Displaying items by tag:Deacon

Saturday, 28 September 2019 00:28

Deacon's Bench

From the Deacon’s Bench - A Lenten Reflection from San Marcos

By Canon Ken
Hola from our friends in our companion parish of San Marcos in Holguin, Cuba! Heather and I had the chance to meet up with them several times in January. They were pleased to see us and as welcoming as usual. We took the opportunity to take them items they need, including basic medicines such as aspirin and Tylenol. We took a number of Sunday School supplies for them as well as several books of children’s Bible stories in Spanish. It is very difficult to get many basic supplies in Cuba these days. The inflation and supply chain issues we experience here have been minimal to what they have been experiencing. When visiting a grocery store in the nearby town, they have divided off half of the store from what was used before, and the shelves don’t have a lot on them. Trips must be planned so that taxi drivers can try to find gas for the trip, for which they are paying about $5.00 per gallon when they can find it.

We look at Lent as a time when we minimize. We try to take on more focussed reading, meditation and prayer. Some engage in fasting or abstaining from some types of food or treat. This is meant to reflect that the 40 days of Lent remember the days that Jesus spent in the desert and faced temptations. It can be a more somber time. Monastics often follow very strict rules during Lent, somewhat similar to what we see our Muslim friends do during Ramadan.

It seemed that our Cuban friends live through a year-round Lent due to the scarcity of basic goods. They display an amazing faith despite the ongoing shortages. Their church services display a joy when singing their hymns, including movement and clapping. Not something we do very much. They engage in the community around them. Even though they have little, San Marcos will benefit later this year from the installation of a water filtration system so that drinking water can be supplied to the community. The community for them is the wider community, not just parishioners. We talked about how they are planning to create a community garden on the flat roof of the church. This will allow them to provide some fresh vegetables to the community. We hope that St. Anne’s may be able to help them with that project. Maybe Lent doesn’t need to be sombre. We can study and pray and read and abstain but with a joy showing our faith in our loving God. Maybe we can learn from others that there can always be joy as we live our faith, even during Lent.

 

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