Mexico Cooks!

Sin Maíz, No Hay País: Without Corn, There is No Country

Yumil Kaxob, the Mayan corn god.

Mexico is corn, corn is Mexico.   From prehistoric times, Mexico has produced corn to feed its people. Archaeological remains of early corn ears found in the Oaxaca Valley date as far back as 3450 B.C.  Ears found in a cave in Puebla date to 2750 B.C.

Diego Rivera, Festival de Maíz, 1923-24.

Around 1500 B.C. the first evidence of large-scale land clearing for milpas appears. Indian farmers still grow corn in a milpa, (corn field), planting a dozen crops together, including corn, melon, tomatoes, sweet potato, and varieties of squash and beans. Some of these plants lack nutrients which others have in abundance, resulting in a powerful, self-sustaining symbiosis between all plants grown in the milpa. The milpa is therefore seen by some as one of the most successful human inventions – alongside corn.¹

Listen as this group from Burgos, Tamaulipas, sings Las Cuatro Milpas, a song from the early 20th Century: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se4OcLbFuFg. 

The song's sad verses recount the loss of a family's home and its milpas.

         "Only four cornfields remain
          Of the little ranch that was mine,
          And that little house, so white and beautiful
          Look how sad it is!

          Loan me your eyes, my brown woman,
          I'll carry them in my soul,
          And what do they see over there?
         The wreckage of that little house,
         So white and beautiful--
         It's so sad!

       The stables no longer shelter cattle,
        Everything is finished!  Oh, Oh!
        Now there are no pigeons, no fragrant herbs,
        Everything is finished!

      Four cornfields that I loved so much,                 
      My mother took care of them, Oh!
      If you could just see how lonely it is,
      Now there are no poppies and no herbs!"

The family-owned milpa is quickly disappearing from Mexico's flatlands and hillsides, giving way to agro-business corn farming.  Today, Mexico's corn industry produces more than 24 million tons of white corn a year.  Nearly half again that amount is imported from other countries. The imports are primarily yellow corn used to feed animals.

Woman blowing on corn as she puts it in the fire-- so that the corn will not be afraid of the heat.  Florentine Codex, Fray Bernardino Sahagún, third quarter 16th Century.

According to the Popul Vuh, the Mayan creation story, humans were created from corn.  Do you know the story? 

At first, there were only the sky and the sea.  There was not one bird, not one animal.  There was not one mountain.  The sky and the sea were alone with the Maker.  There was no one to praise the Maker's names, there was no one to praise the Maker's glory.

Traditional milpa (cornfield) in the mountains of central Mexico.

The Maker said the word, "Earth," and the earth rose, like a mist from the sea.  The Maker only thought of it, and there it was.

The Maker thought of mountains, and great mountains came.  The Maker thought of trees, and trees grew on the land.

The Maker made the animals, the birds, and all the many creatures of the Earth. 

Masa tricolor (three-color corn dough) ground by hand using the metate y mano.

The Maker wanted a being in his likeness.  First the Maker used dirt to create a Human, but
made of mud and earth.  It didn't look very good.  Dry, it crumbled and wet, it softened.  It looked lopsided and twisted. It only spoke nonsense.  It could not multiply.  So the Maker tried again.

Our Grandfather and Our Grandmother, the wise deities of the Sun and Moon, were summoned.  "Determine if we should carve people from wood," commanded the Maker. 

They answered, "It is good to make your people with wood.  They will speak your name.
They will walk about and multiply."

"So be it," replied the Maker.  And as the words were spoken, it was done.  The doll-people were made with faces carved from wood.  They had children.  But they had no blood, no sweat.  They had nothing in their minds.  They had no respect for the Maker or the creations of the Maker.  They just walked about, accomplishing nothing.

"This is not what I had in mind," said the Maker, and destroyed the wooden people.

In Michoacán, unfilled tamales called corundas are eaten with churipo, a richly delicious beef and cabbage soup.

The Maker sat and contemplated the ears of corn, the kernels of the ears.  The Maker thought, "What comes from this nourishing life will be my people," and the Maker ground the corn, ground the corn and formed Man and Woman.  On the first day, when Man and Woman, formed from corn, awakened, they rose up praising the Maker's name and giving thanks for their lives.  They bore children, they praised the Maker as they planted corn and tended the crop.  They were made in the Maker's image, born from corn.  The Maker and his people rejoiced in one another."

