the view from my window

This photo I took this morning at around 10 a.m. and you can see the mountains in the distance but not very clear.All this week I could not see the mountains due to heavy smoke or smog in the area.This is due to the burning of the fields in Santa Cruz, a city which is around 6 hours from here to the West by car and only 30 minutes away by plane.It is spring time here and the temperatures are in the 80's as I write this to you. The farmers burn the fields for planting. So the smoke rises and the city of Santa Cruz is at sea level and here in Cochabamba we are at 8,000 feet above sea level.So it becmes very difficult for people who have asthma or other breating problems.
Such is life here this week in Cochabamba.

The Assumption of Mary

Magnificat - The canticle of Mary

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,my spirit rrejoices in God my Saviorfor he has looked with favour on his lowly servant....

From this day all generations will called me blessed:the Almighty has done great things for me,and holy is his Name ....

He has morcy on those who fear himin every generation....He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.....

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,and has lifted up the lowly.....

He has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich has has senty away empty....

He has come to the help of his servant Israelfor he has remembered his promise of mercy,the promise he made to our fathers,to Abraham and his children forever....

(The photo is of the image or Our Lady of Urkupina that I bought the other day in a religious store near the church of San juan de Dios - St. John of God here in Cochabamba. - today. August 15th, is the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven as well. )

Virgin of Urkupina August 15th, 2010

Virgin of Urkupina means Virgin of the Mountain - It was in the mountians of Bolivia in the 1800's that Our Lady appeared to a young girl as she was watching the sheep.The woman told the girl to pick up stones at her feet and take them home to her family. When the girl arrived at her home the stones had turned to silver, therefore releaving her family of poverty.The people of Quillacolla heard the news they began to have faith in the miraculous virgin of Urkupina.

The festival is held in Quillacolla which is 10 miles or 16 km from Cochabamba. The dates are August 14th to 16th.People from all over the country of Bolivia as well as from other countries such as the United States, Spain, and other latin America countries come here for this festival.

Prayer -

Oh Mary, assumed into Heaven, in you we find every virtue shining resplendently. In you. is the fullness of grace because you are united to God.Oh Virgin of Urkupina, work amidst the thorns that grow in the arid deserts of our hearts, that roses of goodness and virtue might sprout forth! Weed out the vanities of this world and replant in us the flower of Life - that our souls might become as nature in springtime to the delight of Christ our Redeemer!

Virgin of Urkupina

The Quechua people of Peru and Bolivia have integrated their original belief in "Pacha Mama" (Mother earth) with the belief in the Virgin Mary.The Quechua people always knew that "Pacha Mama" gave them the basic necessities required to live: water, food, animal wool for clothes, mud and rocks for houses.
In the seventeenth century, Spanish priests seeking converts told the Andean Indians that "Pacha Mama" was gone, they should pray to the Virgin Mary. The Quechuas knew "Pacha Mama" would not abandoned them. To them, the Spanish image of the Virgin wearing her triangle-shaped robes looked like a mountain.
They decided "Pacha Mama" and the Virgin must be the same.Bolivian Quechuas agree that "Pacha Mama" provides the basic necessities . They also believe that the Virgin provides material goods.
The Festival of Urkupina was first established in 1870. Today around ten percent of the population f Bolivia (500,000 people)attend the Festival of Urkupina to ask the Virgin to make their dreams come true.They carry miniatures (alasitas) that represent what they wish for;tiny trucks, television sets, todor houses, telephones, college degrees, cars, clothes, sewing machines, visas and businesses..and more. For two days they dance to petition and thank the Virgin, then attend a Catholiv Mass.Finally. they visit the shaman women on the nearby mountain who conduct traditional ceremonies and ask Virgin/Mamacita to answer the pilgrims' prayers.

The ceremonies are held in a small town called Quillacollo which is around 10 miles from Cochabamba.The days of celebration are from August 14th to 16th and Masses are celebrated at the main church of Quillacollo: San Idelfonso church.

This festival comes from the middle of the seventeenth century when the Virgin appeared to a little shepherd girl and she was witnessed by her parents and neighbors.Urkupina it is a mixture and interaction of pagan with religious things, that it last three days overflowing days of happiness, faith and its thrills, accompanied by the Bolivian Traditions.

August 6th, independence day in Bolivia

This is a photo of the Virgin of Urkupina with the Bolivian Flag and flowers on the table in our dining room here at the Maryknoll Society house here in Cochabamba for the celebration of the 185th anniversary of Independence of Bolivia which was August 6th 1825.

life in Cochabamba

This Saturday morning I took a picture of this young native woman with her baby who is selling different items on her wheel cart.

