Easter Sunday in Pátzcuaro

This morning dawned clear and bright at Casa Mariposa.  Easter Sunday was heralded by the inimitable sound of cohetes—rockets, or large firecrackers—calling the Faithful to Mañanitas, Morning Prayers.  I'm not quite sure why the cohetes sound so reassuring and friendly; perhaps it is knowing that they take the place of bells in the smaller churches around Lake Pátzcuaro.

Easter Sunday is mostly a Family Day.  Our favorite restaurant in Pátzcuaro, el Camino Real (the King's Highway), is decorated for the occasion with blown-out eggs hung on a tree. The symbolism is unclear, but eggs are clearly fertility symbols in anticipation of the approaching planting season.

The restaurant's cocineras (Mexican chefs are traditionally women) will be kept hopping all day preparing  almuerzo (brunch) in the late morning, followed by comida (dinner) in the afternoon.

Tables will be set up in a covered patio area in front of the restaurant to accommodate customers. Meanwhile, the restaurant's cheerful meseros (waiters) will quickly push tables together to accommodate family groups easily numbering ten, fifteen, even twenty or more people per family.

One of my favorite sounds in Mexico is the muted, comfortable sound of family conversation punctuated by the gentle laughter that seems to come easily and often during these family celebrations.

Easter Message from Pátzcuaro

For this extranjera (foreigner) living as embedded as possible in a Mexican neighborhood, it is increasing awareness of and respect for the acute Mexican sense of the dualism that characterizes all life.

In the Mexican sensibility, every condition of human life is characterized inevitably by its opposite state—life and death, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, success and failure, bitter and sweet—the list is as infinite as the states of the human condition.

When we first arrived, I experienced as jarring, discordant, the automatic reminder by our Mexican friends of a condition's opposite state.  Being reminded of a condition's opposite denied me the luxury of relishing—or wallowing in—a current state.

But over time, I've discovered the wisdom inherent in recognizing the Essential Duality of Life:  no condition—positive or negative—lasts forever.  I'm mindful of St. Paul's comment from his imprisonment:  "I've learned in whatever state I am, therein to be content." 

It is in this context that perhaps we can approach an understanding of the suffering and penance of Good Friday and Holy Saturday as the necessary precursor for celebration of the Risen Christ on Easter Sunday.

¡Feliz Pascua!  Happy Easter!