Stone image of Yumil Kaxob.  Photo courtesy of Michael Martin.²

Imagine an entire people formed from corn, formed to honor the seed, the earth, the plant, the crop!  Corn cannot grow without human intervention; ancient Mesoamerican humanity could not have existed without corn.  Spiritual planting rituals continue to be celebrated in the milpas every chosen planting day. 

Corn is still the staple food of Mexico.  Nixtamal (dried dent corn soaked in water and cal, builder's lime) is corn's basic currency.  Nixtamal is the starting point for the tortilla, the tamal, the corunda, the sope, the cup of atole, and a myriad of other masa-based preparations.

This poster advertises a conference about "Nuestro Maíz" (Our Corn) held on June 3, 2008 at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Mexico.

As Mexico changes, corn production also changes.  NAFTA and globalization have affected Mexico's corn industry, as has genetic modification of corn itself.  Is corn food, or is corn fuel for vehicles?  Argument rages about the future of Mexico's corn.  There is, however, no doubt: sin maíz, no hay país.  Without corn, there is no country.

1.  http://www.philipcoppens.com/maize.html
2.  http://www.pbase.com/pinemikey/image/85632845

Crafts, Food and Mayan Culture in Zinacantán, Chiapas: Part Two

If you have not yet read Part One of Mexico Cooks! visit to San Lorenzo Zinacantán, please see the article dated March 1, 2008.

One of several Centros de Artesanía (craft stores) in the town of San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas.

As we drove into Zinacantán, we noticed many large invernaderos (greenhouses) here and there on the mountain slopes.  In addition to the work of artesanía, there is a large flower-growing industry in the town.  Roses, daisies, chrysanthemums and other flowers grow profusely in greenhouses that dot the hillsides around this tiny town in a valley.  The flowers are produced for use in the town as well as for export.

When Mexico Cooks! arrived in the town center, the parish church bells were ringing over and over again--Clang! Ca-CLANG! Clang! Clang!  Ca-clang!--in a pattern that was neither the usual call to Mass nor the clamor (the mournful ring that indicates a parishioner has died). Although the Centros de Artesanía (crafts centers) beckoned and we had really come to shop, we decided to answer the call of the bells and visit the church first.  Many villagers crowded the entryway, watching one of the most beautiful processions I've seen in Mexico.  No photographs are permitted in either the church atrium or the church itself, and I wished so deeply that I had the talent to draw what we were watching.

Young men wearing white cotton shorts embroidered along the hems, thickly furry woven wool cotones, beribboned pañuelos and straw hats processed from a shadowy side chapel carrying huge wicker baskets filled to overflowing with every color rose petal.  The procession came slowly, these young zinacantecos scattering thousands and thousands of petals throughout the candlelit main part of the church.  The wooden floor disappeared under a pink, yellow, red, and white carpet.  Other men wearing ritual black or white woolen cotones followed, stepping reverently on the rose petals, releasing their scent into the air along with the scent of copal burning in the clay incensarios (incense burners) they waved high above their heads. 

Then followed twelve highly honored town elders dressed in even more elaborate ritual clothing bearing three life-size statues on their shoulders.  The statues, each dressed in the finest ropa típica zinacanteca, represented the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and San Lorenzo, the patron of Zinacantán.  The tremendous statues processed, crowned with gold and surrounded by candles and artfully arranged flowers of every description.  The three saints gently tipped this way and that on the shoulders of their bearers as they moved through the nave of the church. 

The first young men of the procession rained thousands more rose petals on the statues as they wended their way slowly through the small church and back into the half-light of the side chapel, where the saints were situated in places of honor in front of the communion rail and altar.

This image, taken inside Templo Santo Domingo in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, shows candles similar to those lit before the saints in Templo San Lorenzo, Zinacantán.

Beneath swooping banners, strings of brightly colored metal ornaments, and tired-out balloons from prior fiestas, church elders lit hundreds of candles to honor the three saints.   Men clad in garments resembling ribbon-festooned woolly black or white sheep hurried back and forth placing candles in large stands, stopping to kneel and pray aloud in Tzotzil.  Meantime, women elders clad in brilliant blue and teal embroidered chales (shawls) crouched on the church floor.  Ritual white cotton rebozos covered their heads and faces, leaving only their black eyes visible, watching the men.  The men lit candles and more candles.  Young boys left greenery around the statues.  In the dimness, a solemn father pinched his laughing son's ear to remind him to respect the ceremony and the saints.

