I believe that every
nation has a soul, and that this ‘soul’ is often expressed
through the culture of its people. Some may argue that the culture of
a nation has nothing to do with its soul, and everything to do with
the artists behind it. This approach may be correct, but it does not
appeal to the romantic in me! Therefore, whenever I travel to new
places, I often turn to the arts in my quest for an understanding of
the elusive spiritual side that a nation may have.
Venezuela was no
different: If I was at a theatre watching a play, in the streets,
listening to original music of local people, or at an evening of
Venezuelan folk music (none of which I truly understood much in the
end), I always paid careful attention to the artistic expression of
the heart/soul of the nation. But it was not in the capital of
Caracas that I finally had a taste of the real soul of the country,
but in the village of Guasdualito.
What helped enhance my
experience was that when I arrived there, preparations had started
for a very important celebration for the people in this part of the
world: July 16th, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (La virgin
del Carmen), the patron saint of Guasdualito. Throughout the entire
week I was there, I basically went around with one of the thee
priests to celebrate masses or a prayer service at various houses
where people were 'hosting' our Lady.
After a week of
preparations, on the 16th, the big celebration reached its climax:
Our day started with a boat ride across the lake, as we carried the
statue of our Lady to the house of one of the parishioners. ‘Sounds
quaint’ you say? It wasn’t. It was epic! Picture the scene: It's
7:00 am, there's about fifty people cramming into five rather long
motor-boats. Most of the boats were decked with colourful balloons
and flowers. But our boat was the most interesting, as we were
carrying the statue, we had all three priests, all the altar servers,
two girls dressed up as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the only guy
with a guitar! Oh, and some Canadian guy!
As we went along the way,
many who were working on the shore stopped their work to pray with
us as we were going along; there was also a lot of singing. Our
singer was amazing, and some of the other boats, when they were
closer to us, rather than singing their own songs, would listen to
ours.
Then there were the songs
of the altar servers: our boat had all the people on one side, the
Statue in the middle, and then the girls dressed up as Mary, and the
Alter servers on the other side. They couldn't always hear the songs
the adults were singing, so at one point, they started singing their
own songs. I was quite moved by that. These kids had their own
devotion to Mary going on. Since I didn't know most of the words to
these songs, I enjoyed listening to the two different groups singing
different songs. Many people may have found this chaotic; I thought
it was festive, and spiritually uplifting. Our Lady was getting a lot
of love from these people that day! I feel like she was returning it
too. And if such a deep expression of love is not also an expression
of the country’s soul, I truly don’t know what is!
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