July 31 2010

Leaning on God
by Joyce Rupp
A reflection for you this coming week. frankie

Which of you walks in darkness and sees no light? ... lean on GodIsaiah 50:4-10
Some people lean against fence postswhen their bodies ache from toil.Some people lean on oak trees,seeking cool shade on hot, humid days.
Some people lean on crutchesBrozova/dreamstime.comwhen their limbs won’t work for them;and some people lean on each otherwhen their hearts can’t stand alone.

How long it takes to lean upon you,God of shelter and strength;how long it takes to recognize the truthof where my inner power has its source.
All my independence, with its arrogance,stands up and stretches within me,trying to convince my trembling soulthat I can conquer troubles on my own.
But the day of truth always comeswhen I finally yield to you,knowing you are a steady stronghold,a refuge when times are tough.

Thank you for offering me strength,for being the oak tree of comfort;thank you for being the sturdy supportwhen the limbs of my life are weak.
Praise to you, Eternal Lean-to,for always being there for me.Continue to transform mewith the power of your love.

seeing God in the other

These days I am reading a book called “Thomas Merton’s Gethsemani Landscapes of Paradise” These words by Thomas Merton struck me, His love of nature is like St. Francis of Assisi … He is a true Franciscan… In the sacramental vision of reality, each bird, each frog---and Merton himself--- was continually created; moment to moment each creature was loved into being by a God who is intimately present to each speciesAnd each individual in that species. Merton understood that each creature reveals the immanence of God. Each creature is God coming to us. Each day is an experience of Advent. Making straight the way of the lord, building a highway in the desert is not for the purpose of going to God.We can’t “get to God” for God is too great, too transcendent, God must come to us. God has and God does. God is continually revealing God’s self in the world around us. God’s fullness is present in the person of Jesus, and in God’s overflowing love expressed in each creature. God is not Deus absconditus but Deus imtimus, a God who Saint Augustine said , is more intimate to me than I am to myself, a God longing to be discovered as the very Ground of my being.This is what I want to share with you today for a reflection my dear brother Thomas. And I would like to know what are your own true feelings on this that is written by the famous Contemplative Trappist monk Thomas Merton.It is in this honest sharing with each other that we truly grow as brothers in service to others in the classroom or in our community as well as with our intimate friends. Would you agree with me on this?
your brother in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Frank

Saturday morning

here I am at 8 in the morning on this Saturday July 17th. It had rained and it was a little chilly.

Martha

A Woman’s Place
Barbara E. Reid JULY 5, 2010
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), July 18, 2010“Martha welcomed him into her home” (Lk 10:38)

M artha always gets a bad rap. In traditional interpretations of her story, she is said to be too preoccupied or anxious about the details of hospitality to attend well to her guest. Her sister, by contrast, sits in rapt attention at Jesus’ feet, drinking in his every word. When Jesus declares that it is Mary who has “chosen the better part,” the message we are supposed to take away, according to many commentators, is that contemplation, rather than active service is the harder but better choice, and that no one can minister without first sitting and learning at Jesus’ feet. While finding the right balance between contemplation and action is a perennial challenge for most Christians, that may not actually be the question that today’s Gospel addresses. There are many tensions in the story left unanswered by the traditional interpretation.
Recently New Testament scholars have proposed that this Gospel incident may be more a reflection of the situation of the Lucan communities and the questions they were trying to resolve, rather than a report of an episode in the life of Jesus. They have noticed that what concerns Martha is much diakonia, and her distress is over her sister leaving her to carry it out alone. Both the noun diakonia and the verb diakonein occur in verse 40.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, these terms refer primarily to ministerial service, as in Jesus’ declaration of his mission “to serve,” not to “be served” (Mk 10:45; Lk 22:27). In New Testament times, diakonia covered a wide range of ministries. In the case of Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and the other Galilean women who “provided for” Jesus and the itinerant preachers “out of their resources,” diakonein refers to financial ministry (the Greek word hyparchonton connotes monetary resources, Lk 8:3). This is the same nuance diakonia has in Acts 11:29 and 12:25 regarding Paul’s collection for Jerusalem. In Acts 6:2 diakonein refers to table ministry, while in Acts 6:4 diakonia connotes ministry of the word. In Acts 1:25 diakonia is apostolic ministry. One individual in the New Testament is named a diakonos, Phoebe, “deacon of the church at Cenchreae” (Rom 16:1).
Scholars are now thinking that the incident in today’s Gospel is not about preparing a meal; instead, Martha voices how burdened her heart is over the conflicts surrounding women’s exercise of their ministries in the early church. Some people were greatly in favor of women evangelizers and teachers like Prisca (Acts 18:26), Euodia and Syntyche (Phil 4:3), women prophets like Philip’s four daughters (Acts 21:9), and women heads of house churches, like Nympha (Col 4:15), Mary (Acts 12:12), Lydia (Acts 16:40), and Prisca (Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19). Others, however, argued that a woman’s place was in the home and that speaking and ministering in the public sphere belonged to the men (e.g., 1 Cor 14:34-35; 1 Tm 2:11-12). Luke takes the latter position, giving it validity by placing approval of the silent Mary on Jesus’ lips.
There was never any question in the early church about women becoming disciples. Both Martha and Mary welcomed Jesus and the word he spoke (vss. 38-39). The controversy swirled around what women would do with what they learned while sitting at Jesus’ feet. The answer Luke gave was quite understandable for his time. Today’s Gospel invites us to reflect on what answer Jesus might give today to the question of woman’s place in the ministries of the church as they have now evolved.

