My Personal Expertise of “Las Posadas”
As a toddler in a multicultural household, I had the privilege of celebrating the Creation and Christmas seasons in many alternative methods. I grew up in a household that made room for singing villancicos1 and making Costa Rican tamales with espresso in addition to singing Las Posadas and making Mexican tamales with champurrado.
By the point I used to be a teen, Las Posadas was a really well-established custom in Costa Rica, though we knew that our “Costa Rican Posada” was totally different from the unique Mexican Posadas. Ours was very a lot organized in church and had a really spiritual character. Even the priest was current every now and then. It didn’t occur on daily basis by way of the 9 days earlier than Christmas, however we had not less than two or three gatherings to recollect the story of Mary and Joseph searching for room within the inn for the start of the newborn Jesus. We’d reenact the story. The church choir would lead us in singing villancicos. We’d pray for the wants of our neighborhood and share tamales and low.
After I migrated to america in 2005, It was clear that Las Posadas had turn into one of the vital vital celebrations for the Hispanic neighborhood. As a director of the Spanish-singing choir at St. Paul’s Catholic Heart in Bloomington, Indiana, I used to be a part of a bunch of leaders who organized the members of our small Spanish-speaking ministry. Individuals would volunteer to host Las Posadas in their very own properties and provide a standard meal for the attendees. Though it might get very chilly in December in Indiana, we might begin by gathering at a selected level within the neighborhood of the host household. Then we might course of with the collectible figurines of los peregrinos2. Los peregrinos would sit on a conveyable mattress, adorned with poinsettias and tinsel, with 4 holders—one in every nook—so folks may take turns carrying los peregrinos from station to station. The stations have been households of households that the host household would have pre-arranged to go to because the procession of individuals with los peregrinos would go visiting every family.
In every station we might sing a verse or two of the Posada track. Once we arrived at every station, the procession would divide in two teams, the innkeepers, which fashioned a smaller group, and the pilgrims. The pilgrims would knock on the door and sing the verse of the track asking for room within the inn, and the innkeepers would reply from inside the home singing and turning the pilgrims away as a result of, because the track goes, “who is aware of . . . it may very well be a stranger making an attempt to rob the home . . . or worse . . . and it’s too late anyway to be knocking on folks’s doorways . . .” After being turned away, the procession would proceed. We’d sing conventional Christmas songs whereas strolling with candles in our palms till our arrival to the following station.
On the final station, which is normally the house of the host household, we might sing the final two verses, and Mary and Joseph would obtain welcome not solely into the home, but additionally into our hearts to dwell for the remainder of the yr. Then we might take pleasure in a fiesta impressed by their welcome that normally included a piñata for the kids.
The celebration and the piñata have been of nice significance for Las Posadas, as it is usually a celebration of the graces of God that we take pleasure in with the best present of all, Jesus our Savior. The normal piñata has seven triangles protruding of a circle. Every of those triangles is a logo of a lethal sin (in Catholic faith). By hitting the piñata, we’re destroying the ability of sin, and the sweet that falls from the circle within the center is a logo of the candy grace of God that falls indiscriminately over all youngsters of God.
The Threefold Origin of “Las Posadas”
I feel Las Posadas has a threefold origin as a result of it’s impressed by the story of salvation of the folks of God, the place God so cherished the world that God turned incarnate in human type to avoid wasting the world. Posadas additionally has a historic origin on the time of colonization, and it has a phenomenological origin as a result of it in a short time developed as a response of inculturation and widespread religiosity in Mexico.
