St. Patrick's Day 2008

Like the rest of the "Irish" world we had to delay our celebration of St. Patrick's Day as it fell during Holy Week. But our kind sisters invited us to their house for lunch on the 17th. They cooked spuds in our honour. the following week after Easter, we celebrated a mass and invited the locals to part-take of a huge cake specially made for the occasion.

St. Patrick's Day Lunch in the Nuns House, and me wearing Mary O'Brien's plastic badge.

The cake ( and a human subject to gauge its size!)

Palm Sunday Processions 2008

One thing that the good people here love is a procession and any excuse will do to have one. So when Palm Sunday came along, we had a ready made excuse to have a procession. In the Town of Castanheira we started at 8 am in the poorest part of the town in the community of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe and we made our way to the main church of St. Anthony in the town centre. This took two hours and then we finished with Mass in the main church.
Along the way different catechism classes performed small dramas with a religious or moral theme. Most of them dealt with the protection of life; be it born or unborn, young or old. This was the Lenten Theme for the whole of Brazil this year. “Choose a life!”
Some of the other pictures at the end are taken in some of the far away communities, outside of the town.

The church of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe and its hall decorated with palms.

Some of the local women with their palm.

On little lady all dressed up in her Sunday-Best for Palm Sunday.

Our "Very Own Jesus" leads off the procession.

The procession takes place along the dirt roads of the neighbourhood. Thank God it did not rain until the afternoon long after the procession was over. The rains are staying with us a long time this year.

The local clergy with hats for protection from the sun.

One of the catechism classes performs a play along the route about protecting life, unborn and the elderly.

Another catechism classes with their volunteer teacher.

Making our way in to the main part of the town on a newly tarred piece of road.

Another catechism classes performs a dance drama in the town square.

After about two hours "Our Jesus " leads the crowd to the main church of St. Anthony where we continued our prayer by celebrating Mass.

The church decorated with Palm.

Palm Sunday was also celebrated in the far away communities. Here is the gathering outside of the church of São João Batista (St. John The Baptist). This is our furthest away community at 70km, but on the dirt roads and with the present rains and floods and muck it takes about two and half hours to get there.

These three youngsters were helping with the palm when I arrived.

The procession into the Church of São Lourenço (St. Laurence)



After Palm Sunday Mass in São Lourenço.

They have just recently tiled the inside of the church and plastered the walls and installed the lighting, but no electricity has arrived in this community yet. They are definitely people of hope and isn't that what Easter is all about!

Opening our 30th Community

This month I had the honour and duty to open a new community and church, I don’t think I would ever get that opportunity at home. Most parishes have one or two or three churches, we have 30 communities. 27 have churches, one community we say mass in a shed, another in the big house of a large fazenda / farm and another in a family home. This new community is in existence for about 6 years and very unusually, they built their church before they came looking for the priest to come and visit. The church was about 3 months old by the day we arrived to say the first Mass in it. The community is 60km away on very bad roads, in fact I thought the road had run out a number of times on our way to it. We had only the vaguest directions to it, but thankfully we came across a young lad on a push bike who gave us the directions. The jeep and my driving skills were certainly put to the test on the road to the new community called “Nossa Senhora Aparecida” Our Lady of the Apparition – Patron of Brazil.

Those attending the first mass in the new church of "Nossa Senhora Aparecida" in the Parish of Santo Antonio, Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Visit to São Joaquim

I will introduce you to another of our communities named after São Joaquim – St. Joachim, Father of Mary. This is a very small community of about six families. After mass we had the opportunity of visiting one of the houses for “almoço” lunch. As poor as people are they are happy to have us call and visit and stay for a meal. For me it is a great way to get to visit and know our far away families, but I think if I was here 10 years I would only get to visit about half of them, since our visit to each community is only once a month.

Hen and Cat in the kitchen

All the houses, even the poorest, have verandas which are great for shade and a breeze on a hot day. These two youngsters were visiting their grannys house where we called for lunch, were eager to have their picture taken. The veranda is a great place to hang the hammock for a little siesta in the middle of the hot day.

L-R: The woman of the house, no man here, which sadly is not uncommon, student Vitalis, a grandson, Sister Renata, a granddaughter, all at the table. Despite the open kitchen it was very clean, which is hard work here in the rain during the wet season and in the dust during the dry season.

The roof of the house uses wooden slates. The look like stone but they in fact made of wood, weathered by the rain and sun.

The wooden church of São Joaquim and a few parishioners. (I wasn't playing the guitar I was only holding it for the sister who took the picture)

Launch of The Catechism Programme 2008

The school-year here is from February to the “summer” holidays in December. So also is our Catechism Programme. The big difference from Ireland is that the Catechism is not taught in the schools as most of the schools here are state schools and so we depend very much on the goodness and charity of the unpaid “heroes” of the parish “The Catechists”. They come together at start of the year to learn and to familiarise them selves about the programme. They take on the responsibility of preparing children and adults to receive the sacraments of the church. We have 30 communities all with their own catechist(s) and they came together the other day for an encounter. Almost all of our communities were represented. Their time is their gift to their God.

"Encontro-dos-Catequistas 2008"
Some of the Catechist who attended the encounter. Photo taken in our "soon-to-be-demolished-before-it-falls" parish hall. Note: This is only about two thirds of them.

Belated! or Early! Happy St. Patrick's Day 2008?

Just like The Emerald Isle we were confused whether we could celebrate St. Patrick's Day on the 17th this year as it was falling during Holy Week. The official church said no, so we are celebrating it next week, a week late! Needless to say I flew the Tricolour and wore my shamrock (plastic!!!!) on the 17th. So:

- Beannachtí ná Féile Padraig

- Feliz dia São Patricio

- Happy St. Patrick's Day

to everybody and more photos will appear of the official celebration. I suppose I can't complain as we will have two days of celebrations.

Picture I took last year of the St. Patrick's Day Festa in Juruena (next parish north of here) and appearing on the front cover of the March 2008 edition of The Kiltegan Fathers' "Africa Magazine"

The sisters invited us to their house for lunch on the 17th and cooked "spuds" in honour of the day. {Vitalis our Nigerian Student is on the other side of the camera}.