The Lord of Hope
The Christ buried among the dust of the years carried in the cendal with a paper in which was inscribed «El Señor de la Esperanza» (The Lord of Hope).
The bloody arm and half of the face was the only thing that could be seen of the crucified figure. He was buried in the middle of the old floorless cellar in the temple of San Cristobal Zapotitlán. A mound of ant dirt and dust accumulated over the years covered the figure.
A yellowed piece of paper that fell when the cloth was removed said «Señor de la Esperanza» (Lord of Hope). The cloth was also stained and when touched it broke into pieces. The rickety cross was a pale green color; the Christ figure was complete.
Ruben Solano Gonzalez had dreamed of that Christ without knowing him. He pointed to him precisely, when he went to the temple in search of that crucified one who in his dreams was asking to be taken out of there. Ruben was sick, but his insistent words said that behind the altar was the one who asked him to come out into the light. He had looked for the sisters of the Magdalena Sofia house, he had told his father; it was the sacristan Genaro Reyes Gallardo who took him to him.
-That’s him,» he told him.
A few months later, Ruben died.
-If you want to leave, no one will say anything,» said Genaro to the Christ who was waiting under that sheet of dust, while with the help of a couple of children he undertook the rescue.
Then he placed him in the baptistery; when the nuns saw him, they only asked where the Christ had come from. The priest also gave his approval. That was about 40 years ago.
Genaro became very fond of him, and received miracles from the Christ. Even when he retired for a while from his work in the church, he thought of him with religious fervor.
Upon his return to the village, Genaro found that the priest on duty had baptized him as «Dulce nombre de Jesús» (Sweet name of Jesus). And having performed a miracle on him, the parish priest organized a triduum, 3-days of prayer to honor him. Over the years, the triduum became a novena (a 9-day prayer celebration), and every second Sunday of May the bells tolled in his honor and a mass was celebrated.
In 2022, almost four decades after that discovery, the Señor de la Esperanza receives the honors and fervor of the parishioners, although with a different name.
At 5:00am the first rocket in his honor goes off. The faithful, mostly women, make their way through the cobblestone streets, some carrying a candle. The musicians of the town begin to arrive at the meeting point, today it is to the east.
One of the women in charge of the day walks in front of the procession carrying a one meter high Christ. There are only 25 of us walking towards the temple accompanied by the music.
When they arrive at the church, they are greeted by the ringing of bells and another barrage of rockets.
The Señor de la Esperanza is now dressed in a brown cloth with the chalice and the Holy Shroud in the center, in the middle of a light blue; two days of hard work took the Jocotepec worker, Don Pedro Mendoza Navarro, to weave each thread of wool to give the crucified the premiere on his day.
The voice of a woman stands out and others second her in the final chant, which with difficulty reaches the end because several can be heard coughing; the last minutes are a concert of coughs, which are compensated by the hot cinnamon and the pieces of bread offered at the end by those in charge of the day.
For the procession, the Señor de la Esperanza is adorned with a blaze of golden rays and placed on the platform of a pickup truck. At his side is again Genaro Reyes, who has decorated the mobile altar with white and yellow chrysanthemums for its travels through the main streets of the town, leaving faces dazzled with fervor.
Today he is accompanied by the faithful armed with their flowered and multicolored parasols, as well as with mariachi, the band, and the dancers who honor him.
Upon arrival, the eyes of the faithful are absorbed in the battered face of Christ, the countenance of a woman who is in front seems to be transfigured and the crucified seems not to want to enter when a group of about five men with difficulty enter the temple with the statue on their backs.
-Long live the sweet name of Jesus! shouts a woman’s voice.
-Long live the Lord of Hope! shouts another.
-I think he wanted to get out, because I was able to do it with the help of two children. And now they can’t,» says Genaro.
It is said that many priests who have visited the parish have been very struck by his face, by its realistic deathly appearance; by the deep pain in its half-open eyes and the drama of its fainting body.
They say that according to a restorer who came to see it, the figure was carved by hand in hollow wood, that its fleshy side is covered by a fine paint and the teeth that can be seen through its half-open lips are made of ivory.
Now it is before the eyes of all that Christ who waited for who knows how many years in oblivion, carrying his name girded on the cloth, waiting perhaps for the voices invoking his name.
“Long live the Lord of Hope!”
Translated by Kerry Watson
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