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[Back to index of Nov-Dec 2009 articles] Latino Ministry Celebration Draws 100s to Cathedral By Paul Donnelly
"Welcome to your Cathedral," boomed Bishop John Bryson Chane to a congregation of 300-plus Latinos from all over the diocese gathered at Washington National Cathedral on Oct. 3 for a celebration of Latino Ministries. "It has long been a dream of ours to bring our roaming congregations together to pray together in this great cathedral – and it is your cathedral," he said to the gathered groups of worshipers, more than half of them children, from six area churches with Latino ministries. The Rev. Lisa Saunders of St. Johns', Lafayette Square certainly appreciated Bishop's Chane's use of the word "roaming." Like several other ministers to the Latino congregations, she spent the last few minutes before the crowd swelled for the celebration fretting that her flock would have trouble finding the cathedral: "They're coming in from Hyattsville," she confided. "I'm not sure they've ever been here before." One St. John's parishioner who had never been in the cathedral before was Samantha, aged 2, who mimicked her Peruvian father, an electrical engineer named Fernando Hermoza, when he dipped his hand in the big copper font to cross himself, which he helped her to do as well. Not only did St. John's peripatetic parishioners manage to find the cathedral on the heights, so did a mostly Dominican group from Ascension, Gaithersburg, who were particularly thrilled that the Most Rev. Julio Holguin, the Episcopal Bishop of the Dominican Republic, was to concelebrate with Bishop Chane. Jeremy, 8, was wide-eyed at the late afternoon sunlight that made the rose window an astonishing burst of color – and his father explained that none of the family had ever been inside the building before. "Only outside," he said. Before the service, little Samantha found a job. She diligently gathered kneelers from the back rows, and set them out for her family to use in the pews to the right of the altar. Later, one of the worshipers chose not to use the kneelers, preferring to use the cathedral's hard floor. Bringing in her parish's banner, Mildred Reyes came from St. Matthew's, Hyattsville. She lives in Silver Spring with her husband and two young sons, but her congregation had started in Bladensburg before finding a home on Nicholson Street: "I am from Honduras, but I'd say we are about 60 percent Mexican, and maybe 20 percent Hondurans and Salvadorans." After a welcome by Canons Carol Wade and Simon Bautista, the procession that opened the celebration (to marvelous music provided by the Diocesan Latino Choir), included banners from St. John's, Lafayette Square; St. Stephen and the Incarnation; St. Michael and all Angels; Saint Matthew's, Hyattsville; Our Savior, Hillandale; and Ascension, Gaithersburg. In his homily, Bishop Holguin movingly described the historical moment. More than three million Latinos live in the D.C. area, presenting a challenge to Christian mission without regard for race, class or nationality: "Discrimination is not Christian," because the Gospel requires respect for all in the "family of God," he said in Spanish. The celebration was bilingual, with readings alternating between English and Spanish. The Peace was a hearty affair, with dozens of clergy working the crowd, handshakes and hugs and "la Paz!" heard much more than "May peace be with you." During the Prayers of the People, the relatively few non-Spanish speakers tended to say "atiende nuestra suplica" quietly, while the larger number of Spanish speakers let "Lord, hear our prayer" ring out. Immediately before the Sanctus, conducted in Spanish, a teenager had to discreetly ask for the place in the program, which someone pointed out to him in time for him to repeat "Cristo ha muerto, Cristo ha resucitado, Cristo volvera." A moment later, he reached out to hold his helper's hand during the Lord's Prayer. The gifts were simple and powerful: bread and wine, a gaggle of little children (Samantha took Bishop Chane's blessing as permission to go find her mother in the pulpit behind him), bread and fruit, flowers, money, the Bible – in Spanish. It was Jeremy's father who carried the tools of labor to the altar for the presentation of gifts: a Sawzall that had taken considerable effort to clean, power drill with battery, never-used paint rollers, brushes, a metal shears, C-clamps, blue trim tape, a tape measure. The children from Ascension carried schoolbooks for their gifts – science and social studies texts in English; a French primer; The Israelis; an American history text with a yellow "Used" sticker on the binding. The last of the gifts to be presented was the banner of St. Alban's, D.C., the newest Latino ministry in the diocese, officially to open the next day, with a blessing in Spanish that meant: "Holy Father, we present to you with the joy of a proud mother and of a growing family, this new baby which has been born in the Church of St. Alban's." The brief applause needed no translation. [Back to index of Nov-Dec 2009 articles]
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