why la Inmaculada and the Eucharist will always be connected for me

"‘Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

 ~Flannery O’Connor, on the Eucharist

"Our Creator gave us life, and the Eucharist to sustain our life... [W]e cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other.  We know him in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore.” 

 ~ Dorothy Day on living out the Eucharistic communion

Today marks a great, lovely feast.

Yes, it’s the beautiful feast honoring the Immaculate Conception of our Mother Mary.

And on a personal note, it’s also the anniversary of my First Communion at Colegio de la Inmaculada, an all-girls Catholic school in Santurce, Puerto Rico, named after today’s feast.

Unlike most girls’ white First Communion dresses, thanks to the Spanish nuns that ran our school, we dressed like mini-nuns, veil and all. Each of us wore light grey “habits,” with a white cord belt securing the cloak around the waist. 

At the time I didn’t know any better. But decades later, my girls certainly found my photos hilarious.

When asked about my experience with the Eucharist today, I find myself filled with awe and humility. Receiving the Body of Christ is what makes me and keeps me Catholic, and it’s the reason I get myself as often as I can to daily Mass.

The older I get, the more I "get" that the nuns at La Inmaculada were not simply celebrating the school's feast day with our First Communion. In a very genuine way, they were connecting the dots for us--knowing it would take us a life-time to embrace the Mystery... Mary, the Immaculate vessel that brought brought the Son of God into this world... and opening up myself to receive Him who is Mercy-made-flesh. 

The Eucharist connects me and commits me to the Body of Christ, local and universal. It heals me, restores me, and reminds me daily of Christ’s great love for me. And at times when my husband and I have found ourselves divided, broken, and suffering—it was the Eucharist we received that kept us together, one in Christ.

Over at the Catholic Education Resource Center, author Jim Forest tells a beautiful, touching story about Dorothy Day that describes perfectly how I feel about the Eucharist--and how grateful I am to the generous Hijas de la Caridad de San Vicente de Paúl who introduced me to it:

"Pleased as [Dorothy Day] was when home Masses were allowed and the Liturgy translated into English, she didn’t take kindly to smudging the border between the sacred and mundane. When a priest close to the community used a coffee cup for a chalice at a Mass celebrated in the soup kitchen on First Street, she afterward took the cup, kissed it, and buried it in the back yard. It was no longer suited for coffee — it had held the Blood of Christ. I learned more about the Eucharist that day than I had from any book or sermon. It was a learning experience for the priest as well — thereafter he used a chalice."

[an edited version of this blog post first appeared here on 12/7/12]

how my grandfather Alipio prepared for Christmas

[This one is a reprint of a story published a few years ago… and re-published online by Our Sunday Visitor this month. I hope you enjoy it:]

Every year of his adult life until his death at the age of 95, my Cuban grandfather Alipio Páez set up a Nativity scene or nacimiento that could easily compete with the elaborate window displays put on by Macy's.

Not satisfied with presenting just the figurines of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the cast of usual characters, Alipio would turn the living room of his small house into the whole town of Bethlehem.

This was not just the Bethlehem described in the Gospels, but a Caribbean-style Bethlehem — with abundant palm trees, rivers, houses on the hills, tall blooming trees, all set up on papier-mâché mountains painted in shades of green and brown. My meticulous grandfather even had plastic pigs and cows to keep the miniature sheep and their shepherds company.

No matter what new addition he came up with, Alipio's Bethlehem always centered on the glorious crèche, the physical place where the deepest and most complicated elements of Christian theology became flesh.

My earliest Christmas memories all center on that humble stable, where the mystery and wonder of the word "Incarnation" came to life for me. The virgin birth. The Son of God conceived in Mary's womb. A baby in Mary's arms, both true God and true man. Even as a child, I understood the unspoken truth that the colorful Christmas tree was meant to take a back seat to the stunning Bethlehem scene.

