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Weekly message
from Fr. Chris
close to us
May 17st, 2026
Dear SPA Family,
Chiapas is one of the poorest regions in Mexico. The mountainous areas with a tropical climate are inhabited by numerous multilingual tribes. One of them, Chamula, lives in the village of San Juan Chamula. Members of the tribe grow corn, sell wood for fuel, and buy the most necessary products for life. Most of them raise cattle that provide milk and meat. Many centuries ago, unprecedented poverty, violence, and brutality in social and family life, as well as distrust of strangers, made this town almost completely closed to outsiders. Then, Christian missionaries came to this area. The Chamula tribe was hostile and suspicious of them. However, this did not discourage the missionaries. They decided not to interfere with the life of the Indian community. They lived outside an Indian village, trying to live according to the principles of the Gospel. The Indians were curious about the life of the Christian community: how they got food, how they related to each other, and how they raised children. Slowly, the missionaries gained the Indians' trust. Some of them got in touch with the missionaries, who, in turn, began to preach to them about Christ, salvation, and the Good News.
The missionaries began to exert increasing influence over the members of the Chamula tribe. Many Indians have abandoned their pagan way of life and embraced Christ. Converted Indians built a community according to the gospel teaching, based on mutual understanding, respect, and love. They also began to be critical of the brutality and violence in tribal and family relations. This attitude met with opposition from those who remained distrustful and hostile towards the missionaries. Persecution of new believers intensified; their houses were burned down, their herds of cattle were slaughtered, and their crops were destroyed. Many of them were murdered.
Some of the new converts did not endure persecution and renounced Christ, while most remained faithful to the end, and it was they who built a new village on the other side of San Cristobal de las Casas, naming it New Hope (Nueva Esperanza). Christ was their hope in time and eternity. With these hopes in mind, they built a community that was fundamentally different from the one they had left. There was more mutual love, consent, kindness, and sensitivity to the needs of its neighbor. The power of Christ, transforming their mortality, opened the prospect of eternity for them.
Christ, through his coming to earth and resurrection, brings a unique hope in the history of humankind. We are especially aware of this mystery on the solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension. Christ visibly ascends to heaven, but mysteriously remains on earth, among us who are on our way to our eternal homeland. On the way to eternity, Christ is strength, wisdom, and nourishment for us.
The reality of heaven is realized in our lives through faith in Christ. To believe is to change our everyday life according to God’s commandments. A person transformed in this way becomes an open book of the Gospel, which brings God closer to others. And thus, we fulfill the faith requirement addressed to the disciples before the ascension: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature!”. Such an open book of the Gospels was the life of the missionaries who came to the Chamula Indian tribe.
Our faith was very often born when we were accompanied by people whose lives were the open book of the Gospels. Our parents, grandparents, other family members and friends are probably among them. We have so many wonderful memories of them. Their first sign of the cross on our foreheads, their persistence in teaching us how to pray, their attention of bringing us up into this earthly and spiritual life, and then their departure into eternity, which opened us even more to the reality of heaven, which Christ shows us in the mystery of his ascension.
Have a blessed weekend. Fr. Chris
this is my mother
May 10th, 2026
Dear SPA Family,
In 1896, a naval battle was fought in which the US Navy, under the command of Admiral Dewey, defeated the Spanish fleet. Just before the start of the fight, an event occurred on one of the American ships which did not influence the outcome of the battle, and which is no less recordable than the battle itself. Well, the wind blew the navy jacket of one of the American soldiers. Without thinking, he wanted to jump into the water after it. This jump could have ended in death. Therefore, the commander firmly forbade him to do so. The sailor, however, ignored the orders of the commander and jumped into the water. He saved the navy jacket, but for disobedience, he faced a sentence of several years in prison. Admiral Dewey had the disobedient sailor brought in and wondered why he had disobeyed the order. The sailor took a wallet out of his salvaged jacket, then took a photograph from his wallet and handed it to the admiral with the words: “This is my mother”. Then, the sailor explained that he always carried this photograph with him. When he jumped into the water, his first thought was to save a photograph of his mother. The admiral, smiling, said: “The sons who risk their lives to save their mother’s photograph will also be ready to lay down their lives for their homeland; they should not be imprisoned like criminals”.
Mother’s Day is the reason for this beautiful love story. What can be a more beautiful gift for a mother than the love of her children? But even the most beautiful love for children is unlikely to balance maternal love. Happy are those who on Mother's Day can visit their mothers, make wishes, kiss, and give them flowers. But it happens that when we have such an opportunity, we underestimate it. This changes when it comes to parting for a while or to say the final farewell to them. I remember my last parting with my mother when I went back to Poland a year ago. While packing my suitcases, a silent inner tension was building up so as not to inflict unnecessary pain in ourselves. My mom became somewhat more oblivious, pensive, and I could see her wet eyes. Mindful, she wanted to put as much as possible into my suitcase as if she wanted to put a part of herself among my belongings. Then, she pushed into my hands a sandwich for the travels – that no meal at the best restaurant can compete with. Finally, after many hugs and never-ending cheek kisses, when the car door slammed, it was impossible to hide the pain of parting. The sobs stayed in the car and in the house… However, for these partings, I know I’ll be rewarded with another visit in June.
But where to find reward and consolation in partings that leave no hope of meeting again. A few years ago, I celebrated the funeral of the late Bolesława – my ‘American-Polish mother’. I saw the family's great love and gratitude for the deceased. I asked if anyone in the family would read the readings during the funeral. A great-granddaughter volunteered. I was a bit surprised because I knew that she didn’t speak Polish very well. Seeing my surprise, the great-granddaughter added: “Prababcia (Great-Grandma) will help me when I have problems with pronouncing some words”. Late Bolesława passed on love, faith, and Polishness to her family. Everyone was grateful to her for the wonderful gift of caring love. During the funeral homily, I spoke about the mother who, while cooking in the kitchen, looked out of the window into the yard where her children were playing. She saw every danger that would threaten her children and was always ready to help them. The children knew about it and therefore felt safe. I always felt safe around her. I remember how one of her children recalled a short prayer before a meal, “Thank you God for mother in the window’. This is also how we can pray after the death of our mothers, adding only: in the heavenly window.
Happy Mother’s Day! Fr. Chris