Father Heliodoro Lucatero, thank you for the introduction! Msgr. John Burton, Lisa Tarker and board members of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions: thank you for this special honor. I also want to thank Sr. Lois Paha and the Southwest Liturgical Conference Board. Thank you for your support. I am here to represent the other important part of the church, the Christifideles Laici.  To all lay women: as we work in the Vineyard of the Lord, may we always be strength, energy and hope for the church. To our religious women who are facing the present challenges with humility and patience, may you never tire of being witnesses for justice, love and peace. Receiving an award bearing the name of Msgr. Frederick McManus created a torrent of emotions in me, but also my heart was filled with praise and thanksgiving for all that it represents. Last week as I began to prepare a reflection, I asked, “Lord, why am I here?”  The Lord answers in mysterious ways. This clearly came to mind. “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” ”Real isn’t how you are made,” answered Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are REAL you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up?” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (Bianco 16-17) After so many years of Pastoral Ministry, my hair is getting thinner, my eyes are drooping, my joints are a mess, but I could not have chosen a better vocation. The love and support of those we meet on the journey become our inspiration and hope, brothers and sisters in the Lord forever. Ours is a journey through a labyrinth, the people of God on pilgrimage, moving, evolving, meeting many people, many cultures all speaking the same language of faith as we go along WITH the church.  When you reach the center of the labyrinth, you feel illumination -- you realize you have been traveling with the disciples of the Lord.  From my birth, my grandmother and my mother nurtured, loved and guided me under the umbrella of Roman Catholicism. Their love of music and pride for our Hispanic culture permeated our daily lives. Their faithfulness to mass, popular devotions, the music all anchored me in my faith. By telling their stories, remembering, we keep their memories alive.  On Labor Day this year members of our family made a special pilgrimage. Keeping memories alive, we chose to walk the path my grandmother took every day to attend daily mass. The community no longer exists, so there are only remnants of the past.  On this day, three generations climbed the mountain, following my grandmother’s daily path from where the church once stood, up the hill to the spot where she lived. The trek up and down the mountain is a real challenge, and the fact that she began her journey at 5:00 a.m. to make it on time to mass, provided more meaning to her sacrifice. I asked, as we walked in her footsteps, that we remember her. On this day, this remembering was meaningful, helping to construct our identity, our “Christian memory.” Our family’s remembering now will no longer be only with the mind, but with our movement, with our bodies. The journey we took this day brought her experience into the present; the word became flesh for her great and great, great grandchildren.  Remembering helped define the power of that moment. This may be a simple story, but it has important significance in the memories we have of our grandmother and how she influenced our faith. Remembering, keeping memories alive, is what the people of God do.  The Second Vatican Council changed our form of worship from a rigid, ordered liturgy to a liturgy involving the entire Christian Community. With a new understanding of the mass, people took ownership of the prayer of the church. It did all the Constitution promised. “It brought vigor to our Christian life” (CL 1).  Each member here is a voice for the people of God. We must never forget the courage and hard work of all great women and men who have been and are the voices of liturgical renewal. Witnessing to their Catholic identity, they help everyone make sense of the Church teachings, the papal documents written to regulate the dignity of worship. These people are grace to each one of us! From this laywoman’s point of view, I want to share some reflections: Thou shalt not encourage the laity to be “Rubricists” in the pew. Some members of the church underestimate the dangers of focusing and placing more importance on the regulations for the celebration to the neglect of teaching the meanings of the liturgical functions. Liturgical renewal totally depends upon the laity’s “full, conscious, active participation” and “going forth” as Disciples of Christ. A division is created in the “body of Christ” when the  “Christifideles” are encouraged to focus on the “how” rather than on the Sacredness of each rite being celebrated. Thou shalt not control.   Control at all layers of liturgical ministry is an illness, and as the Velveteen Rabbit teaches, “Real is not possible with people who break easily, have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept.” In some parishes there is only one TUBA whose voice is heard. (No offense to tuba players.)  An orchestra or a band requires the use of many instruments playing in harmony to create a sound of beauty. Thou shalt have good clean fun.   We have forgotten how to play. Much of the former laughter and humor have disappeared in our Christian ministry.  Rt. Rev. Taft, S.J., in his reflection reminds us, “Apart from the intellectual and spiritual satisfaction [ministry] can give, and the good it can do, it is also good clean fun.”  Play requires risk, willingness to learn the game and becoming loose in the joints. We must focus on the potential of the new prayer changes. So we have to rehearse the new text and memorize the new prayers! That is what choirs do week after week: pray the texts of the songs they sing.  Like the Velveteen Rabbit, through the years we will have loved it to the point that it will “become,” it will be “real.” We must tell stories of faith.   There is a term, “la resolana,” that many northern New Mexicans are familiar with. This was always a place where friends and families would gather. It was a space sheltered from the winds, where a wall would radiate the warmth of the sun. It was here where people would come to share their stories as the children played. We loved listening to ancestral stories. It created a body of knowledge that led us all to an awareness of our origins. “La Resolana” is an excellent metaphor that can take on many meanings. With the Hollywood media forming our families, what an opportunity we have, remembering or telling our stories of faith.  