By bringing his own world of pigs and palm trees to Bethlehem Alipio was not saying that the biblical details of the Christmas story were unimportant to him. It was entirely the opposite. By bringing to life the surroundings of the story beyond the historical pesebre, the humble crèche, my grandfather emphasized the central truth — the actual point — of the story!

God so loved the world that He came to be one with each of us, right where we are.

Like Alipio's beautiful nacimiento, Christmas traditions for Hispanics are often a gentle incarnation of the sacred within the ordinary. Through traditions that inspire all the senses -- with songs and sights and delicious smells -- Hispanics bring to life and celebrate the familiar birth story of Jesusito, reminding us what's most important about the Christmas season.

[Click here to read the rest of the story, published originally as "Celebrating Christmas with Hispanic Eyes" in The Priest Magazine.]

Advent is almost over… take time to ponder what the Bethlehem event means for you today!

my Michelle, awed by her great-grandfather's "Bethlehem"!

the living expression of God's kindness... and that picture I promised

“If we see someone who needs help, do we stop? There is so much suffering and poverty, and a great need for good Samaritans.”

~Pope Francis on Twitter, December 9

"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting."

~Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

photo via http://blog.texasnuns.com/ 

We drove up early to Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Hillsboro, only to find out that the Sunday morning Mass had been canceled. Instead, we met a wonderful woman who opened up the church so that we could go in and say a prayer.

When she realized that there was now a small crowd of us in the pews praying, our Good Samaritan walked up to the altar and offered to read out loud the Sunday readings.

Sitting in this small crowd of strangers in a cold, dark church—with only the votive candles by the image of Our Lady of Mercy and the red sanctuary light, we were touched and fed by the Word of God reflectively proclaimed by our sister in faith. 

Her act of generosity and kindness was one of the most profound homilies I’ve heard proclaimed!

+   +   +   +   +

And as promised, here's that picture of my First Communion, from my all-girls school Colegio de la Inmaculada... I told you that we looked like little nuns!

Colegio de la Inmaculada, 1968

the Immaculate Conception + the Eucharist

"‘Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

 ~Flannery O’Connor, on the Eucharist

"Our Creator gave us life, and the Eucharist to sustain our life... [W]e cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other.  We know him in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone anymore.” 

 ~ Dorothy Day on living out the Eucharistic communion

Today marks a great, lovely feast.

Yes, it’s the beautiful feast honoring the Immaculate Conception of our Mother Mary.

And on a personal note, it’s also the anniversary of my First Communion at Colegio de la Inmaculada, an all-girls Catholic school in Santurce, Puerto Rico, named after today’s feast.

Unlike most girls’ white First Communion dresses, thanks to the Spanish nuns that ran our school, we dressed like mini-nuns, veil and all. Each of us wore light grey “habits,” with a white cord belt securing the cloak around the waist. 

At the time I didn’t know any better. But decades later, my girls certainly found my photos hilarious.

When asked about my experience with the Eucharist today, I find myself filled with awe and humility. Receiving the Body of Christ is what makes me and keeps me Catholic, and it’s the reason I get myself as often as I can to daily Mass.

The older I get, the more I "get" that the nuns at La Inmaculada were not simply celebrating the school's feast day with our First Communion. In a very genuine way, they were connecting the dots for us--knowing it would take us a life-time to embrace the Mystery... Mary, the Immaculate vessel that brought brought the Son of God into this world... and opening up myself to receive Him who is Mercy-made-flesh. 

The Eucharist connects me and commits me to the Body of Christ, local and universal. It heals me, restores me, and reminds me daily of Christ’s great love for me. And at times when my husband and I have found ourselves divided, broken, and suffering—it was the Eucharist we received that kept us together, one in Christ.

