If you were to place a camera on the novitiate property near the frontenis court (think of a cross between tennis and racquetball), you’d see our newest lambs, Mochi and Sesame, climbing all over their mom, Doja Cat, while she attempts to lie down. If you looked a little further, you’d see Fr. Matthew Allman and Fr. Javier Morán losing a game against Cody Hill and Son Lai for the first time. Six months ago, Cody and Son could barely get ahead of them, let alone win a game. Yet chill afternoons like these, where the sheep frolic and all of us team up against each other on the court, have been a rarity the past few months.

Last September, we gave away carts of vegetables, including chilacayote, a native squash that overflows our fields during the summer. We traveled to Atlixco to celebrate the feast of St. Matthew with the four Redemptoristines who live there. We harvested the first radishes and lettuce that grew in our garden before grasshoppers came and destroyed the rest in October.

 

We hosted our first formation session for our Partners in Mission on Redemptorist spirituality and joined the Missionaries of Perpetual Help at their General House to celebrate their 90th anniversary. At the end of the month, we started our first batch of wine with guavas from the property – it’s been quite the wait to see how it turns out.

We finished securing three acres of property with fencing in October, opening space for new projects that the sheep can’t get into. We visited El Centro Ceremonial Otomi (an indigenous ceremonial space), started a batch of strawberry wine and a test batch of apple cider, and got more comfortable with initiating even more projects at the Novitiate. We landscaped our larger garden, filling in the garden beds with gravel, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow.

We celebrated El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in November by making our own ofrenda (a traditional altar honoring the dead) and experienced the tradition of visiting the graves of loved ones in Mixquic. We celebrated a Mass and gathered our Partners in Mission on November 9th to celebrate our founding anniversary.

Dang Nguyen and I went with Fr. Matt to Puebla to share our experience as novices, while Efraín Bergsaí, Cody, and Son shared theirs here in Tlalpizahuac. We sold our first production of apple cider and hosted a concert in honor of St. Cecilia.

We led an Advent Retreat in December featuring reflections shared in Spanish by the four of us from the United States. We ended that retreat with a Rosary Walk and a Holy Hour out in the grove. We were immersed in two days of intense celebrations for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Fr. Joaquín Frausto Nájera, Provincial Superior of Mexico, Fr. Gutiérrez Marcos Urbano and Frater Steven Urban helped us during those days, offering Masses every two hours from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm. We witnessed the final vows and ordination of four new deacons for the Province of Mexico: Julio Césár Olguín Antonio, Juan Luis Rivera Arellano, César Osvaldo Osuna Alfaro and Margarito Robles Morales.

We wished farewell to our confrere Steven, who had stayed with us for two weeks, and welcomed Fr. Greg May, who spent Christmas with us on his holiday break from the Bronx. During Las Posadas (the nine days before Christmas), we went to different parishes and held a celebration of our own to experience the tradition of Mary and Joseph asking for a room at the inn. Efraín led us in building a beautiful nativity scene behind the altar in our public chapel, complete with lights and greenery. At Tlalpizahuac and in Atlixco,  we hosted Christmas concerts to help share the joy that Christmas brings to all of us.

We recently welcomed Frater Dilan Calimayor, one of last year’s novices, as he passed through Tlalpizahuac, and celebrated the feast of St. John Neumann with some of our Partners in Mission. We welcomed Bishop Hector Luis Morales Sánchez of the Diocese of Netzahualcóyotl, as he shared his vocation story while listening to our own.

We also wished farewell to Br. Tito López Cartegena as he moved to his new assignment in Ciudad Obregón. Our experience of the novitiate has been unique. We still have all the standard conferences, prayer, Holy Hours, and Masses that would be expected, but our unique position in the local community means we’re a hub for the faithful. Our chapel overflows with people at Sunday Mass every week, and our bell rings frequently with people asking for anointings, Masses, and more.

We’re learning what it means to be available for mission, to serve those who need God’s love most, and the importance of community in a pastorally intensive environment. While those days where we could revel in the peace of the novitiate were rare during December, they reminded me of the importance of silence and spending time in God’s presence as foundational for our lives as Redemptorists. I’m looking forward to enjoying that silence before Lent brings more activity in March. ¡Nos vemos!