How we live is what we bring to the table of the Lord.  The new prayers are about returning to our Christian ancestral roots. What an opportunity! It is important to be pastoral. There is a stress placed on hiring people qualified to work for the Church, who have degrees in the area of liturgy. A professor once stated, “There is an intellectual innocence that must be lost.” This statement should be taken to heart.  Many come to serve with knowledge from their intellectual achievements but do not have the ability to integrate with their own knowledge the life experiences of the people they serve. This is important; otherwise many they serve are often left feeling diminished.    Opportunities are provided.        The availability of “knowledge” before the Second Vatican Council was hostage to Catholic colleges and universities. Certification from Catholic Universities via the internet is now available.  Many organizations and conferences were formed after the Council to provide educational opportunities in all areas of liturgy. Southwest Liturgical Conference Study Week, one of the oldest conferences, the Instituto Nacional de Liturgia Hispana, and NPM National Conferences for Pastoral Musicians all provide leadership and networking for people from throughout the country. Investing and developing the gifts and talents of those who serve in the liturgical ministries is a matter of justice. Allowing Liturgical Ministers and Church musicians to remain in a cocoon, not giving them opportunities for growth is an injustice to the faithful who come to worship.   Hi spanic Liturgical Music: We are able to sing in the vernacular, our mother tongue. A debt of gratitude is owed to Owen Alstott and OCP, who in 1983 began the process to publish the Spanish Liturgical Music of American Hispanic composers.   We can celebrate an ecumenical success story. Roman Catholic Hispanic Liturgical Music has been included in the Presbyterian and Lutheran Spanish hymnals, El Himnario Presbyteriano (1999) and Libro de Liturgia y Cántico (1998). And we can celebrate other groundbreaking events.   An NPM conference for Hispanic Pastoral Musicians took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1992, a historic event, bringing Hispanic composers together for the first time. The Southwest Liturgical Conference sponsored its first Hispanic Pastoral Musicians Conference in Albuquerque, in June, 1999. A similar conference was formed on the east coast where Músicos Pastorales Hispanos del Este first gathered in Blackwood, New Jersey, in 2006. In closing, I wish to end with a story: On Labor Day, after the trek up the mountain, we stood where my grandparents had lived. I pointed out the high mountain range behind the house. Over that range was a German Concentration Camp during World War II.  I pointed towards the path where I had seen a man coming down from the mountain while living with my grandmother. He stood at the back door. Grandma, who spoke only Spanish, beckoned him to come in saying, “Com een.” He went directly to the sink, picked up the water dipper and couldn’t seem to stop drinking water. He then went directly to the table, put his head down and went to sleep. Words were never spoken. Grandma quickly began to prepare some breakfast for him. As he slept, she loaded his sack with fruit and her homemade bread. She tapped him on the shoulder when the food was ready. Starved, he ate everything she placed on the table. My grandmother with her tender smile of compassion silently cared for him. Picking up his sack to leave, the gratefulness in his eyes spoke volumes. No words had to be spoken. As he left, Grandma whispered, “Que Dios te cuide.” There had been warnings on the radio, not to open the doors to strangers; there were German prisoners loose. When everyone returned for the evening meal, the German prisoners were the topic. Grandmother silently listened. When I shared the news about our visitor, she was reprimanded by family members. (Her three sons were in the service, two of whom were in Europe.)  She kept her silence, looked at each member of the family sternly, disappointed, and prayed. “Señor, te pido, que si mis hijos llegan a esta necesidad, que los traten en el mismo modo que he tratado a este joven.”  “Lord, if my sons have this same need, may they be treated as I have treated this young man.” The dignity of each person must never be forgotten. We are in turbulent times. The Gospel message is to care for others.  As a Hispanic laywoman, I am deeply grateful for the guidance, the support and the love received from our Clergy and the Christifideles Laici of the church. MAY THE LORD BE WITH YOU! Works Cited   Bianco, Margery Williams. The Velveteen Rabbit. New York: Avon Camelot, 1975. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy No.1.
			Mary Frances Reza has served the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as a pastoral musician, liturgist, teacher, composer, clinician and in Hispanic ministry.  She formerly served as Director of the Office of Worship and Liturgical Music for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and as the Liturgy/Director of Music at St. Francis Assisi Cathedral in Santa Fe. Mary Frances is an emeritus member of the Southwest Liturgical Conference Board (SWLC), serves on the Executive Board of the Institute of Hispanic Liturgy and is a clinician and Hispanic Consultant for OCP. Her music is published in Flor y Canto I @ II, Unidos, OCP music collections and in Celebremos. (WLP).  Her articles have been published in several publications. Her entries pertaining to faith traditions were included in Worship Music: A Concise Dictionary, Ed Foley (Lit. Press).  Mary Frances obtained her BA(music) and BS (education) from the University of Albuquerque and earned her MA from the University of New Mexico. She is the recipient of the Southwest Liturgical Conference: Faithful Servant Award (2000), OCP Owen Alstott Award, and the NPM Pastoral Musician of the Year Award (2002). Mary Frances is currently serving as Liturgy Consultant and Choir Director at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Albuquerque.

 

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