Over at the Catholic Education Resource Center, author Jim Forest tells a beautiful, touching story about Dorothy Day that describes perfectly how I feel about the Eucharist--and how grateful I am to the generous Hijas de la Caridad de San Vicente de Paúl who introduced me to it:

"Pleased as [Dorothy Day] was when home Masses were allowed and the Liturgy translated into English, she didn’t take kindly to smudging the border between the sacred and mundane. When a priest close to the community used a coffee cup for a chalice at a Mass celebrated in the soup kitchen on First Street, she afterward took the cup, kissed it, and buried it in the back yard. It was no longer suited for coffee — it had held the Blood of Christ. I learned more about the Eucharist that day than I had from any book or sermon. It was a learning experience for the priest as well — thereafter he used a chalice."

[an edited version of this blog post first appeared here on 12/7/12]

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

I’ve been recalling off and on throughout the day my favorite memory of the feast of Christ the King—¡Cristo Rey!

I was a fifth grade student at Academia San Jorge in Santurce, Puerto Rico. And the students from our school were in charge of the banners prepared in honor of that Sunday’s Solemn Mass celebration. 

What I will never forget is the sight of students from every grade, from Kindergarten to High School, processing into San Jorge church for Mass—each holding a banner with a flag from a different country. It had all the elegance and pageantry of a royal ceremony, Caribbean style, of course.

Following the flags, held high above the rest, was a banner with the image of Cristo Rey, which was hung high at the front of the church, right behind the communion rail.

Nothing could have provided me with a better visual of what it means to declare Jesus Christ as the King of the Universe!

Iglesia San Jorge, Santurce, Puerto Rico

“While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights… 

Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. It will call to their minds the thought of the last judgment, wherein Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education… 

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.”

 ~Pope Pius XI 

in QUAS PRIMAS 

(On the Feast of Christ the King) Encyclical, 

dated 11 December 1925

Video featuring a song and photos in honor of the Cristeros, Mexican martyrs of Mexico (1926-1929) known for their "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" cry as they faced execution:

hungry for poetry

“On our earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know poetry is like bread; it should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity” 

~Pablo Neruda

“In one crucial way, food differs from writing: food is temporary. It is exactly this fact, as many a writer will tell you, wherein the sublime pleasure of cooking really lies. After a long day of trying to be immortal, or at least get to the end of the blank page or screen—rather symbolically hitting SAVE—there is something satisfying in getting your hands dirty, in making something that has, necessarily, an obvious end point. With food, the better it is, the less it sticks around. (Except the way good food ‘sticks to your ribs’ in the parlance of where I come from.) Temporariness is one of food’s best qualities, making it something other than the chore that good writing can be. This is the opposite of good reading, in which the better it is the faster it flies. It is these fleeting yet everlasting pleasures that this anthology explores.”

~Kevin Young, Ed of 

“The Hungry Ear, poems of food & drink”

To bring my trio of consecutive food posts back to the beginning, I have chosen a poem that takes me back to my Caribbean roots, and cleverly recalls one of my favorite beach treats... coco frío! 

From “The Hungry Ear,” a great anthology interweaving poetry, food and drink.

Coca-Cola and Coco Frío

 by Martín Espada

On his first visit to Puerto Rico,

island of family folklore,

the fat boy wandered

from table to table

with his mouth open.

At every table, some great-aunt

would steer him with cool spotted hands

to a glass of Coca-Cola.

One even sang to him, in all the English

she could remember, a Coca-Cola jingle

from the forties. He drank obediently, though

he was bored with this potion, familiar

from soda fountains in Brooklyn.

Then at a roadside stand off the beach, the fat boy

opened his mouth to coco frío, a coconut

chilled, then scalped by a machete

so that a straw could inhale the clear milk.

The boy tilted the green shell overhead

and drooled coconut milk down his chin;

suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola

or Brooklyn, and neither was he.

For years afterward, the boy marveled at an island

where the people drank Coca-Cola

and sang jingles from World War II

in a language they did not speak,

while so many coconuts in the trees

sagged heavy with milk, swollen

and unsuckled.