When we could tell that the ceremony was drawing to a close, I asked one of the elders to tell me its significance.  "This is the first Friday of Lent," he replied.  "We'll have this procession the first Friday of every month from now until All Saints Day in November."  He smiled, bowed briefly, and moved away from me.  My partner and I walked slowly out of the church and back into the brilliant Zinacantán afternoon light.  We felt that we had been centuries and huge distances away from this millennium.  And of course, after that much mystical time and space travel, we were starving.  Lunch!  Where would we have lunch?

View of Zinacantán from the floor of the valley, 8500 feet above sea level.

Next week, read Part Three as Mexico Cooks! continues its visit to San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas.

The Heart of Mexico: Our Lady of Guadalupe

The new Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, built between 1974 and 1976, is one of the most-visited religious sites in the world.

My head was whirling with excitement at 7 AM last New Year's Day. I was in a taxi going to the Guadalajara airport, ready to catch a flight to Mexico City. Although I had lived in the Distrito Federal (Mexico's capitol city) in the early 1980s, it had been too many years since I'd been back. Now I was going to spend five days with my friends Clara and Fabiola in their apartment in the southern section of the city. We had drafted a long agenda of things we wanted to do and places we wanted to visit together.

The old Basílica was finished in 1709.  It's slowly sinking into the ground.  You can easily see that it is not level.

First on our list, first on every list of everyone going to Mexico City, is the Basílica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the heart of the heart of Mexico. When I chatted with my neighbors in Ajijic about my upcoming trip, every single person's first question was, "Van a la Villa?" ("Are you going to the Basílica)" 

To each inquirer I grinned and answered, "Of course!  Vamos primero a echarle una visita a la virgencita." (The first thing we'll do is pay a visit to the little virgin!)

The interior of the new Basílica holds 50,000 people.

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is Mexico's patron saint, and her image adorns churches and altars, house fronts and interiors, taxis and buses, bull rings and gambling dens, restaurants and houses of ill repute. The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Villa, is a place of extraordinary vitality and celebration. On major festival days such as the anniversary of the apparition on December 12th, the atmosphere of devotion created by the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims is truly electrifying.

Click here to see: List of Pilgrimages, December 2006.  There are often 30 Masses offered during the course of a single day, each Mass for a different group of pilgrims as well as the general public. 

The enormous Basílica of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Mexico City is the most visited pilgrimage site in the Western Hemisphere. Its location, on the hill of Tepeyac, was a place of great sanctity long before the arrival of Christianity in the New World. In pre-Hispanic times, Tepeyac had been crowned with a temple dedicated to an earth and fertility goddess called Tonantzin, the Mother of the Gods. Tonantzin was a virgin goddess associated with the moon, like Our Lady of Guadalupe who usurped her shrine.

The Tepeyac hill and shrine were important pilgrimage places for the nearby Mexica (later Aztec) capital city of Tenochtitlán. Following the conquest of Tenochtitlán by Hernan Cortez in 1521, the shrine was demolished, and the native people were forbidden to continue their pilgrimages to the sacred hill. The pagan practices had been considered to be devil worship for more than a thousand years in Christian Europe.

Some of you may not know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  For all of us of whatever faith who love Mexico, it's important to understand the origins of the one who is the Queen, the Mother, the beloved guardian of the Republic and of all the Americas. She is the key to understanding the character of Mexico.  Without knowing her story, it's simply not possible to know Mexico.  Indulge me while I tell you.

On Saturday, December 9, 1531, a baptized Aztec Indian named Juan Diego set out for church in a nearby town. Passing the pagan sacred hill of Tepeyac, he heard a voice calling to him. Climbing the hill, he saw on the summit a young woman who seemed to be no more than fourteen years old, standing in a golden mist.

Revealing herself as the "ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God" (so the Christian telling of the story goes), she told Juan Diego not to be afraid.  Her words?  "Am I not here, who is your mother?"  She instructed him to go to the local bishop and tell him that she wished a church for her son to be built on the hill. Juan did as he was instructed, but the bishop did not believe him.

On his way home, Juan climbed the sacred hill and again saw the apparition, who told him to return to the bishop the next day. This time the bishop listened more attentively to Juan's message from Mary. He was still skeptical, however, and so asked for a sign from Mary.

Two days later Juan went again to Tepeyac and, when he again met Mary, she told him to climb the hill and pick the roses that were growing there. Juan climbed the hill with misgivings. It was the dead of winter, and flowers could not possibly be growing on the cold and frosty mountain. At the summit, Juan found a profusion of roses, an armful of which he gathered and wrapped in his tilma (a garment similar to a poncho). Arranging the roses, Mary instructed Juan to take the tilma-encased bundle to the bishop, for this would be her sign.

