Florida Catholic | Dominican Dispatch: The Textures Of Good Friday

Father Fred Ruse finds repose on the peak of the hill that bears the cross in La Cucarita, Dominican Republic, where he resides.

Courtesy Photo | Mission Office
Father Fred Ruse finds repose on the peak of the hill that bears the cross in La Cucarita, Dominican Republic, where he resides. Part of the Good Friday observance was a procession up the hill.

DOMINICAN DISPATCH

The textures of Good Friday

FATHER FRED RUSE | SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC

This is one in a series of regular dispatches from Father Fred Ruse, who was assigned pastoral duties to Orlando’s sister Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic. Father Ruse resides in the mountain town of La Cucarita.

Published: 04.04.08

LA CUCARITA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | Good Friday is slowly coming to its close. Life here today has been, in various ways, a real taste of some of the texture of the first Good Friday.

Nobody works on Good Friday. It is totally a day of ease. Even the horses, mules and burros don’t work! No one rides them on Good Friday.

The custom in Latin American countries is that Good Friday usually is THE day of the triduum. Easter is sort of a footnote.

So, I expected quite a gathering for the celebration today at 2 p.m. When will I learn? There was no gathering. And yet, I knew no one was occupied with anything of significance.

Well, eventually folks began to appear, but only a small gathering. By the end of the celebration there was an improved number.

To buy time, and to do some catechizing, I used some of the time to explain what the service would be about, its parts, etc. I think we got started by about 2:40 p.m.

My concern also was that we needed to conclude the celebration in time to begin our procession up the hill to the cross at the peak. Two other communities were going to join us up there at 5 p.m. Last year we started our service at 3 p.m. and arrived late. This year we changed it to 2 p.m. so as to arrive in time without rushing. We arrived exactly at 5 p.m. at the top.

God’s sense of humor, playing with my mind and plan?

Still, considering everything else, the participation was very poor here in La Cucarita, which has been blessed with so much.

The other “close encounter” with the texture of Good Friday occurred last night. Someone smeared one of our houses with feces and broke a doorknob. The house is empty for now as the couple is involved in a serious marital problem. So, we have locked up the house as the wife has an arrest warrant out for her husband and he is gone. No one is living in the house. Much favor falls on the side of the husband. Still, the prevailing view is that no one from the community did this. The folks here appreciate that they have a conflict between themselves, but all here are neighbors and would not do this. Since this is a holiday and there are lots of visitors around, it is suspected that one of them did this.

It was a sad and heartbreaking sight.

I incorporated it in the homily, suggesting that again, as proclaimed in the Passion, we have a reminder that the world at times is not a nice place. I suggested that what happened to the house is the evidence of sickness, the sickness that is in the heart which was present the first Good Friday. Our response: the response of Jesus from the midst of his suffering, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

At the top of the hill, after our closing moment up there, I met a young man from another community who had asked help to go to the capital and enter the military. This meant some financial assistance. He had come back once already in need of more assistance as he had to use all his time and resources getting his documents in order. That was certainly, I am sure, a fact. Now, he comes back again, after I helped him the second time and when he had told me all was in order and he was off to begin his 45 days of study.

Well, now he tells me they had closed the class until August.

I told him that I was having difficulty understanding this second moment and that it was not helping my confidence in him. This young man is 18. He is healthy and able. He has somewhat of an education and I expected a lot more from him than this sort of on-off, on-off pattern. I told him it gave me the hint of feeling a bit used. He tried hard to explain, but I kept sensing that there was more to the story. There always is.

Finally, back at the house, immersed in the stuff of trying to plan for the next two days in which there will only be enough time to sleep at night, my two mule-handlers arrive to plan for tomorrow. I probe with them about their whereabouts, too, today. They were nowhere to be seen.

It seems, they tell me, they had to go and get the mule and for some reason it was harder than usual. But, timing is always poor among the traits of folks here. They just can’t balance figuring out what to do when and what they ought to do.

So, there is my Good Friday.

Of course, there were encouraging moments as seen in the faces of those in the procession up the hill, and those who waited to accompany us back down the hill as I lingered to talk to that young man.

This is an assignment of challenge. “Be careful what you ask for,” I am remembering. Gratefully, I am not inclined to bouts of depression. Otherwise, I think I would be a “basket case.” So many days seem to be filled with “fighting” or “wrestling” with these forces here as they manifest themselves in the people. It is hard to keep the balance of view to remember they have had no contact with any other context of life or behavior, ever, apart from a magazine cover or a TV soap opera.

The forces of evil prowl the night seeking their prey, so sang the psalmist. I hope and pray my hunger for doing the good and right — and the skills to do such — will be greater than the hunger of those evil forces.

Peace to all this Good Friday night,

Father Fred

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