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  Aucayacu, Utah, Peru
Saturday, December 6, 2008

Greetings to all,
In the last blog I think we were all getting ready to jump on the afternoon bus back to Lima from Aucayacu. That´s an overnighter and since we boarded around five it was not very long before nightfall. Fortunately we
had the opportunity to admire all the magnificent scenery on our way to Aucayacu, because it wasn't very long
before we were enveloped in darkness. From time to time we would pass through at mining operation all lit  with seemingly thousands of lights and searchlights, making every one aware of the fact that ¨¨there´s money in them there hills´´and night is no time to sleep. Since we started at a pretty high altitude the descent was easier on the ears than going up.
Yesterday afternoon another trip to themardet downtown to ckeck on all the things Fr. Moe had ordered the last time we were there, remember, curtains to go around the beds in the new wing at Sana Clotilda, two hundred calendars for the people of San Clotilde, and jackets for the people working on the river boats. As always, the market was swarming with crowds looking for whatever.
Since we were in the neighborhood,  it was an opportunity to visit the museum of the Spanish Inquisition. Certainly not one of the most glorious epochs in the history of our Church. I think it lasted a couple hundred years. Fourteen
hundred people were brought to trial and something like twenty-six were sentenced to death and executed. Crimes against the faith were considered the most serious. Long prison sentences were given by the inquisitors and the jail cells and punishments where these poor souls were shackled, hand and foot, were part pf the museums
display for all to see. Now to the Cathedral of Lima. This is the part of the world that is subject to earthquakes.
The Cathedral has suffered more than its share. Recently it has been totally renovated and it is magnificent. December the eighth, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a Holiday in Peru and the Cardinal
of Lima will celebrate Mass at the Cathedral on that day. I don´t know the schedule for the coming week, but if
we are free, it would be a worthwhile experience. I hope we can take it in.
Ever since coming to Peru, the plight of the poor has been the subject of a couple of my impressions, however,
words are such flimsy fragile things and can only give a surface descriptions of something much deeper, and from my first-world view pretty in human. Prayer and the writings of the profit Isaiah in the readings of the Mass of today: "Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not
hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right  or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, ""This is the way walk in it"  For a beautiful meditation for the time of waiting for Christ´s coming, continue to read; Isaiah chapter 30  versus 19 to 21 and versus 23 to 26.
It is a meaningful way to recall God`s gifts to each one of us, and to reflect that Christmas is really much more than a commercial holiday
Blessings to all,
Vaughan. 

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