When the bishop unrolled the tilma, he was astounded by the presence of the flowers. They were roses that grew only in Spain.  But more truly miraculous was the image that had mysteriously appeared on Juan Diego's tilma. The image showed the young woman, her head lowered demurely. Wearing a crown and flowing gown, she stood upon a half moon. The bishop was convinced that Mary had indeed appeared to Juan Diego and soon thereafter the bishop began construction of the original church devoted to her honor.

News of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin's image on a peasant's tilma spread rapidly throughout Mexico. Indians by the thousands came from hundreds of miles away to see the image, now hanging above the altar in the new church.  They learned that the mother of the Christian God had appeared to one of their own kind and spoken to him in his native language. The miraculous image was to have a powerful influence on the advancement of the Church's mission in Mexico. In only seven years, from 1532 to 1538, more than eight million Indians were converted to Christianity.

The shrine, rebuilt several times over the centuries, is today a great Basílica with a capacity for 50,000 pilgrims.

Juan Diego's tilma is preserved behind bulletproof glass and hangs twenty-five feet above the main altar in the basilica. For more than 475 years the colors of the image have remained as bright as if they were painted yesterday, despite being exposed for more than 100 years following the apparition to humidity, smoke from church candles, and airborne salts.

The coarsely-woven cactus cloth of the tilma, a cloth considered to have a life expectancy of about 40 years, still shows no evidence of decay. The 46 stars on her gown coincide with the position of the constellations in the heavens at the time of the winter solstice in 1531. Scientists have investigated the nature of the image and have been left with nothing more than evidence of the mystery of a miracle. The dyes forming her portrait have no base in the elements known to science.

The origin of the name Guadalupe has always been a matter of controversy. It is believed that the name came about because of the translation from Nahuatl to Spanish of the words used by the Virgin during the apparition. It is believed that she used the Nahuatl word coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "koh-ah-tlah-SUH-peh" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe. 'Coa' means serpent, 'tla' can be interpreted as "the", while 'xopeuh' means to crush or stamp out. This version of the origin would indicate that Mary must have called herself "she who crushes the serpent," a Christian New Testament reference as well as a a reference to the Aztec's mythical god, The Plumed Serpent.

 
Thien Gretchen photographed this wonderful group of statues in Seguin, Texas for the Seguin Daily Photo Blog .  Similar statues are for sale at the Basílica.

Clara, Fabiola, and I took the Metro and a microbus to La Villa, a journey of about an hour from their apartment in the south to the far northern part of the city. We left the bus at the two-block-long bridge that leads to the Basílica and decided to take a shopping tour before entering the shrine. The street and the bridge are filled chock-a-block with booths selling souvenirs of La Villa. Everything that you can think of (and plenty you would never think of) is available: piles of t-shirts with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and that of Juan Diego, CDs of songs devoted to her, bandanna-like scarves with her portrait, eerie green glow-in-the-dark figurines of her, key chains shaped like the Basílica, statues of her in every size and quality, holy water containers that look like her in pink, blue, silver, and pearly white plastic, religious-theme jewelry and rosaries that smell of rose petals, snow globes with tiny statues of La Guadalupana and the kneeling Juan Diego that are dusted with stars when the globes are shaken.

There are booths selling freshly arranged flowers for pilgrims to carry to the shrine. There are booths selling soft drinks, tacos, and candy. Ice cream vendors hawk paletas (popsicles). Hordes of children offer chicles (chewing gum) for sale. We were jostled and pushed as the crowd grew denser near the Basílica.

The virgin's image is everywhere.

Is it tacky? Yes, without a doubt. Is it wonderful? Yes, without a doubt. It's the very juxtaposition of the tourist tchotchkes with the sublime message of the heavens that explains so much about Mexico. I wanted to buy several recuerdos (mementos) for my neighbors in Ajijic and I was hard-pressed to decide what to choose. Some pilgrims buy before going into the Basílica so that their recuerdos can be blessed by a priest, but we decided to wait until after visiting the Virgin to do my shopping.

Pope John Paul II loved Mexico, loved Our Lady of Guadalupe, and visited the country five times during his tenure as pope.  Here he celebrates Mass at the new Basílica.

The present church was constructed on the site of the 16th-century Old Basílica, the one that was finished in 1709. When the Old Basílica became dangerous due to the sinking of its foundations, a modern structure called the new Basílica was built nearby. The original image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is now housed above the altar in this new Basílica.

