Category: Saintly Stories Nuns Never Told Me

Postcard from Villa de Etla, Oaxaca: Pain paved the road to sainthood

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Although the Church of San Pedro y San Pablo is far from small and fronts a spacious walled-in plaza in Villa de Etla, finding it though the maze of Wednesday market vendors with tarps obscuring upward views can be difficult.

The church and former monastery were founded by Dominican priests and built in the early 1600s. Their name honors two of the Catholic Church’s earliest and most famous martyrs, Saints Peter and Paul. The pair suffered rather painful ends under Emperor Nero: San Pedro was crucified, upside down at his request because he felt unworthy of dying in the same fashion as Jesus, while San Pablo was beheaded. Villa de Etla stages a major festival in their honor at the end of June.

But the San Pedro statue that catches one’s eye is of a Dominican priest who perished more than 1,200 years later. Brother Pedro’s preaching attracted papal attention, and he was promoted upward by Pope Innocent IV, who named him the Inquisitor for Lombardy in 1252. Charged with punishing heretics using some of the same brutal tactics as Emperor Nero had employed in Rome, San Pedro of Verona was pleasing the pope but made a number of powerful enemies. Assassins attacked him before he served even a full year in his position as Inquisitor. His enemies sliced his head open with an axe, and, when he continued to loudly profess his faith through prayers, they finished him off by stabbing him in the heart. San Pedro was rewarded with sainthood before the next year passed.

The statue of San Antonio of Padua bears such a sad expression; he appears to be mourning the loss of the original, more-to-scale sculptured companion of El Nino Jesus. Saint Anthony actually places second, falling only behind San Pedro of Verona, as the candidate canonized most quickly after death by the Catholic Church.

While in town on market day, many of the faithful visit the church to pray, light candles of hope and leave photos of loved ones in need of miracles.

Postcard from Puebla, Mexico: Talavera tiles accent glittering gold

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Gilded to the hilt, the Capilla del Rosario provides a Cinderella-like setting for destination weddings in downtown Puebla. The chapel is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, who appeared to Saint Dominic (1170-1221) and presented him with a rosary to aid his efforts to combat heresy and recruit converts to Catholicism.

The chapel is “new,” added in the second half of the 17th century to the much older Templo de Santo Domingo, dating from the late 16th century. Templo de Santo Domingo boldly combines ornate gilded Baroque embellishment with seemingly incongruous folk-art-like, colorful talavera tile.

Most of these images are from the interior of the temple Santo Domingo, but the same is true in many of the city’s churches. Somehow the contrasting styles work together, the tiles conveying a comforting hominess preventing the opulence from overwhelming the faithful flocking to kneel in the pews.

But back to the rosary. Among the many things nuns never taught me was what to do with the beads of a rosary. About the only thing I understood about the rosary given to me by my godmother on the occasion of my first communion at age 6 was that I was not to wear it as a necklace when playing dress-up.

Even in the late 1950s, rosaries seemed to be used only by white-haired widows, mysteriously muttering over each bead for long periods of time. Now I know why; it’s complicated. According to one website:

A rosary is a string of beads with a crucifix. A short string of five beads is attached to the crucifix which leads to a large circular strip of beads made of five sets of one large bead and ten smaller beads, called decades. You begin on the crucifix with a Sign of the Cross and an Apostles’ Creed. Say an Our Father on the large bead and one Hail Mary for each of the next three smaller beads. On the next large bead, say a Glory Be to the Father, announce and meditate on the first mystery and say an Our Father. Say a Hail Mary for each of the following smaller beads, and end the decade with the Glory Be. Begin the cycle again with an Our Father, meditate the second mystery according to the same schema and so on for the third, fourth and fifth mysteries. You end with the Prayer After the Rosary and a Sign of the Cross.

Phew! But those are only part of the instructions, omitted from gift boxes containing rosaries. The five mysteries to be contemplated on each decade change according to the days of the week, meaning there are a lot more than five with which one must be familiar. The Joyful Mysteries are recited on Mondays and Saturdays and are counter-balanced by the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays. The redeeming Glorious Mysteries are the focus on Wednesdays and Sundays, and then, there are my favorites, the Luminous Mysteries celebrated on Thursdays. Thursday rosaries probably are most popular with those footing the bills for the destination weddings as well; for the second Luminous Mystery relates to the miraculous conversion of water into wine for the guests attending the wedding feast at Cana.

For exterior views of some of Puebla’s churches, visit an earlier post, Almost a church on every corner in the “City of Angels,” and to see saintly shrines housed within, visit Saints to answer any prayer.

Postcard from Puebla, Mexico: Saints to answer any prayer

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Not only is there a church on almost every corner in Puebla, but they are filled with saints to meet almost every need imaginable.

One often reads about the fall in the number of Catholics in Mexico, but maybe many simply don’t have time to devote attending a full Mass. Leave a church unlocked during the day, and there is always someone dropping by for a quick prayer for help with some difficulty encountered in life.

Catholicism in Mexico, or in all of South America and Europe, is a totally different animal from the religion of my childhood. I find myself mesmerized by the magical mysticism permeating their churches.

Sure we had incense wafting about at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at Star of the Sea, but, beyond that, things were pretty tame. There were Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s offered aplenty. But, when we were growing up, we pretty much missed out on the more than 10,000 saints hovering above waiting to answer our prayers.

If I’d only known. I mean, how many times would I have turned to St. Anthony with help locating that lost homework or to St. Jude when I totally missed the teacher telling us about a test? Gladly, I would have parted with every charm on my bracelet if I’d known leaving them as milagros might improve outcomes.

So many people in Puebla pin their hopes on saints, tuck photos of loved ones near their favorites, leave flowers as thanks and light candles to brighten the chance their prayers will be heard.

Miracles might not always arrive, but maybe comfort does. Time alone thinking calmly in a pew might be what’s needed to face life’s everyday challenges.

Certainly viewing a statue of a saint in flames or Jesus suffering from his wounds diminishes the size of one’s own troubles.

Lest you jump to conclusions prematurely, the red guitar balloon was not left by the Mister. Although perhaps that presents a far less dicey alternative to going down to the crossroads.

But, if one is going to place faith in a balloon, of course there’s a saint for that. Bluesmen would best be served by leaving their tributes floating near the harp-bearing hands of Santa Cecilia.