The feast of St. Isidore the worker

St. Isidore the worker is the patron saint of farmers and field hands. As such, he has a very special place in my rural parish. Even though he is not the patron of the parish, he nevertheless has the very highest dignities awarded him here and as such merits one of the two big celebrations the parish has each year. For that reason, his feast was celebrated here on Sunday, so that everyone could participate.

The feast is marked by a whole series of events throughout the day that comprise one of the two major fund raising events of the year for the parochial school. To start things off, there was a procession with his statue and accompanied by a “desfile” or parade of some of the local gauchos on horseback. It was actually a rather nice moment filled with prayer and short meditations on his life. After that were a Mass that was absolutely packed and then a barbecue lunch in typical Uruguayan style.

The afternoon was spent with a series of horse riding competitions and games including a version of musical chairs that was particularly fun. One of the events that did not quite work out as planned involves trying to stay on top of an entire cowhide while it is pulled behind a horse at high speed. Unfortunately the hide they had was overly dry and so it broke prematurely. I was really looking forward to getting photos of that! In the end they substituted with a large grain sack, but that had to be painful as it is not nearly as padded as a leather hide.

The day ended with an awards ceremony and a dance that went on until about 2 in the morning. Needless to say, I was gone long before the dance ever started so that I could get back to our house and finally celebrate Mother’s Day with our sisters. Our celebration consisted simply in a nice Uruguayan barbecue, since the grill itself was our gift to them. If I get a chance, I will take a picture tomorrow, because a grill here is not at all what you would imagine – it is a lot nicer and more fun than a little gas Weber! Grilling is an amusingly important part of the culture in rustic country, and they do it very well.

I’ve put up some of my pictures that I took that day. You can find them here:

http://frfrancesco.shutterfly.com/