Built between 1974 and 1976, the new Basílica was designed by architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez. Its seven front doors are an allusion to the seven gates of Celestial Jerusalem referred to by Christ. It has a circular floor plan so that the image of the Virgin can be seen from any point within the building. An empty crucifix symbolizes Christ's resurrection. The choir is located between the altar and the churchgoers to indicate that it, too, is part of the group of the faithful. To the sides are the chapels of the Santísimo Sacramento (the Blessed Sacrament) and of Saint Joseph.

One of the many processions that constantly arrive from cities and towns all over Mexico and the Americas.

We entered the tall iron gates to the Basílica atrium. It was still early enough in the day that the crowds weren't crushing, although people were streaming in. Clara turned to me, asking, "How do you feel, now that you're back here?"

I thought about it for a moment, reflecting on what I was experiencing. "The first time I came here, I didn't believe the story about the Virgin's appearance to Juan Diego. I thought, 'Yeah, right'.  But the minute I saw the tilma that day, I knew—I mean I really knew—that it was all true, that she really had come here and that really is her portrait." We were walking closer and closer to the entrance we'd picked to go in and my heart was beating faster. "I feel the same excitement coming here today that I have felt every time since that first time I came, the same sense of awe and wonder." Clara nodded and then lifted her head slightly to indicate that I look at what she was seeing.

Faith

I watched briefly while a family moved painfully toward its goal. The father, on his knees and carrying the baby, was accompanied by his wife and young son, who walked next to him with his hand on his shoulder. Their older son moved ahead of them on his knees toward an entrance of the Basílica. Their faith was evident in their faces. The purpose of their pilgrimage was not. Had the wife's pregnancy been difficult and was their journey one of gratitude for a safe birth? Had the baby been born ill? Was the father recently given a job to support the family, or did he desperately need one? Whatever the reason for their pilgrimage, the united family was going to see their Mother, either to ask for or to give thanks for her help.

Clara, Fabiola, and I entered the Basílica as one Mass was ending and another was beginning. Pilgrims were pouring in to place baskets of flowers on the rail around the altar. The pews were filled and people were standing 10-deep at the back of the church. There were lines of people waiting to be heard in the many confessionals.

We stood for a bit and listened to what the priest was saying. "La misa de once ya se terminó. Decidimos celebrar otra misa ahora a las doce por tanta gente que ha llegado, por tanta fe que se demuestra" ("The Mass at eleven o'clock is over. We decided to celebrate another Mass now at 12 o'clock because so many people have arrived, because of so much faith being demonstrated.")

Indeed, this day was no special feast day on the Catholic calendar. There was no celebration of a special saint's day. However, many people in Mexico have time off from their work during the Christmas and New Year holidays and make a pilgrimage to visit la Virgencita.

The framed tilma hangs above the main altar in the new Basílica.  Photo courtesy of Hernán García Crespo.

Making our way through the crowd, we walked down a ramp into the area below and behind the altar. Three moving sidewalks bore crowds of pilgrims past the gold-framed tilma. Tears flowed down the cheeks of some; others made the sign of the cross as they passed, and one woman held her year-old baby up high toward the Virgin. Most, including the three of us, moved from one of the moving sidewalks to another in order to be able to have a longer visit with the Mother of Mexico.

When I visited several years ago, there were only two moving sidewalks. Behind them was space for the faithful to stand and reflect or pray for a few minutes. Today's crush of visitors has required that the space be devoted to movement rather than reflection and rest.

We walked to the back of the Basílica to look at a large bronze crucifix exhibited in a glass case. The crucifix, approximately 3 feet high, is bent backward in a deep arch and lies across a large cushion. According to the placard and the photos from the era, in 1921 a bouquet of flowers was placed directly on the altar of the Old Basílica beneath the framed tilma. It was later discovered that the floral arrangement was left at the altar by an anarchist who had placed a powerful dynamite bomb among the flowers. When the bomb detonated, the altar crucifix was bent nearly double and large portions of the marble altar were destroyed. Nevertheless, no harm came to the tilma and legend has it that the crucified Son protected his Mother.

After a while, we reluctantly left the Basílica. With a long backward glance at the tilma, Clara, Fabiola, and I stepped out into the brilliantly sunny Mexico City afternoon. The throngs in the Basílica atrium still pressed forward to visit the shrine.

Jackson and Perkins created the Our Lady of Guadalupe hybrid floribunda rose.

