There is something about being an observer from a different cultural world that, it seems to me, highlights the contrasts and contradictions of a place. Of course, our lives back home are filled with different contradictions, but we tend not to notice; what we experience as daily life in the US would seem to others a study in contrasts. It is no different here.
About ten days ago, I was walking Avenue Hidalgo – the “main street” of Zacatecas, when I realized that it was clearly not an ordinary day, at least as far the Church is concerned. The street was blocked off in portions, and several hundred people were out in their Sunday best, holding flowers, singing, and marching together towards the main cathedral. I had no idea really what was going on, but after reading a few signs, I realized that it was Corpus Christi, a day dedicated to the celebration of the Body of Christ. I later learned that on this day people all around this city and around the world build altars outside their homes to commemorate and celebrate the glorious mystery of Holy Communion. The city is filled with the light of candles, the colors of banners unfurled, the smoky smells of burning incense and the sounds of liturgy. Of course, to see the Blessed Sacrament going by on the back of an old pickup truck is itself a bit dissonant.
The contrast that I wish to relay, however, has to do with the route of the religious procession. Every Thursday, city youth associated with a particular political party gather for raucous music, rallying behind their cause. The sounds of hard-core and punk (all, of course, in Spanish) were blasting out from a city plaza within sight of the Cathedral, at the very moment that the Catholic celebration was going by. Corpus Christi and the Partido del Trabajo (“Labor Party”). The Body of Christ and the Body of the Worker. Side by side, seemingly in conflict, dissonant sounds ringing in my head, nuns and goths sharing the same stretch of sidewalk, if only for a moment. Must these overlapping images compete for this space, or is there a way to harmonize these sounds?
In a nation where historically the Church has represented power, wealth and prestige, this is a difficult task to say the least. Left-wing politics and the mostly conservative tendencies of Catholicism in Mexico don’t mix often, or well. But I know that they have in the past, and that in small pockets they do to this day. Must our concern for the Body of the Laborer be different from our concern for the Body of Christ? Sweat pours down like drops of blood. Hands that bring forth food from this red earth and give to those in need. Backs that break from lifetimes spent sowing and reaping, from reaching out to those who have been ignored, oppressed, and humiliated. Eyes that wearily greet the dawn after another night spent with nowhere to lay their heads; feet that struggle under the weight of another mile yet to go.
Could it be that the best way to adore the Blessed Sacrament of the Body of Christ on this holy day is to somehow end up right here, on this patch of sidewalk somewhere both sacred and profane, listening to the intonations of ancient liturgy in one ear and the urgent pleas for social justice here and now in the other? Could it be that this intersection of Hidalgo and La Plazuela de la Caja is exactly where God wants us to be? This was not my choice, rather this moment came to me unexpected, unasked for, and God knows I am still learning how to receive it. I pray that we all might find the strength to stand in the tension of this space, and learn what it means to celebrate Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.