July 16th, 2010

Today in Bolivia and also in Chile it is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She is a General of the Armed Forces in Bolivia and Chile.
We are suppose to have snow in the nearby mountains for this date but nothing has happened.
The weather is chilly in the morning but warm in mid day. The "Winter" only last for a three week period in July and then it is Spring. Cochabamba is the land of the Eternal Spring.

Our Lady of Quilvo

This is Our Lady of Quilvo at the Trappist monastery.
Today is the 4th of july and we had a nice celebration here at our home in Cochabamba and 30 visitors were present which was the Maryknoll Priests, Brothers, Sisters and lay people,
With a nice cookout of hamburgers, frankfurters, potatoe salad etc.
Maryknoll seminarian who is Korean American Dae Kim did the cooking.
It was a nice sunny day and everyone enjoyed it.

july 3rd, 2010

Birthday reflection for you Thomas

can it be?

can it be?
have I for so long forgotten to feed myself?
yes.for a year now
I was slowly starving.getting lost in busy days,tossing aside the hunger that chewed away inside.

yet, I did not die.by some quiet miracle I made it to this momentof truth:
I nearly starved to death.
it was not my body
that I failed to feed.
t was my spirit,left alone for dayswithout nourishment or care.
and then one day
I paused to look within,
shocked at what I found:
so thin of faith,
so weak in understanding,
so needy of encouragement.
my starving spirit cried the truth:
I can! I will!
I mustbe fed!

june 28th, 2010

It is a chilly day today and one of our future seminarians will be leaving us today. Glen Dangelo for the united States. He wants to be home for the birthday of his Father which is july 4th.
Thinking of July 4th, we don't know if we will have a cookout here next Sunday because we have a collaboration gathering on Tuesday July 6th.

sunset over the pacific

The Path to Life
Barbara E. Reid JUNE 21, 2010

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), June 27, 2010“I will follow you wherever you go” (Lk 9:57)

T he threats from the loggers and ranchers and their hired gunmen were coming more frequently. Some urged her to leave or to desist her relentless outcry against the devastation of the Brazilian rainforest. But Dorothy Stang, S.N.D., would not leave the poor farmers whose homes and livelihood were in peril. She forged on through almost impassable muddy roads to reach them, to read the Scriptures and pray together, to bolster their courage to stand up against injustice and to urge them to live in harmony with the rainforest, with God and with one another. Her resolute journey ended when she was gunned down on February 12, 2005.
In today’s Gospel we see the same resolute determination on the part of Jesus not to deviate from the path on which he has set out, to advocate for life for the most vulnerable. The opposition against him is mounting, and he knows it. He chooses not to turn back. There were still many ancient hatreds that needed healing, one of which was the enmity between his people and Samaritans. He tries to meet them in their own territory, but they will not receive him. The infuriated disciples want to do as Elijah did (2 Kgs 1:10) and call down on them fire from heaven. Jesus instead urges them to peaceably journey on to another village with him.
En route Jesus encounters three potential followers. Many commentators understand these as people who are initially enthusiastic but are not able to embrace the serious demands of discipleship once Jesus articulates these. But each encounter is left open-ended, and we are not told whether or not the person does ultimately follow Jesus. They all pose questions to us about our own commitment to follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem.
The first person approaches Jesus, expressing a desire to follow him. With words akin to Ruth’s profession of loyalty to Naomi (Ru 1:16), the first says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” This potential disciple rightly voices that following Jesus requires whole-hearted dedication to him. In reply Jesus warns that his is an itinerant mission that demands mobility to go where the needs are and a letting go of any possessiveness, even of a bed of one’s own.
In the second encounter, Jesus initiates the call to follow. This person wants to take care first of filial obligations to his parents. Jesus invites him to embrace a larger family obligation: to extend his concern for life to all God’s family as his kin and to proclaim well-being for all in God’s realm.
The third person, like the first, initiates the encounter and expresses a desire to follow Jesus, asking to bid farewell first to his family, as did Elisha when called by Elijah. Jesus warns that any who come with him will not be able to return to what was before. They are forever changed and must proclaim the reign of God. Just as Dorothy Stang could not leave the people she had come to love in her 40 years of ministry in the Amazon rainforest, so disciples must follow the path of Jesus until their own moment of being “taken up” in death and resurrection.
'

