Costa Rica Pilgrimage
31/07/13 05:53
Costa Rica is officially Christian. The government embraces the Roman Catholic Church as the official religion of the country. The separation of church and state that is an honored tradition in the United States is unknown in Costa Rica. There are, of course, members of other denominations and religions in Costa Rica. Our congregation has a long-standing partnership with a protestant Christian church. The church is allowed to exist and to do its work by the government, but lacks the official support given to Roman Catholic congregations. In some ways the church is treated as a non-profit social services agency by the government, which inspects the facility for compliance with health codes because it conducts a feeding program. There are some official restrictions on signs and other displays and advertisements for the church but these restrictions are not a problem for our sister church which sees its role in the community as that of a servant.
As a country with an official religion, there are public and government holidays for religions events and gatherings. This Friday, August 2, is an official holiday for the annual pilgrimage to the Basilica Nuestra Senora de los Angeles, located in the old colonial capital city of Cartago. But the actual pilgrimage is already underway and most businesses will be closed on Thursday as well. Thursday is the day of the official pilgrimage mass at the basilica. Millions of pilgrims participate in the event, many of them walking the 22 km (a little over 13 miles) from San Jose to Cartago as a sign of their faithfulness. Pilgrims travel by horseback, on foot and some even make the trek on their knees.
The tradition is that on August 2, 1635, a young indigenous girl discovered a small, black statue of the Madonna with her child on a rock in the forest outside of Cartago. Attempts to remove the statue failed and the word spread of the discovery. The Virgin Mary eventually became Costa Rica’s patron saint. Many Costa Ricans see the pilgrimage as a mark of faithfulness. Some, coming from distant parts of the country walk for a month or more. Others, like President Laura Chinchilla will participate in the traditional hike for a day or less. The tradition of completing the hike by traveling the last several hundred meters on their knees is observed by only a small percentage of those who come to attend the mass.
There is additional attention to the pilgrimage this year because the healing of a Costa Rican woman by Pope John Paul II has been officially ruled a miracle and paved the way for the consecration of the Pope as a saint. Floribeth Mora, who lives in Cartago, Mora was diagnosed with an inoperable and incurable brain aneurism. Mora received a visit from the late pope who invited her to get up. Later medical evaluations showed no sign of the aneurism. The Vatican officially confirmed the healing as a miracle on July 5. Legend holds that there have been many other miraculous healings associated with the basilica in Cartago.
The Tico Times reported that nearly 2 million people participated in the pilgrimage last year. The total population of Costa Rica is only 4.7 million. About a 1.5 million people live in the San Jose and its suburbs. Although some people from outside of the country participate in the pilgrimage each year, the vast majority of pilgrims are Costa Ricans. It is estimated that nearly half of the people in San Jose participate in the annual pilgrimage.
The large numbers of pilgrims in a country with a relatively small population means that there is a need for significant infrastructure to support the pilgrims. Emergency medical treatment stations are set up. The Red Cross mobilizes over a thousand volunteers to assist pilgrims each year.
It is not uncommon for pilgrims to walk only one way in the process, taking the train or obtaining rides back home after participating in the mass. There is train service from San Jose to Cartago and trains are expected to be running at capacity for the return on Friday and Saturday.
There is nothing in my own experience to help me understand the dynamics of mass pilgrimages. I read about them occurring in places around the world and I am struck by the power of such events in the lives of some of the participants, but I think of a pilgrimage of faith as something a bit less public and a bit more individual. My faith has never found its strongest expressions by being part of a crowd. Doing what everyone else around me is doing doesn’t seem to bring out the deepest side of my faith. Taking a stand on my own requires a more careful examination of my faith.
Were I in Costa Rica at the time of the pilgrimage, I think I would watch from afar rather than participate. I’m not a big fan of crowds in the first place. But I understand that the pilgrimage is deeply meaningful for some of the participants.
If I were in Costa Rica this week, I suspect that I’d be working with our church to help neighbors prepare for water outages that will occur this weekend. Most of the Desamperados area will be cut off from water from noon until 5 p.m. on Sunday, which means that there will be no water at the church for the lunch that is served on Sundays. The official agency that announced the water cut offs says that the water will be on for about an hour from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and then off again until 11 p.m., but seasoned Costa Ricans know better than to count on that hour of water. Chances are that once the water is turned off there will be delays and problems with getting it turned back on again. The outages are part of a large hydroelectric project that will result in additional turbines and additional electrical generating capacity for the city. Installation of the turbines requires major changes in water pipes that also supply municipal water to the city.
It should be an interesting weekend in Costa Rica. But then again they all are when you look at the country through the eyes of an outsider. We gringos never really understand the country.