Dear Friends,
I am heading to Guatemala early on Monday morning for a couple days of meetings with the leadership team from the diocese of Huehuetenango to plan for the next few years of mission trips. I will be back on Friday. In 2003, the Archdiocese of Omaha and the Diocese of Huehuetenango entered into a sister relationship which was motivated by Pope John Paul II. John Paul had called for a meeting of the bishops of the Americas in 1999. After listening to their discussions, he wrote a letter to the people of the Americas. In the letter, John Paul II teaches:
“the personal encounter with the Lord will bring a renewal of the Church: as sisters and neighbors to each other, the particular Churches of the continent will strengthen the bonds of cooperation and solidarity in order that the saving work of Christ may continue in the history of America with ever greater effect. Open to the unity which comes from true communion with the Risen Lord, the particular Churches, and all who belong to them, will discover through their own spiritual experience that “the encounter with the living Jesus Christ” is “the path to conversion, communion and solidarity”. To the extent that these goals are reached, there will emerge an ever increasing dedication to the new evangelization of America…
…The Synod Fathers underlined the benefit of inter-American gatherings, such as those sponsored by the Episcopal Conferences of various American countries, as an expression of practical solidarity and a chance to study common challenges to evangelization in America…The Bishops, whose duty it is to promote communion among the particular Churches, should encourage the faithful to live this communion more and more, and to assume the “responsibility of developing bonds of communion with the local Churches in other areas of America through education, the exchange of information, fraternal ties between parishes and dioceses, and projects involving cooperation and joint intervention in questions of greater importance, especially those affecting the poor”.
Bishop Bobadilla invited Archbishop Curtiss to do exactly what Pope John Paul was calling for in the letter to the Americas; to create a relationship where we would share life and faith between two different peoples. Saint Pope John Paul encouraged us to have solidarity as the main goal and so we have done with this relationship. He continues in this letter:
“For the Churches of the American continent, this is the source of a commitment to reciprocal solidarity and the sharing of the spiritual gifts and material goods with which God has blessed them, fostering in individuals a readiness to work where they are needed. Taking the Gospel as its starting-point, a culture of solidarity needs to be promoted, capable of inspiring timely initiatives in support of the poor and the outcast, especially refugees forced to leave their villages and lands in order to flee violence…I make my own the practical proposals presented by the Synod Fathers: “to maintain a greater cooperation between sister Churches; to send missionaries within the continent and abroad; to strengthen or create missionary institutes; to encourage the missionary dimension of consecrated and contemplative life; to give greater impetus to mission promotion, training and organization”. I am sure that the pastoral zeal of the Bishops and of the sons and daughters of the Church throughout America will devise concrete plans, also at the international level, to implement with great dynamism and creativity these missionary proposals.”
The sister relationship goes under the name Ixim (pronounced eesheem) which is the Mayan word for corn. Corn is a major product and a source of nutrition in both dioceses. A mission trip or two has taken place each year since 2004. Each trip involves people from Omaha working together with the people of Huehuetenango and has fostered solidarity to improve the lives of the Guatemalans and the people of Omaha.
This year, however, we had to cancel our trip. Many of the people who had hoped to go simply could not make the trip this year for one reason or another. We also have the problem of the Zika virus. While the mosquito that carries the virus is not present at the higher elevations in Guatemala, there is still a concern about the health risks involved. It is our hope that we will have a mission trip going back to Guatemala next summer. Keep me in your prayers as I travel. Thanks.
Peace,
Fr. Damian