We stopped in some of the enclosed shops at sidewalk level and then continued over the bridge through the booths of mementos. After I bought the gifts, we moved away to hail a taxi. My mind was still in the Basílica, with our Mother.

On December 12 the tiny and gloriously beautiful Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Morelia, Michoacán, will be in full fiesta.

Her feast day falls on December 12 each year.  Think about her just for a moment as you go about your day.  After all, she's the Queen of Mexico and the Empress of the Americas.

Glossary of loving terms for Our Lady of Guadalupe

Virgencita	The Little Virgin
La Morenita	The Little Dark-Skinned Woman
La Guadalupana	The Guadalupan
La Reina de México	The Queen of Mexico
La Paloma Blanca	The White Dove
La Emperatriz de las Américas	The Empress of the Americas

How to get there once you're in Mexico City:

• From the Centro Histórico (Historic Downtown) take Metro Line 3 at Hidalgo and transfer to Line 6 at Deportivo 18 de Marzo. Go to the next station, La Villa Basílica. Then walk north two busy blocks until reaching the square.
• From the Hidalgo Metro station take a microbus to La Villa.
• From Zona Rosa take a pesero (microbus) along Reforma Avenue, north to the stop nearest the Basílica.
  
• Or take a taxi from your hotel, wherever it is in the city. Tell the driver, "A La Villa, por favor. Vamos a echarle una visita a la Virgencita." ("To the Basílica, please. We're going to make a visit to the little Virgin.") 

   
   

Spiritual Healing in Mexico

The road to Concepción de Buenos Aires.

The drive deep into the mountains was long, more than two hours from my home in Guadalajara. Many kilometers of the twisting road were rough, pocked with deep potholes. I got stuck behind a slow-moving slat-side truck full to the brim with plastic bags of raw chicken, huge crates of vegetables and fruits, bags of bread and other foods. I was in a hurry to reach Concepción de Buenos Aires, a tiny town well off the beaten tourist path, where I was to meet Sr. Cura Manuel Cárdenas Contreras, the pastor of la Parroquia de la Inmaculada Concepción—the parish of the Immaculate Conception. I'd heard a little about him and his healing work from an acquaintance, but I really couldn't imagine what lay in store for me.

When I arrived, I discovered that it was tianguis (street market) day in Concepción de Buenos Aires. The streets around the town square were closed, blocked by vendors' booths. Rock music blared and the dusty cobblestones were crowded with men in jeans and cowboy hats, women in red-checkered aprons buying vegetables for the day's comida (dinner), and little children tugging at their older siblings' hands as they pleaded for a candy or toy. I squeezed into a parking space and navigated through booths of bolis (a frozen treat), flower arrangements, and DVDs to get to the parish steps.

I made my way through the church to its inner courtyard, where there was a great deal of bustle. A big truck—the very loaded-down truck I had followed along the road to town—was being emptied. One of the women helping with the truck explained to me that all of its contents had been donated for the poor of the town. The food was being divided into bags for individual families. "We do this every week," she beamed. She led me to the entrance to the parish office. "He's in there, just go on in," she encouraged me.

La Inmaculada

Religious pamphlets, candles, and pictures crowded sales shelves in the dim anteroom. What I assumed to be the secretary's desk was unoccupied. I waited a moment for a prior visitor to come out of the priest's office. When the visitor left, a gravelly voice welcomed me. "Come in, come in."

Padre Manuel rose to greet me and we chatted for a bit. A steady stream of townspeople arrived to schedule Mass intentions. "I'll close the office at 12:30," he said, "and we'll go over to the house to talk further. We can have some privacy there."

Just then a tiny elderly woman wrapped up in a shawl came into the office. She was looking for the church secretary, who was indeed taking the day off. Padre Manuel said, "What do you need?"

She said, "I'm looking for a hand."

Father Manuel held up one of his, fingers spread apart. "Here's one."

"Ay, padre, not yours, no no no. It's that I fell and broke my hand, and I promised the Virgin if it got well I'd hang up a hand to say thank you." She wanted to purchase a small milagro, a metal token that she'd hang near an image of the Virgin as a way to say thank you for her healing.

Detail above the altar of La Inmaculada.

He asked to see her hand, which from where I was sitting looked bruised and still a bit swollen. He started rubbing her hand a little and she winced. He said, "You have sugar, don't you?"

"Sí, padre." She nodded her admission of diabetes.

"And I can tell that your hand still hurts. Who were you fighting with?"