We do not know whether the three would-be disciples accepted these sobering challenges and continued on the way with Jesus. If the conditions Jesus sets forth seem daunting, Paul reminds us that this is not a yoke of slavery we take up, but a freeing power to live by the Spirit. Just as Elijah clothed Elisha with the mantle of his prophetic power, so Jesus’ disciples are wrapped in the protective cloak of his loving spirit.
Praying with Scripture
• How have you experienced the freedom of life in the Spirit?
• In what ways have you not been able to “go back home” once you chose to follow Jesus?
• How do you resist “calling down fire from heaven” on those who oppose God’s reign?
Read "The Word" column on the same readings from three years earlier.
Barbara E. Reid, O.P., a member of the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Mich., is a professor of New Testament studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Ill., where she is vice president and academic dean.

Tur Bus in Talcahuano, Chile

The bus that I took to travel North to see John Nitsch in Curico. A very comfortable ride and good roads in chile last January.

a window in the cloister

Escaping Unfreedom
by Joyce Rupp on Jun. 25, 2010
Spiritual Reflections
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As I was leaving for work one morning, I opened the door to the apartment and found a frightened, disoriented blackbird flying in the stairwell between the second and third floors. As it flew about in search of its freedom, the small bird kept hitting itself on the walls and ceiling. I opened the hallway door to the next floor where there was an open window for the scared creature to fly out.
I tried to shoo the bird toward the window, but it kept going back to the small stairwell space. As I hurried down the steps, I hoped that the panicky bird would find its way out. But that evening when I returned home, I sadly found an exhausted bird lying there, dead.
Later as I reflected on my day, I thought about that dead bird. It was such a vivid picture of disorientation and unfreedom. The bird had no sense of a larger world. It had fixed its sights on that small space, seeing it as the only reality, and had missed the freedom of the open window. It was too caught up in its own fear and confusion to see a way out.
The blackbird reminded me of a scripture story with which I have often felt strangely connected: the man who was out of his mind and roamed among the tombs, gashing and hurting himself with stones. The story tells us that Jesus came and restored the man “to his senses” (Mark 5:1-20).
I am not exactly sure why that story resonates so much with me. I think, perhaps, it is the part of me that yearns for inner freedom yet hides from it at the same time, the place in me that resists coming home to my truest self. It is in this unfree place that I hide from what will bring me to greater wholeness.
How can I resist the invitation to personal wholeness, to be my truest self, when I am always yearning for this in my life? Yet, I do resist it. There are times when I allow my fears, my anxieties, or confusions to keep me from making a change in my life that would be for my growth.
Sometimes it has been something rather simple, like trying on a new style of behavior. For example, I recognize this happening in me when my life and work call me to be in a “high extrovert” situation, meeting and greeting new people, entering into long hours of socializing and relating to strangers. The part of me that knows how delicious it feels to be an introvert wants to run and hide, to not reach out, to close my inner door and go home to solitude and quiet. But each time I fight my resistance to stay with my old introverted behavior, I have been greatly enriched by the people whom I have met. They help me to discover the larger truths of my life. They give a balance to my introversion; thus, I am made more whole.
From The Star in My Heart: Discovering Inner Wisdom by Joyce Rupp
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leaving the home of the Gonzalez faimily

Here I am with Carmen and Tito as I get ready to leave their home for Curico, Chile by Bus.

