by Danea Palomo and Roberto Solis/ Saltillo, Mexico
The Mexican constitution clearly establishes the division between the church and the state. By law all facets of government must be free of any religious influence. However, the official Mexican calendar establishes Holy Week as a holiday week for all workers and students in the country.
Seventy-eight percent of Mexicans declare themselves Catholic, which involves a cultural and religious obligation in their daily lives. Today Holy Week is one of the most important festivities in the country. The traditions and customs are a mixture of rites brought from Spain and pre-Hispanic ceremonies. The special meals of Lent (the 40 days of preparation before the resurrection) are a the highlight in the northern part of the country. The houses are suffused in smells that you will only find at this time of the year, from nopalitos (cactus) in red sauce to quelites (dry corn) or cabuches (desert flowers) to the capirotada (a sweet mix of more than 20 ingredients).
These special meals are a result of the Catholic Church’s request of its parishioners stop eating meat in their daily menu as a sign of penance and sobriety and perhaps as a preparatory fast. People have responded by creating variety of cuisines based on local and seasonal products.
Protestant missionaries arrived in northern Mexico in the 1950s, pushing for conversion from traditional Catholicism to protestant Christianity. Much of what they focused on in the following years was to try to mark the differences between being Christian and Catholic. Many Mexican traditions were understood as manifestations of a form of paganism.
This spurred protestant churches in Mexico to seek to remove anything in a congregant’s life that resembled a Catholic tradition. It is a pity that Holy Week, the most crucial date int he Christian calendar, has been stripped of rich Mexican traditions and culture.
Only recently have some churches incorporated the celebration of these festivities into their liturgical calendar. And little by little, protestant Christians have been resuming our people’s heritage, culture, and traditions.
In the Church of Christ in the El Salvador neighborhood, we have focused in the last years in celebrating Holy Week, emphasizing the unity of the different congregations and recognizing that we are all part of the body of Christ. We sing and celebrate Christ’s resurrection. A group of five churches plays and laughs together; we cook samples of traditional foods and have competitions to see who can eat more chiles.
We pray for the joy of the resurrection to be a sign in our lives that we walk Jesus’ path.