In “Room in the Inn: Ideas for Celebrating Las Posadas,” Hugo Olaiz, Spanish editor for Ahead Motion, affords this abstract of the custom:
“In Mexico and a few elements of Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, it’s conventional to carry Posadas through the 9 days earlier than Christmas, starting December 16 and ending December 24. Las Posadas are a reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s lengthy, irritating seek for a spot the place the newborn Jesus may very well be born. The custom reenacts the story informed in Luke 2:1–7 however with a twist: a cheerful ending with the “innkeeper” welcoming Mary and Joseph into the house. We be taught from Las Posadas that by welcoming the poor and the needy, we’re welcoming Jesus into our midst (see Matthew 25:40).”3
The Augustinian Friar Diego de Soria is credited with receiving papal approval in 1586 for particular Christmas plenty known as “Misas de Aguinaldo” to be noticed all through Mexico through the 9 days earlier to Christmas day (see “‘Las Posadas,’ nine days of celebration in Mexico,” The Yucatan Occasions [Dec. 15, 2016]). Nevertheless, you will need to acknowledge that one of many major causes for the Aztec communities to simply accept the Roman Catholic celebrations was that they lined up nearly completely with the celebrations of the Aztec deities. For example, based on the Aztec calendar, Tonantzin (the mom of the gods), is well known on the winter solstice, and the solar god, Hutzilopochtli, was born through the month of December.
Olaiz factors out that “as usually occurs in widespread religiosity, the custom and the track range from area to area,”4 however the concepts of welcoming the newborn Jesus, the presents of grace and salvation, welcoming the stranger, hospitality, and gathering because the household of God are all the identical.
A Phrase about Hispanic Common Religiosity
Whereas lots of the accounts from the time of colonization inform us that the Spanish have been capable of wipe out and away the Indigenous tradition, we now know that it was way more difficult than that. I feel that what we find out about traditions like Posadas, the Day of the Useless, or the celebration of our Girl of Guadalupe is that Indigenous tradition and celebrations didn’t disappear however moderately took a unique type. Furthermore, the Spanish spiritual expressions didn’t stay the identical however have been reworked by way of a technique of inculturation: the Indigenous folks tailored to Christianity, and orthodox Christianity was additionally equally formed by the Indigenous understanding of spirituality.
Each time we rejoice Las Posadas, Día de Muertos, or La Virgen de Guadalupe, we’re embracing a Christian perception that has been formed by the Indigenous understandings of neighborhood, the cosmos, and spirituality. In these celebrations, joyful music, native meals, processions, dressing up, and piñatas play a significant half in a really a lot layered spiritual celebration.
Whereas lots of the books on the historical past of evangelization of Mexico will inform you that the missioners have been making advances towards having the Indigenous folks settle for the Spanish language and Christianity as a brand new system of perception, anthropologist J. Jorge Klor de Alva describes the accounts from sixteenth-century friars as missioners in what we all know immediately as Mexico in a unique and way more credible method. In his essay “Aztec Spirituality and Nahuatized Christianity,” Klor de Alva particulars the accounts of friars like Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590) and Diego Durán (1537–1588), who recorded fixed issues with the natives resulting from “ignorance, indifferences and resistance to the teachings of the church,” suggesting that few, if any, have been true (Christian) believers.5 Klor de Alva additionally writes that by the seventeenth century, nearly all Mexicans (or natives in Mexico) have been pushed to dwell in rural areas, surrounding haciendas, and different productive items, and basically, the natives weren’t a part of the financial, political, or spiritual lifetime of the Spanish colony. Klor de Alva factors out that by this time, the idea of the church was that everybody had been baptized and evangelized, and solely sporadically, the monks discovered proof of “idolatrous exercise.”
Evidently by way of being pushed away from the political facilities and a scarcity of assets, the Indigenous communities took it upon themselves to develop their very own Christianity, discovering a method for each the Aztec perception system and Christianity to coexist, mix, and stability. A spirituality and a well-liked religiosity with minimal oversight from the church developed as a consequence of their adaptation and their very own understanding of Christianity through the colonial period.6 That is vital as a result of it identifies a metamorphosis, an inculturation interval, and it names the isolation and marginalization of the native Mexicans as a situation that results in the event of this spiritual phenomenon. It’s also vital as a result of Hispanic widespread faith served to root Christianity within the lives of the brand new Christians in ways in which the official liturgy couldn’t—ways in which have been led by lay leaders outdoors of the official temples and basilicas.
Within the Episcopal Context
In “Room within the Inn,” Olaiz explains that, within the Episcopal Church, Las Posadas have taken totally different kinds.7 Some church buildings set up an occasion that takes place in at some point, and different congregations do the entire 9 days. Some communities collect in neighborhoods, and others do it in church.
