Lent in San Lucas was filled with public displays of faith and religion. This was especially true of Holy Week, the days leading to Easter. The atmosphere of the community was markedly different than that of any other time of year.

     It was not the public outwardness of faith-expression that was so different. Outwardness is common to the community. Houses are close together, streets are narrow, friends bathe together in the lake, women wash clothes together, and men walk to their fields together. Most people walk or bike wherever they go, always out in the open. Very little seems to be hidden; at the same time, there seems to be very little self-consciousness. As public as each person’s life is, they don’t watch each other. They are too busy living their own lives.

     No, it was not the outward expression of faith and religion that changed the mood of San Lucas during this time. Rather, it was the intensity of the community’s focus on repentance and on the suffering and death of Jesus. The processions, prayers, scripture readings, preachings, and gestures were pointedly penitential. They symbolized a cry of sorrow for the sins that required Jesus death. They also symbolized a deep gratitude for the forgiveness that Jesus’ death brought about.

     Each Friday during Lent, an anda (platform) with a statue of Jesus shouldering his cross was carried throughout town, bringing to life the final hours before Jesus’ death. These processions lasted three hours. Several people carried the anda on their shoulders as many others walked alongside and behind it. A man slowly beating a large drum walked in front, announcing the arrival of Jesus’ Passion. Along the route, people from various neighborhoods set up displays of candles, crosses, statues, and religious pictures. At these displays, the procession stopped to remember and, in faith, participate in the Stations of the Cross, the events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion.

     The focus was on the cross, on the wood on which, at the end of his agony, Jesus gave his life in the place of and to bring salvation to each of us sinners.

     On Palm Sunday, one week before Easter, the Church remembers Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. He rode a donkey while the people spread
a carpet of palm branches in front of him and praised him as King
and Messiah.

     At 9:00 a.m., an anda with a statue of Jesus on a donkey surrounded by palm branches guided the community’s attention and imagination into this triumphal entry. Members of the cofradia, the people who keep these religious traditions alive, carried the anda. They processed from the southern edge of San Lucas to the church, along the main street and through the market. Several people spread carpets of pine needles in front of the procession, symbolizing the palms over which Jesus rode.

     When they arrived at the church, the doors were closed. Father Greg knocked three times, and the doors were opened, just as Jesus and his companions would have had to knock at the gates of walled-in Jerusalem before being let in. The anda was brought up the center aisle and placed in the sanctuary.

     The Gospel reading at Mass was the Passion Narrative written by Saint Luke the Evangelist, beginning with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and ending with his burial. After Mass, everyone received a palm frond as a reminder of the role each person plays in the Passion of Jesus.

     Each day of Holy Week offered varying ways to encounter Jesus in his final moments. There was a Mass each evening. Wednesday’s included the blessing of bread; families brought to Mass bread that they had either bought or made. This bread was to share on Thursday with family and friends, to break with one another as Jesus broke bread with his apostles for the last time.

     A special procession took place on Tuesday to remember four encounters Jesus had before his death. A large anda with Jesus carrying his cross, assisted by Simon the Cyrene, left the church at 8:00 a.m., led by a hundred men and boys wearing purple gowns. The purple signified the suffering of Jesus as he was led to his death. They led the anda through the heart of the market on this, the busiest market day of the year.

     At 11:00, four smaller andas left the church with statues of Veronica, who wiped Jesus’ face as he carried his cross; Mary, mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene, a faithful disciple; and John the Apostle, who shared a deep friendship with Jesus. In the street in front of the park, in the midst of the market, these four met Jesus. One by one, each of the four statues was brought to Jesus. They bowed to each other three times; the saints acknowledged the suffering Christ and he acknowledged their faith and devotion.

     Veronica approached first. As she bowed, the handkerchief on her hands unfolded and revealed the image of Jesus. Tradition holds that a picture of Jesus’ face was left on the cloth after Veronica wiped away his blood and sweat.

