Letter from Fr. Scott in Monterrey

PARROQUIA de STA. TERESA DE Ávila En Monterrey NL A.R.

Nada te espante, Tasajillo 316, Barrio Mirasol Sect. II
todo se pasa, Ciudad Solidaridad Tel. 1158-2826
Dios no se muda. Monterrey, N.L. 64100
La paciencia todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.

TO THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY
FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA

Dear Friends of the Church of the Nativity,

My letter is arriving like this year’s Dakota Spring, extraordinarily late! As I glance at my desk I contemplate 5 empty cups of what was coffee, I must be one of Folgers best customers and I still seem behind on just about everything. We have a new bishop, you will soon have a new bishop and we all have a new Pope! What a ride has this last year been. I got lost in time and space somewhere between Christmas and Ash Wednesday and everyday seems like the day before or after Sunday!

We continue to grow as a parish. I have lost count of Sunday mass attendance since we pushed the pews together and added 100 more chairs. Our new bishop (Rogelio Cabrera) visited us in January…some 1400 came to the mass…as I drove him home at about 11:15 p.m., after a late supper and people were coming out of the 10:30 p.m. Sunday liturgy he said he had never seen a church with three floors, and that we were the only ones on the planet that had mass at 10:30 p.m.

Last year we decided (translated into plane English… “I decided”… ) we needed more youth encounters. This year we have 27 youth encounters and 18 encounters for couples! That was all nice on paper but reality has been a little bit on the edge of insanity. Together with three mission retreats we have 48 weekends with mass events! Monsignor Peña who is a retired priest that lives with us accompanies me every weekend to confess and celebrate Eucharist on Saturday night and then return around midnight and be ready for mass at 7:00 a.m.. He is a witness to priestly life and reminds me much of the late Fr. Maurice Mueller.

Our Evangelization center has taken off. This is a great miracle since I am not much of a fund raiser and confide in the divine providence for such projects. The building will have a basement and five floors above ground with some 26,802 square feet. The foundation is so that it can support another three floors in the future. At present without counting the over 2000 students in CCD, we have about 1400 people who gather in different apostolic groups on a weekly basis. All will be housed in the new edifice.

Obviously our community like many these days is based on lay ministry which is dangerous, since they often do God´s Will… which can be a lot of Work for us priests! At the same time it is joyous since the Spirit is able to show itself in so many ways!
Pope Francisco has been a special happening for us. Not only because he is from Latin America, but perhaps even more so since he has always reached out to the poor not as photo opt, but as a way of life. The poor feel as if one of their own had become Pope. He changes the way people look on themselves and feel. There are great evils in poverty, and many sad stories. Yet I believe we need to take a step back with the Pope to look at the world through a different lens. Who is really poor? Who is really rich? Who depends on whom for the most important things in life…. those who give or those who receive? It would seem that the joy in the Spirit that so overwhelmed the disciples of Jesus on Pentecost was so powerful that even the ruthlessness of evil could not stop it. Food for thought for our times.

Our security situation in this part of the country has improved. Our former president’s struggle to form a new police force throughout the country is producing fruit. Yet we still have a long ways to go. The new government has decided that security is more of a perception problem than anything else. Perception is still a big problem given that we have had 283 people executed by organized crime in the metro area so far this year and large convoys of military vehicles and some fitted with what appear to be small tanks are seen on city streets. Eight people have been killed in our parish, many of them women. The kidnappings have not ceased and acts of senseless violence continue. One example was a party for a quinceañera where they fired into the crowd with machine guns and threw a grenade, killing two, one who was a five year old. Like the Boston Marathon dozens of innocent people were injured. This took place a mile or so from our church. Our church became famous too this year for our bullet proof wall and traffic light warning system. Televisa (Mexican television network) did a report on it and then NBC on their web page..the Canadian broadcasting company and CNN among others. You can watch it in Spanish by putting “iglesia blindada” in your google search or “cbc Scott McDermott” for the interview on radio in English… I never saw what CNN Español did or Aljazeera… my five minutes of fame in life and I missed it!

I close again thanking you all for your prayers and your continual financial aid. May the force of the Spirit of Pentecost strengthen you all in your continuing mission to bear witness to the Gospel of God´s Kingdom!

God bless.

Fr. Scott Michael McDermott Eichhorst