Father Anthony Guillén, Canon Missioner for Latino Ministries of the Episcopal Church, additionally encourages congregations to “expertise the incarnational facet of the Posadas,” as Olaiz notes. Guillén says, “Mary and Joseph are rejected, homeless folks. . . . The entire level of the Posadas is to remind us what it’s wish to expertise chilly, fatigue, and rejection; so it’s essential for the pilgrims to stroll for a very long time within the chilly.”8
A Theology of Hospitality
Las Posadas is about welcoming the stranger, about hospitality, and about constructing neighborhood. Paradoxically, after I migrated to america, lots of the households that I visited, for whom I helped organized Las Posadas, have been the households of undocumented households who had during their journey to america discovered themselves unhoused. They’d been searching for a spot the place they’d be welcomed, the place they might see themselves as a part of a neighborhood, and the place they might increase their youngsters. Lots of the households had been residing in Bloomington, Indiana for a few years, and their entire prolonged households have been right here, too. These have been households the place yr after yr I noticed the households develop.
I notably keep in mind a household from Puebla, Mexico, by which the grandmother was the primary one to return. Yearly, she would proudly sit subsequent to me and begin introducing me to the brand new grandbabies and great-grandbabies. She had three daughters, and all of them got here to rejoice Las Posadas. All of them participated within the cooking, and all of them introduced their husbands, wives, and youngsters. Whereas they weren’t a very rich household, they have been proud to supply a formidable show of conventional meals, not just for the members of our Latino ministry, however for anybody who got here. Strangers have been welcome and have become pals, no questions requested. To reject the meals would have been a terrific offense, and since I used to be in command of music, to cease singing would have been seen as boastful on my half.
At a second in america the place a lot of the political rhetoric has criminalized and dehumanized the lives of our immigrant neighbors, the phrases of scripture resound with renewed urgency: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you because the native-born amongst you; you shall love the alien as your self, for you have been aliens within the land of Egypt: I’m the Lord your God” (Lev 19:33–34); and “You shall not fallacious or oppress a resident alien, for you have been aliens within the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan” (Ex 22:21–22). We’ve realized again and again from the tales of courageous biblical immigrant girls like Ruth, Hagar, Rebecca, and Mary that the well-being of the folks of God is carefully linked to the well-being of those that are the least amongst us.
This yr, I invite you to expertise Las Posadas in your neighborhood. However, as an alternative of placing your self within the place of the one who extends hospitality or reaches out, permit your self to expertise hospitality from a Latina household. This yr, make room in your coronary heart to simply accept room within the inn, to be taught to sing Christmas songs in Spanish, stroll facet by facet with the pilgrims, knock on a stranger’s door, and be welcomed into their dwelling. Attempt scrumptious meals ready by a loving immigrant household, convey your youngsters to interrupt a piñata, and rejoice the presents of God indiscriminately shared in your neighborhood.
Notes & Works Cited
- Villancicos are conventional people tunes originated within the sixteenth century. In Latin America, the phrase “villancicos” has developed to imply particularly Christmas people tunes. ↩︎
- Los peregrinos, or the pilgrims, are little statues of Joseph and Mary. Typically the donkey is a part of it too. ↩︎
- Hugo Olaiz and Yuri Rodríguez, “Room within the Inn: Concepts for Celebrating Posadas” (Ahead Motion, 2015), 1. ↩︎
- Olaiz and Rodríguez, “Room within the Inn,” 1. ↩︎
- J. Jorge Klor de Alva, “Aztec Spirituality and Nahuatized Christianity,” in South and Meso-American Native Spirituality: From the Cult of the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation, eds. Gary H. Gossen and Miguel León-Portilla (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 175. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Olaiz and Rodríguez, “Room within the Inn,” 1. ↩︎
- Quoted in ibid., 2. ↩︎
Featured picture of “Piñatas on the market on the Tlalpan Market in Mexico Metropolis” (Dec. 16, 2023) is by Paricutina on Wikimedia Commons and printed as public area underneath Inventive Commons CC0 1.0 Common Public Area Dedication