Patty Gonzalez

Here is a photo of Patty, the daughter of Carman and Tto Gonzalez with her daughter and husband. She and her husband are employed at the University of Concepcion.

Tito Jr

Here is Tito Jr with his daughter and grandson working on the computer in the house of his parents in Talcahuano..

My family in Chile

Mrs. Carmen Sanchez Gonzalez and her husband Tito waiting to eat one of her deligious meals at her home in the Las Higueras area of Talcahuano. I am taking the picture and they were excellent hosts as always. Mom and Dad enjoyed being with them many years ago .

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Juan Carlos is toasting me with a glass of Chilean wine at his home in Puerto Montt, Chile. He was a good host and a renewal of friendship going back to my time in Talcahuno, Chile from 1973 to1986.

SunRise on New Year's Day June 21, 2010

Today is the New year 5518 for the Aymara culture here in Bolivia. Today being June 21st.
I took this picure this morning at exactly 7:45 a.m. The sunrise over the nearby Andean Mountains which are closeby.
Today is a holiday here in Bolivia which is called a multinational country. Due to the number of races of native peoples in this country.
This holiday was decreed last year by the President of this country Evo Morales.
But reading the newspapers here this morning, The people are not in agreement with this .
The native Aymara peoples are located in La Paz or in the altiplano or high plains of this country around the Lake Titikaka.
It is the beginning of Winter here although the season is only a few weeks and it is Summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
The photo of the sunrise was taken from my bedroom window.

June 20th, 2010

Today is the day of the Father in the United States. A day to honor my own Father who has given so much to me.
This picture of me was taken in Chile last January 2010 in Puerto Varas in Southern Chile near Puerto Montt.

Hospicio Church

The Land of Simple Contemplation
Created Jun 17, 2010
Companion of my Solitude,sometimes I think that half of meis well-lodged in another world.On rainy days, in times of solitude,my spirit pulls and tugs,crying for home in that other space.All the things herethat give my life rhyme and reasonfade from view.I am left with the longingto put down my swordof busynessand dwell in the landof simple contemplation.
Raindrops on the cottage roof,bird songs in the woods,the taste of morning air,the stillness of the forest,all these draw me beyondto where the other half dwells.
Companion of my Solitude,keep encouraging me to take timefor my inward journey.Help me to be faithfulto this essential element of my life.
“Come to me, you who desire me …-- Ecclesiasticus 10:19
Journaling:
What do you appreciate most about solitude?What do you appreciate least about it?What is your life like when you do not have any solitude in it?

The compassionate One

Making myself aware of God's mercy

The above refrain is proclaimed twenty-six times in Psalm 136 in honor of God's mercy.
I used to wonder why one phrase was continually repeated until I realized that the psalmist was emphasing the endlessness of God's mercy by the constant repetition.
The recurring praise of God's mercy is a valuable reminder of the countless times the Holy One has welcomed us back after we have wandered and fallen from the path of goodness.
The repeating also serves to convince us that God's mercy will continually be available to us whenever we turn toward the Enduring Love and ask forgiveness for our failings.

I suggest that each of us reflect back on the mistakes, deliberate wrongdoings, poor judgments and decisions we have made that have hurt ourselves and others. Especially our addictions to sex and selfish desires alone or with others.
After each item that we recall,we can then say "For your mercy endures forever."
By doing so, we will see that our whole life consists of a psalm praising the mercy and kindness of God, extended to us at every moment.
The litany of mercy can be a powerful experience for anyone who doubts that they are eternally embraced in the Divine Forgiver's arms.

Compassionate One, may the mercy you daily offer me be an incentive to also extend kindness and forgiveness to those who have wronged or failed me.

Last Sunday's gospel by Luke tells us about the sinful woman in the city who brought a alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind Jesus at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with the ointment.

Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." Your faith has served you; go in peace."

The Pharisee was scandilized thinking that Jesus did not know who this woman was.

Jesus told Simon about the two people who were in debt.

One owed owed 500 days wages and the other owed 50. They were not able to pay their debt. They were both forgiven.

Jesus asked which one will love him more. And Simon said the one who owes the most.

Jesus told Simon that he was correct. How fortnnate that we have a Compassionate Jesus who has forgiven us so many times in our daily lives. He knows our failings and also our good intentions. But also knows our human failures.

We are so fortunate to have the sacrament of confession and to receive the graces that we need to continue our journey in our lives.

Let us be aware of this in our own personal lives and not to use people for selfish reasons but to have respect and compassion on each one that we meet today in our lives.

Frank