Word: altars
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...resident of the town. The Catholic priest was white, a Maryknoll missionary who had lived in the village for almost 10 years. From a small speaker on the wall an organ version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" was playing. As the padre walked to the modest altar, his assistant passed out to the peasants sheets with prayers written in Quechua. This service was for those who spoke only that Indian tongue; in the previous hour the padre had said mass for the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the village. Almost none of the campesinos spoke Spanish...
Most of those seated in the church did not look at the sheets handed to them. Instead, they continued to stare at the altar, their faces in-different as they watched the priest, who flipped through the pages of his Bible in search of the day's reading. Finally, after the prayers had been distributed and the silence was broken only by a dog barking in the plaza outside, the padre began to read in Spanish, his monotone voice dry and perfunctory. After he had read a few lines, his assistant, who, stood to the left of the altar, read...
When the priest had closed his Bible and the assistant had walked up to the altar to extinguish the half-burnt candles, several women got up and went to the wooden tables in one of the aisles of the church and carefully lifted the small boxes and icons they had placed there on first entering. The icons were small dioramas and images, most of which depicted Jesus on a horse, a sword flashing in his hand. Invariably, Jesus was strikingly handsome, his long hair flowing around his proud face and fiery eyes...
...walk down to the house. The tiny room is lit only by a candle. The white, intricately carved coffin, carried on the roof of the bus from San Martin, lies beneath the small altar with its cross and holy pictures. Someone opens it, and some children are carried up to kiss the dead child. Then the mother comes and sobs, "My child, my most loved one, why has He taken you from me?" And the old great-grandmother, Guadalupe Cruz, also comes to weep over...
...always provided a myriad of ministries for women, which are both orthodox insofar as their theology is concerned and appropriate for the special skills and backgrounds that women alone can supply. We need nuns and we need the work of many women on such things as church school programs, altar guilds and as teachers in our growing school system as well...