Walking across the plaza, I am confronted by the crowds. Some are clustered in front of an outdoor stage, while many are hawking water bottles, parasols, and palm crosses covered in roses. Holy Week in Ecuador is always a big event, and Palm Sunday is no exception. This Sunday is meant to commemorate the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem, as he is about to provide redemption for humanity. This event reminds me of the juxtaposition of human suffering contrasted with the anticipation of transcendence.
No matter how many devotees’ spiritual needs get met at the Mass today, they are still flesh and blood who will need food, shelter, and rest as the vendors moving through the crowd keenly remind everyone. As much as we can hope to transcend our physical realities, we just cannot escape the need to be nourished, both our bodies and our souls.
In the plaza alone, there are many realities that we might want to forget. Some of the palms being sold around me are endangered, but profits from Holy Week make some turn a blind eye. Each step on the hard cobblestone reminds me of the past literally buried underneath. What was once a native sacred site is now a Catholic church, and the brilliant gold covering the walls likely reminded the natives of the sun they once worshipped, meant to make the type of salvation they were forced to receive feel slightly less foreign. Everywhere around me, pain is being covered up through a beautiful façade, but one that always cracks and crumbles in the face of truth.
Walking into church, we are all bringing with us realities we’d like to forget. Injustices have continued from age to age, and we are constantly confronted with the notion that something “just isn’t right” for ourselves, our communities, and our world. So what do we do?
The Lenten season reminds us that there can be purpose through the pain, something redemptive about suffering. We can each decide to give something up during this time in order to draw closer to the divine. This process probably isn’t easy and may not always feel fulfilling. Why add more self-imposed suffering to an already broken world? I wonder as the Mass proceeds, grasping hands with my neighbors to say the Our Father. In this moment, I am reminded that we never have to encounter suffering alone, and in the community of God there is always hope. At the end of the service, the crowd surges forward to receive holy water: even from this broken world, they believe that God will transform them.
That afternoon we walked through the streets of Quito, stopping into different churches. At each chapel, no matter how small, we saw the faithful deep in prayer and worship, bringing their sufferings to God in hopes that He would make something beautiful of it. As the Lenten season begins this week, I hope we can all honor the suffering humanity experiences with hope that God will give our struggles purpose beyond what we can see.
- Finding Faith from Home - April 1, 2020
- Dr. Helen Phelan on the Miraculous Lives of Irish Medieval Saints - February 26, 2020
- Reflections from Last Year’s Lenten Season - February 26, 2020