Months of silence

Well, after months of silence I finally sit down to write again. I do apologize for the delay, but I guess life has gotten away from me. These last few months have been about as busy as any I can remember.

At the beginning of October I celebrated the patron saint of my parish in what is by far the largest and most important Mass of the year for my little parish with people coming from all over the country. We prepared with a nine day novena with Mass and confessions everyday. As part of the preparations we even went so far as to remove the temporary dividing wall so that we could have the whole church available again for the large numbers of people who come for this feast. Click here for some of the photos.

For the feast itself, there were 12 priests and the bishop as well as an above capacity crowd of around 300 or more. I know that probably doesn’t sound like much, but for this small village that is quite a bit.

Soon after the feast passed (and I started to regain a little bit of sleep) Fr. Juan went on vacation. Around here, when one is missing, everyone else picks up the slack. That has left me hopping from one town to the next, frequently having many different engagements per day.

To give you an idea, these were the last two days major events (which is to say not including all of the little things that fill a day). I had a 7:30 Mass on Saturday with the Claritians followed by a morning of administrative stuff. In the afternoon I had a Mass at 5:00 in one city, then drove 45 minutes to my parish for Mass at 7:00, and then on to a wedding in yet another city at 9:30. After driving home 45 minutes, I arrived at 11:30 and fell into bed dead (without dinner I might add!). This morning I was up again at 6:00 to head out to another parish for a special funeral mass for a 100-year-old woman who died. All other morning Masses were canceled due to the feast of the patroness of Uruguay (Our Lady of the 33) to be celebrated in the cathedral here. So after I finished the funeral, we rushed back to arrive just in time for the celebration with the entire bishop’s conference and around 70 priests and quite a few faithful. We then had lunch with all of the bishops. I had the honor sitting with our bishop and with the papal nuncio, a Polish bishop. As I am writing now, things are being prepared for the procession that is about to take place, but which I will not attend. My next stop is a birthday party for one of my parishioners followed by a Mass at 7:00 in my parish celebrating the anniversary of the “grandparents club”.

Before I sign off here, I have just one last little cultural note. That Mass that I had for the funeral this morning is the first one that I have had in Uruguay. Normally here they do not have Masses and then the burial, but rather hold an all night vigil and then a simple burial afterwards. Aside from reasons of lack of interest in religion, there is also a very practical reason for no Mass. By law, when someone dies in Uruguay, they must be buried within 24 hours. That means, that no matter when you die, what day it is, you will have the funeral that night or the following morning at the latest, by law. No exceptions. Therefore, I had to receive special permission from the bishop to be able to celebrate the Mass this morning despite a ban on all morning Masses (so that everyone would be able to attend the Mass in Florida). The same would hold true on Christmas or any other holiday. Just remember, third world country means no refrigeration for bodies and no embalming of any kind. Life is full of treats down here.