     Mary came second, spending a few final moments with her son. She was told when Jesus was young, "A sword will pierce your heart." The pain of seeing her own son being led to be crucified must have felt like this sword.

     Mary Magdalene was next. She carried the jar of perfumed oil with which she anointed Jesus. Judas, the thief and betrayer, ridiculed this anointing for what appeared to be a waste of expensive perfume. Jesus defender her devotion, saying that this action of love, a symbol of preparing his body for the tomb, was more valuable than the material cost of the oil.

     John approached last. He was the one apostle who stood at the cross as Jesus died. From the cross, Jesus asked John to look to Mary as his own mother and asked Mary to be a mother to John. In this the Church sees Mary’s motherhood of all Christians.

     As the purple-clad procession slowly led the andas back to the church, the market filled the street behind it. Vendors reassembled their stands, and buyers resumed their bargaining.

     Within the mundane realities of life, in the marketplace of daily living, those who wish to live with truth encounter Jesus. They see his face in the blood and sweat of the suffering of the oppressed. They recognize the miracle of selfless love between parents and children. They acknowledge that honoring Jesus is superior to honoring materialism. They know that to be a beloved friend of Jesus is to receive the richest blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven.

     Holy Thursday is the day the Church celebrates Jesus’ Last Supper with his apostles. During this Passover meal, Jesus gave the Church his Body and Blood in the form of bread and wine, the beginnings of the Eucharist. He told the apostles to continue celebrating this gift of his Body and Blood in the future, the beginnings of the ministerial priesthood. He washed their feet, a slave’s task, radically transforming conceptions of God from an imposing dictator to a gentle, loving servant.

     Early Thursday afternoon, children gathered at the church for a small procession. They walked around the edge of the churchyard and into the Biblioteca, where they shared a simple reenactment of the Last Supper with sweet bread and honey. Eighteen children, several cofradia members, and Father Greg represented Jesus’ final meal.

     The community celebrated Mass in the evening, recalling through word and action all that Jesus did and commanded Christians to do at his Last Supper. Father Greg washed the feet of several people. Bread and wine became Jesus’ Body and Blood through the community’s faithful participation in Jesus’ meal with his apostles. The people received into their lives this food, this healing and nourishing self-gift of God’s Son. They touched with deep intimacy the gentle, suffering servant who gives them life and is their strength.

     Throughout Friday, the community walked with Jesus in the final moments before his death and burial. Having lived through their own personal, local, and national suffering, they did not go through the day simply remembering what happened to Jesus and what his death means. They participated with him in his pain, just as he daily participates with them in theirs.

     The morning liturgy was simple. It was a verbal and sacramental preparation for the physical activities that followed.

     Jesus, represented by a statue, was crucified at noon. He was nailed to a tall cross, which was then raised up at the front of the church’s sanctuary. Thousands of people came forward for the next three hours, touching the cross, kissing the wood, looking into the eyes of the one who gave himself, who gave every last morsel of his being, for them. Not only to them, but for them, in their place, with their pain, their blood, their tears, their burdens, their sins, their weaknesses, their flesh. On this cross and in his eyes, they saw themselves and knew the boundless love of God.

     After three hours, they took the body of Jesus from the cross and laid him on a table. Throughout the next hour, many came forward to touch his dead hands, to kiss his cold cheek, to thank him for dying for them. They then placed him in a glass casket and processed through town. The walk was painfully slow; with the casket, this anda was heavy, carried by over twenty people.

     To carry Jesus on this day is the public statement, I am a sinner. Many took turns making this statement.

     The procession lasted almost eight hours as the lifeless body of the Savior was brought throughout the town. Families, neighborhoods, and community groups laid beautiful carpets of sand, painted sawdust, flowers, pine needles, flour, coffee, and plants in the streets; the dead Jesus traveled a road of glory to his tomb.

     Jesus remained in this tomb throughout Saturday. In this tomb he wrestled the full force of sin, evil, and death. All life finds its fate in this tomb, for from this tomb came all reason for Joy.