From Carnaval to Ceniza

As with many Latin cultures, the several days leading up to Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season are marked by a partying spirit, the goal is to get in as much fun and revelry before the gloomy fasting and abstinence of Lent rolls in...or as the wonderful folks from New Orleans say, Laissez le bon temps rouler! "Let the good times roll!"

Here in Ecuador, the days of Carnival are big and they are marked by feasts and celebrations both within the family and out on the streets. Families gather for several days of feasting...a different main course for each of the party days including, of course, one of those days dedicated to the consumption of the national culinary treasure, cuy, which we know as guinea pig. Out in the street, its an every person for him/herself battle of water balloons...or water guns...or silly string...or eggs...or baggies filled with wheat flour, any or all of which serve as weapons and may be thrown at anyone without cause...covering them with goo, goop, yoke, or just drenching them through and through.

Here in Cuenca, I was new to the whole thing, but got a pretty good taste of it while taking my brisk walks through the Parque del Paraiso on those days, especially Friday when the school kids were let out early. I could see the teen warriors on all sides, so I had to be clever in detouring from my usual path to avoid marauding gangs of adolescents carrying their weapons of choice ready to blast me or anyone else that came too near. The sight of kids with eggs smashed in their black hair or flour covering their distinguished school uniforms or shirtless as they tried to dry off a bit before the next attack was general about the park. There was plenty of laughter, too; I saw nobody crying or screaming in anger or even slightly put out by these outlandish attacks to their person.

On Thursday evening, there was a huge celebration up in the historic center of town right in the plaza opposite the church we gather in on Sunday, the Iglesia San Francisco. After two years of serious COVID lockdowns and restrictions, the Cuencanos were ready indeed to let the good times roll. Live music and thick crowds dancing, and water and eggs and silly string and flour were everywhere! And I missed it! I didn't know about it in advance. I only saw photos the next day on the internet. Perhaps it was a good thing I missed it since such thick, rollicking crowds kind of make me nervous and in general, just are not really my thing. It would have been fun to at least watch these good times rolling from the fringes, so thinking it would be repeated again the next evening, I asked my friend, Richard, if he wanted to walk up and take a peek at the celebrations. He was happy to accompany me, take a look, and then end up at his favorite restaurant for dinner. Bad luck for us: nothing was going on. We were told that after the initial blow-out the night before, folks headed out to the surrounding villages for the fun there. Dinner was delicious, though no cuy for me!

Our own country (with exceptions such as New Orleans) has never been much into such festivities; our Calvinist roots perhaps precluded such revelry. Our loss. And not just for the loss of the rolling and rollicking good times, but even more for the significance of the whole thing. As was evident on Ash Wednesday itself, the Carnival celebrations both at home and in the streets came to a crashing end once the clock ticked 12:00 and the Lenten fast began. That morning, as Richard and I walked to church for our English Mass and distribution of ashes at 10:00 am, there was hardly anyone about and the streets had all been cleaned of the detritus of the previous celebrations...nary an egg yolk to be seen. Those who were about were already smudged on the forehead with the ashen sign of the cross...or soon would be. The previous days of festivities made the cenizas, the ashes, of Ash Wednesday all the more stark.

We had a good sized group at our English Mass including some folks new to our community. As always, the marking of those foreheads one after another is a solemn and potent liturgical moment for me and for the recipients. I see it on their faces as they come forward: there is a seriousness there that is special to the day. Intuitively, the cenizas of Ash Wednesday call us to face the hard reality of death. Its a primordial kind of thing that most of us prefer to avoid most of the time; not this day and not in this moment. As pastors, we have a choice as to the words that are used, the more traditional Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return, or a more recent version, Repent and believe in the Gospel. I usually use the more modern one since the point of all this is not just to ponder death, but far more to clean up my act and live the Way of Jesus more truly.

As we were leaving church, the Cuencanos were coming in for their liturgy in Spanish. Some wanted to receive their cenizas right away, so a few conscripted my lay friend, Richard, to tend to them. Those few became a line and so he was posted there ministering to the Cuencanos until it was time for the Spanish Mass to begin. The desire for this "sign", this memento mori, this call to return to the Gospel, was altogether evident in that moment too. And I must say, we had some fun afterwards teasing Richard about his new status as Padre Ricardo.

Once out on the street, the number of people milling around in the Plaza de San Francisco marked with the same ashen sign of the cross as were we had multiplied ten-fold, if not more. There was a sort of communion among us, North Americans and Cuencanos, all bearing the same cenizas, the same cross, the same hope to make life's sacrifices into occasions of love, and thereby, to better live the Way of Jesus throughout these Forty Days, this Cuaresma, and beyond.

(My homiletic reflection on Ash Wednesday is available in audio format as a podcast on the Homilies page of this website or at: Ash Wednesday Homily)