"Ay, padre, I fell down!" She giggled. "I guess I was fighting with the ground. The doctor just took the cast off and yes, it still hurts."

He prodded at her hand with his big fingers and then yanked her little finger. Then he prodded around her thumb and yanked a bit. "Move your hand." She tentatively moved her fingers. "No, really move it, bend it, make a fist, wiggle your fingers."

She did, and a slow beautiful grin spread across her face. "It doesn't hurt!" He nodded.

Milagros mexicanos, including human body parts, animals, and other symbols.

Then he said, "How's your hearing?"

"Ay, padre, since my husband died three months ago I can't hear, my ears are stopped up." He put an index finger into each of her ears and snapped them out again in an abrupt motion. Then he tapped one of his index fingers, hard, on the crown of her head. And again. Then he whispered, "What is your name?" No reaction. A little louder. No reaction. And again, this time very loud.

"Consuelo Alvarez Martínez, padre."

He repeated his ministrations, and from behind her, whispered very softly in her ear again. "What is your name?" She answered instantly.

Then he said, "You have trouble with your blood pressure, right?" 

"Sí, padre." He put his hand high on the bony part of her chest and pressed hard. Then he asked her if she got dizzy when she bent over.

"No, padre, but after I bend over and then stand up, I get dizzy."

He said, "Try it."

She did. "A little, padre."

He pressed on the bony part of her chest. "Again."

"Ay padre, still a little."

"Now try." And she said she was fine, no dizziness.

It was all very matter of fact. There were three other people in the room, including me. She went happily on her way, saying she'd be back the next day to pay her debt to the Virgin.

In just a few minutes, Padre Manuel finished writing up the Mass intentions and ushered me through the church, down the sacristy steps, and into the spacious office where he receives people who are looking for his help. Settled at his desk, he began talking about his life.

"I was born in 1931 in Valle Florido, a rancho that's part of the municipality of Concepción de Buenos Aires, to Manuel Cárdenas García and Petra Contreras Cárdenas. I never knew my father. He was killed by eight men just six months after he married my mother. She never remarried, so I was an only child. When I was seven years old, I started primary school out in the country.

"By the time I was thirteen, I had started thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. In those days, there were only a few options. The diocesan seminarians from Guadalajara came out to the rancho on vacation in August that year, and I began to be interested in knowing more about God. I liked the catechism and I decided to go ahead and enter the junior seminary.

"For the first two years, I studied in Tlaquepaque to finish school. Then I entered Señor San José Diocesan Seminary in Guadalajara. After I studied three years of theology in the diocesan seminary in Mérida, I finished my theology studies in Guadalajara and then was sent to the state of Tabasco. I was ordained a priest in Tabasco on July 9, 1961, by Archbishop Fernando Ruíz Solórzano."

Padre Manuel paused and tapped a finger on his desk. "How long were you in Tabasco, Padre?" I asked.

"Sixteen years, all told. Then at the request of the bishop of Ciudad Guzmán, I came back to the archdiocese of Jalisco."

I was puzzled. "How is the archdiocese of Jalisco divided, Padre? I didn't know there were other diocesan divisions."

He smiled. "Yes, we have the archdiocese, with its base in Guadalajara. Then we have three other diocesan seats within the archdiocese: Ciudad Guzmán, San Juan de los Lagos, and Autlán." He ticked the names off on his fingers. "So I was called to the diocese of Ciudad Guzmán and came back to Concepción de Buenos Aires on April 30, 1973. Then in May, I was called to Tuxpan to help with the fiestas of Nuestro Señor del Perdón. On June 13, 1973, I was named pastor at the parish of Teocuitatlán de Corona, in Jalisco.

"I was there for nearly ten years, and then I was asked to be pastor at another parish in Jalisco.

"Finally, in 1994, I was named pastor here at La Inmaculada, in my home town of Concepción de Buenos Aires. And I've been here ever since, eleven years now." He shook his head incredulously at the rapid passage of time.

El Señor Cura Manuel Cárdenas Contreras

"Padre Manuel, many people have told me about your remarkable ability to bring about miraculous cures. Tell me something about how that started."

He leaned forward and looked intensely at me. "I don't cure. God cures. I'm only the means. As a human being, I don't really understand what happens.

"More than twenty years ago, I suffered a lot from terrible back pain that affected my right leg. For eleven months, the pain was intense, day and night. I went to many different doctors, different specialists, as I looked for a cure, but the pain wouldn't leave me and the doctors weren't able to cure me. I was desperate.

