands. We all felt undeserving of the attention since we were just the messengers knowing that our parish members deserve the credit for creating and continuing the relationship.”
“The mass went on for a while with Padre Bayardo exhorting the parishioners to put aside old hatreds and anger and make love the centerpiece for the new year. Songs were sung without hymnals with the churchgoers just singing the words from memory. There was a version of Simon and Garfunkle’s “Sounds of Silence” now altered to have church-appropriate lyrics in Spanish. The little choir of young girls sang clear and bell-like at the side of the altar. After Communion, what looked like a large wire sculpture was brought to the altar by a group of men and women. In white cloth and twisted wire were spelled out the numbers “2011″. Someone lit one end of the wire and it all began to burn slowly eating up the numbers in flames little by little. Next to it was another sculpture made of tiny light bulbs covered in white cloth which, when the previous year was charred and spent, lit and flashed to the applause of everyone in the church.”
“At the time of sharing peace, we touched hands with old and young, strangers and those who knew about us. For me it was a touching experience having just taken the two and a half hour bus ride from Esteli along the tortured mountain roads arriving only a couple of hours before mass. Sitting there seeing faces of people I knew, families I had stayed with, people I would come to know better over the next week, it felt real and special.”
“In our meeting later with Padre Bayardo, he thanked Father Lawrence, Maureen Daly, Catherine Bunting and all of the people of St Vincent who have supported San Juan Bautista over the years. He sent a special blessing to everyone and prays that our relationship can strengthen, that more members of our parish will come to Limay to see first-hand the good work that the church is doing there and the benefit your gifts and prayers are having for the people of San Juan de Limay. He hopes to be able to visit St Vincent in the near future and to come to know us better. ”
In addition, there are a couple of very specific needs the church has. Over the next few months we will be working to see how we might better support some of these projects. Look for more details in the near future.
