For most of the past month, all schools have been closed in and around La Caramuca, including our preschool. This was because of concern about the effects of the omicron variant on children. However, by the final days of February, COVID-19 fears had faded enough that cities across Venezuela had announced plans for traditional Carnaval celebrations and we were able to open our preschool for a Carnaval party for our children and their families.
Carnaval, or Carnival as it is spelled in English, is derived from either Latin or Italian phrases meaning “goodbye to meat” (“carne” means red meat in Spanish as well). The Carnaval tradition came to Venezuela from Spain. Northern European, predominantly Lutheran, countries have an equivalent of Carnaval known as Fastelavn in Denmark and similar names elsewhere. People in the United States perhaps are most familiar with the French term, “Mardi Gras” (“Fat Tuesday”), which is quite the tourist attraction in New Orleans. English speakers also might recognize “Shrove Tuesday”, like Mardi Gras referring to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Customs associated with Shrove Tuesday include the eating of pancakes and other sweets, as well as the ritual burning of palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday to use for the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. Around the world, Shrove Tuesday is observed by Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists as well as Roman Catholics.
By the way, for several hundred years, Roman Catholics in Venezuela have had papal permission to hunt and eat the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), the world’s largest rodent species, during Lent on the theory that its semi-aquatic lifestyle makes it more like a fish than a mammal.
It was in 18th Century Italy, France and Spain that Carnaval festivities took on what may be their most well-known characteristics, namely masquerade balls and parades. And that is how we celebrate with the preschool children. These days, the girls like to dress up as Disney princesses, while the boys favor Batman, Superman or Spider Man, a tribute to the worldwide influence of the U.S. entertainment industry.
Before our festivities began, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer, the children sang a song based on Romans 8:39, and I read from Luke 5:33-35.
“And they said to him, The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus said to them, Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”
This, along with its parallel verses in Matthew 9:14-15 and Mark 2:18-20, is one of only two passages where Jesus speaks of fasting. The other is the appointed Ash Wednesday text, Matthew 6:16-21.
I explained that there are times when the Christian can be festive, as well as times for somber, solemn reflection. We may rejoice with those who rejoice, without falling into drunkenness and debauchery, while those given to drunkenness and debauchery will find any excuse to do so, even the Christmas holidays. We should never forget that the point of our feast days is to enjoy and give thanks for the material blessings that God has given us, even as He has commanded us to pray for our daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer. Nor should we cease to pray and cast our cares on Him in times of scarcity, whether doing without is a voluntary choice or not.
Then came Ash Wednesday, when I did read the lesson from Matthew 6.
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus talks about almsgiving, prayer and fasting, and makes the same point each time. These things should not be done to gain the admiration of men, but with an attitude of humility and selflessness, the fruits of the Holy Spirit working in us (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). And as Psalm 51, the psalm appointed for Ash Wednesday says, the acceptable sacrifice of thanksgiving to God is a repentant and contrite heart.
For dust you are, and to dust you shall return
One goal of Ash Wednesday and the subsequent days of Lent is the meditation on our own mortality. Through baptism we have the promise of sharing in Christ’s resurrection (Romans 6:3-4), yet as sinners we cannot escape the sentence of physical death in Genesis 3:19. This was brought home to me just before Ash Wednesday, March 2, as Bruce Keseman, pastor of Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Freeburg, Illinois, conducted a wonderful memorial service for my sister, Deborah Ann Ernst, on Saturday, February 26. My sister, Deborah Ann Ernst, received in full the peace which the world cannot give on Sunday, February 13. This is the second time that Pastor Keseman has presided at a funeral for a member of my family, the first being at the death of my father in 2000.
The saddest part was not the loss of my sister, because we know that she is with Jesus, but knowing that 10 to 15 years ago, it would not have been that hard for Luz Maria and I to journey to the United States to be with my mother at this time. Of course, many Venezuelans have had the same experience from a mirror-image perspective. Having emigrated from Venezuela, they have found it impossible to return for the death of a family member.
Pray for safe passage to Caracas
Travel inside and outside Venezuela was becoming more expensive and uncertain even before the COVID-19 crisis. For two years we have traveled only as far as the city of Barinas, and we can only pray that soon the travel bans, COVID-19 testing and quarantine requirements will be lifted. How the ripple effects from the current war in Ukraine will affect us is anyone’s guess.
For more than a year, Luz Maria has been mentoring online women enrolled in a deaconess training program sponsored by Concordia El Reformador Lutheran Seminary in the Dominican Republic. This past month, Pastor Eliezer Mendoza, direct of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela’s Juan de Frias Theological Institute began a series of three in-person seminars for the deaconess students. The first one was last week at Ascension Lutheran Church in San Felix de Guayana (in eastern Venezuela on the banks of the Orinoco River). The second will take place this week at Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in Maturin (also in eastern Venezuela, but to the north). Next week Luz Maria hopes to travel to a seminar in Caracas (central Venezuela) with a group of other women from the west. (We are living in Venezuela’s wild western frontier, as a matter of fact.) I will pray for her safe passage and I hope that you will, too.
Churches and mission agencies should pray and reflect on how to continue cross-cultural mission work in a world of closed borders, open war and increasing hostility to the proclamation of both Law and Gospel.
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