"In one of God's mysteries that we as human beings can't understand, I was sent to a doctor, a specialist, in Guadalajara. He was a trained medical specialist, but he also used alternative healing methods. He utilized an alternative energy, he did some things that I can't explain even now. In twenty minutes the pain was gone and I could stand up straight. I went back twice more, and I was cured." Padre Manuel held out his hand and drew in his breath.

"The doctor told me that I also had the gift of healing. I told him no, no I didn't. He said yes, yes I did, and that he would teach me how to use the gift. I refused, over and over again.

"Then one day the doctor said to me, 'So, you wanted to be healed, but you don't want to be an instrument of healing? You wanted to receive, but you don't want to give back?' That stopped me in my tracks. How could I continue to refuse?"

I felt a chill run through my body as I listened to Padre Manuel tell his story. "Please go on," I encouraged him.

"The doctor asked me to come back four times a week, four hours a day, for four months. He said in that length of time he could teach me to use the power for healing that he felt in me. He taught me about the positive energy that comes from women, the negative energy that comes from men, and how they complement one another, the yin and the yang. He taught me about chakras and auras, he showed me how to use ordinary scissors to effect healing.

"I've talked to thousands of people since then, from all social classes. People with health problems come here from everywhere, eager to be healed. Now I'm only able to see people on Fridays and Saturdays. Working in this way is extremely draining, very tiring.

"Recently a family brought one of their daughters to me, all the way from Texas. When she came, she was walking with crutches, with great difficulty. The girl had just had an operation that cost $40,000 USD, an operation that the doctors told the family would allow her to walk again.  The operation was a failure." Padre Manuel pointed to my left. "Look, those are her crutches. When she left here, she could walk as well as you can."

I felt the sharp sting of tears in my eyes. "A friend of mine came to you a few years ago, with terrible back pain. Maybe you remember him—Eufemio García?" Padre Manuel nodded.

I reminisced about his story. "Eufemio had rescued an enormous old crippled dog that had to be bathed frequently to keep her from smelling bad. He used to strip down and hose her off in his patio so he wouldn't make such a mess in his house. One evening he bathed her, let her in the house onto the tile floors, and she slipped and couldn't get up. Eufemio tried to lift her and he slipped, doing the splits on the tiles. Not only had he pulled his muscles, but he developed a bad back injury that prevented him from taking anything but baby steps. He couldn't walk up a flight of stairs and he couldn't step up onto the high curbs we have here.  Some other friends brought Eufemio up to Concepción de Buenos Aires to see you."

Padre Manuel took up the thread of the story. "You know, I cure using scissors. Of course the scissors never touch the person, but they draw energy and cut pain and—well, we don't know exactly how it works, but it does. If I remember your friend, he's a big man, right?"

"Yes, Padre, he's well over six feet tall. Not as tall as you are, but tall."

Padre Manuel nodded. "I would have had him stand in front of me while I passed the scissors over his head, his neck, and down his back. It doesn't sound so impressive or important, but what did he tell you happened to him?"

"He told me that he could have sworn you pressed the scissors against his body as you worked with him. He said he felt their pressure, but one of his friends who was here that day insists that the scissors never touched him. He felt them move over his body in just the way that you described."

The priest nodded again. "She's right, the scissors never touched him. What else did he tell you?"

I thought for a moment. "He said that the pain lessened immediately. He said you told him to bend and touch his toes. He could do it, and there was no pain. Then you asked him to do some knee bends, and again there was no problem. He said he could take normal steps right away, and in about ten minutes he was completely back to normal. He told me he took some teas that you'd prescribed to supplement the healing. He said his pain never came back and he's had no problem with his back since then."

Once again Padre Manuel nodded. "That's excellent, I'm so glad to hear it. Tell your friend to treasure his health.

Blue agave--tequila--fields near Concepción de Buenos Aires

"You know, a Japanese woman, a chemist in Tapachula, brought her daughter to me because she couldn't raise her arms or use them. Now that she has been here, she can. In Spanish, we have a dicho (saying): Querer sanar es media salud (to want to be healed is half of health). I can't explain the mysteries of God in curing people of their problems, but I know it is God who cures. What I do is work with God's energy and the energy of the person who has the illness. That woman you saw in my office earlier today? With God's help, her problems will be healed.

"Just tell people that it is God who heals, it's not me." Padre Manuel clasped my hands and walked me to the door of the church. "Remember, I'm the instrument." He bent down and hugged me. "Vaya con Dios."