Faith and Fellowship

Patrick Santino

Piura, Peru

One of the privileges of the Discipleship Stage (formerly known as Pre-Theology) at Mundelein Seminary is the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Piura, Peru. Piura is the third largest city in Peru, sitting at sea-level near the equator and has a dry sandy desert climate. Most of Piura is very poor, a family is substantially wealthy if it has one brick wall somewhere in their home. Overall the trip was an incredible experience: building houses, celebrating Mass at many local chapels, house blessings and distributing sacraments, soccer against a men’s rehabilitation community, singing and dancing at a girls’ orphanage, shoveling manure, a march for life, prison ministry, tug-of-war with students, traveler’s sickness and dehydration, shepherding, and even a beach day on the Pacific Ocean were just some of the highs and lows—it was a proper adventure. Our stay was organized and made possible by the staff of the Santisimo Sacramento parish, headed up by Fr. Joe Uhen, one of the most industrious priests I have ever met.

Beyond the main parish, Santisimo Sacramento has a further 30 mission chapels throughout the poorest wing of Piura. Nightly, our group of two priests and sixteen seminarians would say Mass at one of these chapels. The chapels, no matter what night of the week, were almost always full and we were greeted by signs and banners that made for many warm welcomes. The devotion of the people to their faith was extremely instructive and humbling to see. Most of it had to do with their genuine simplicity. In a way, it partially felt like time-travelling back a couple centuries to what an American missionary parish might have looked like. Despite a recent invasion of smart phones, there is still less going on like sporting events and entertainment to distract people away from Mass. It seems almost a spiritual law of nature that the more materially impoverished one is, the more one must rely and trust in God to provide. And then nowhere have I more seen parishioners treat the priest as in persona Christi, “in the person of Christ”. Every Mass ended with the priests sprinkling the people with Holy Water and then being mobbed by the crowd to have their children blessed or even to hear their confession if time permitted. Perhaps in some respects such post-Mass blessings could be excessive, but each time I walked away thinking: “Yup, that’s what Jesus’ ministry looked like.” It was truly inspiring, here is where I really saw the priest as Christ in action, a divine mediator and shepherd for the people.

From the first evening of staying at Santisimo Sacramento, I felt this was clearly a place where the Kingdom of God is breaking into this world. What do I mean by that? At one point in the Gospels before Holy Week, an imprisoned John the Baptist sends some of his followers to Jesus to directly ask if Jesus is the long-expected Messiah, the real deal. Jesus’ response to them is: ‘See for yourselves, “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised.”’ So even before His Passion, the essentials of the Kingdom of God are already being enacted on Earth, everything only becomes cosmically bigger as Jesus’ ministry goes on. The other detail I believe must have been going on is that while the work was demanding and tiresome, almost everyone apart of Jesus’ ministry was having the time of their life. This is where they were most fully alive and meant to be. I could sense a majority of the Santisimo Sacramento parishioners felt something similar, no matter the many challenges of life ahead. I am extremely grateful to have experienced such a mission trip. These are memories that I will cherish, and that will continue inspire me throughout seminary and for years to come.