By Fr. Scott Nemec
Assistant pastor, St. John the Apostle, Lincoln
Hispanic Ministry
The home altar is set with flowers and candles, all the chairs in the house line the living room, and the kitchen is filled with the sweet aroma of Mexican food. It’s time to welcome the Blessed Virgin Mary and her pilgrims into the home!
In Hastings, each evening in the month of May, the month of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a family signed up to host the rosary and a meal at their home. The host families each night invited extended family members and friends from the Hispanic community, usually filling their homes with 10 or more guests. As everyone enters, they are welcomed with warmth and kindness: “es su casa.”
Among the guests, the host of the rosary from the previous night brings the pilgrim Virgin Mary statue, a beautiful statue of Our Lady with the Child Jesus in her arms. The pilgrim Virgin Mary receives a place of honor at a home altar in the living room. When all of the guests arrive, the rosary begins. Decade by decade, we enter the mysteries of the life of Jesus, together with Mary.
As we reflect on the mysteries, Our Lady draws us into the life of her son. As we repeat the Hail Mary over and over, our attention, our minds and hearts, are continually given over to Mary who is our mother and Intercessor. At these rosary gatherings, apart from the usual decades and mysteries, we begin with prayers honoring Our Lady, sing Marian hymns between the decades, and end the rosary on our knees with the Litany of Loretto. The Mexican way of praying the rosary was new to me when I began Hispanic ministry, and is something that I am still learning!
This might sound like a tranquil evening, but these rosaries are often far from a monastic, contemplative experience. There are usually kids running around, jumping on mom and dad asking if it’s time to eat yet, maybe some dogs barking in the back room, the leaders of the mysteries flipping through their prayer book trying to decide which song we are going to sing next. It could be easy in these moments to get distracted and frustrated, another “failed attempt” to pray the “perfect rosary.”
Although silence and stillness are ideal for prayer, these moments of imperfect prayer serve as a reminder for all that prayer is meant to touch the entirety of our lives: the perfect and imperfect, the ordered and the disordered. Mary wants to be close when your kids are misbehaving, when you are distracted by your circumstances and surroundings, or frustrated by your family’s inability to sit still for more than 10 seconds. This is real life, and Jesus and Mary want to be a part of real life.
When we pray, God does not simply enter into how we wish things were, God wants to enter into our real life, in all its imperfections, to make us holy there!
As the rosary concludes, the host moves to the kitchen, stirs the beans, opens up the pot full of rice and meat, heats the tortillas, and everyone digs in on some delicious Mexican food. For the Mexican culture, food is life. If you are going to spend time with people, you are going to eat food together. Often if you go to someone’s house, there will be food offered. No wonder Mexican food is so good! As everyone gathers around to eat, we often talk about how spicy the salsa is and who can eat the spiciest salsa without crying! This time of sharing a family meal and enjoying each other’s company is deeply intertwined with the Hispanic culture and it has a wonderful way of bringing people together.
As I reflect on these times of visiting the homes of parishioners in Hastings, praying the rosary, and sharing a delicious meal, it makes me think of Nazareth. When a family opens their home to guests, “es su casa,” and gives Mary the place of honor with a family rosary, they claim their home for the Holy Family. It is as if they are saying to Mary, “es su casa,” “Mary this is your house, your family.” In this way, with Mary as mother of the home, it becomes a sort of Nazareth right here in Nebraska!
I encourage families to consider how your family might incorporate the rosary into your home life, and how family meals can become a sacred time of sharing and enjoying each other’s company. After all, home life is real life, and that is where Jesus is.
