Mexico. We begin our day placing at the feet of Our Lady of Guadalupe our lives and all the dreams of CICLA. All the 26 participants concelebrated in the majestic shrine; Fr. Alejandro Cerón, Provincial Superior, presided the Eucharist and in the homily he asked Mary that all of us, as CICLA and as Congregation, may be encouraged to evangelize tirelessly in spite of all the difficulties that this time may bring us, and be always enlightened by the Risen Christ to create a different world.
This day we allowed ourselves to visit the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon in Teotihuacan, their immense size, their innumerable secrets and the perfect architecture; how much work, how many hands, how much faith was needed to lift them from the plane of the earth to the heights of heaven.
Fr. Clodomiro Siller was with us throughout the visit, letting us drink from his knowledge about these honourable civilizations. He did it with so much know-how as if he himself had been living in those centuries before Christ. It is curious that we know so little about these cultures, since these great cities were strangely abandoned and very few human residues were found there, partly, because they had the custom of burning them.
It is surprising that the yellow colour, the flowers and other figures related to the woman, have a primordial place within all the indigenous systems of symbols; the feminine gave life and meaning to the entire civilization, and undoubtedly it is still that way, although many times we do not recognize it. The red colours refer to the divinity, like green to the water and white to man, the tiger, the sun, the moon and the stars among other things are disguises that the gods used to make themselves visible or to confront each other in battle. The respect for creation, the conservation of water, fine architecture, astronomy, mathematics, astrology and the sense of the sacredness of service, of love, of woman, of family and of the different cultures caused these civilizations, together with the Mayans, to have as much prosperity and wisdom as few others on the earth, and invite us to discover them and bear them in mind in our cultures.
It was thrilling to be in such a place; truly one feels a strong and extolling energy; in the face of the missionaries, in spite of the hot son, the dryness and the tiredness, one could see the wonder, the joy, the curiosity and the respect not only for the monumental architectural works, but also the respect and admiration for our aboriginal peoples. At the end of the day, and after eating from our lunch boxes in that indigenous shrine, we went back home to rest, see a movie or just chat. We feel sorry that Fr. Agustín Cabré could not enjoy the outing in all its splendour, since a high tension was bothering him.
