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Catholics celebrate
our Amerindian heritage
By ALWYN DE COTEAU
THE PATRONAL feast of Santa Rosa
is always an opportunity for the community to remember and celebrate
their beginnings as an Amerindian mission.
Every year, the Santa Rosa Carib community has pride of place
in their festivities.
This time an extra dimension has been added to their
celebration with the presence of Fr Donal O’Mahony, an Irish
Capuchin priest, who will be the chief celebrant at the Santa Rosa
festival Mass on Sunday.
The Capuchins have a very special link
to Arima, which began as a Capuchin Mission in 1749.
The Dominicans came in 1512, a few years after Trinidad was
claimed by the Spanish Crown.
The other religious orders active in Trinidad are the Holy
Ghost Fathers; the Benedictines; the Augustinians, who worked in the
Spanish-speaking parishes from 1900 to 1950; and the Presentation
Brothers .
More recently, Trinidad has welcomed the Sons of Mary
Immaculate; the Carmelites; and the Redemptorists in the person of
Archbishop Edward Gilbert.
However, the Capuchins were the most significant group in the
early Trinidad church. They worked as missionaries and parish
priests here between 1687 and 1838. For at least the first hundred
years of this period they comprised the majority of priests in the
island.
The strong and enduring foundation on which the Catholic
Church stands today, not only in Arima but throughout the country,
was built by these missionaries.
They introduced many Catholic customs and elements of
Catholic popular devotion, including devotion to the saints,
novenas, patronal feasts and pilgrimages.
The Santa Rosa celebration itself has its direct antecedents
in the celebrations of the patronal feasts of the Amerindian
parishes of San Juan de Aricagua, San Agustin de Arauca and Sam
Pablo de Tacarigua. The Amerindian inhabitants of these parishes
were moved to Arima in 1786.
The devotions to La Divina Pastora (Siparia) and Our Lady of
Montserrat (Mayo/Tortuga) were also introduced by the Capuchins.
They were instrumental in promoting parang, which was used
originally to evangelise the Amerindians.
When the Capuchins came to Trinidad, only St Joseph existed.
Their missions opened up the island and created the basis for
its subsequent urban development.
The towns of Arima Siparia and Toco owe their existence
directly to the missions that were established there.
The Capuchin missions of Savana Grande became Princes Town,
Montserrate is present day Mayo and San Fernando developed on the
site of Guayria.
The present-day parishes of San Juan and St Augustine have
their origin in the Amerindian parishes of the same name that
existed in these areas.
Fr Donal will be in Trinidad for a couple of weeks.
He was ordained in 1966 and has been involved for all of his
career in peace, justice and ecology, which is known as the
“integrity of creation”.
He has had extensive experience in mediation, both at the
national and international levels.
Fr Donal was the co-editor of the Capuchin Annual for ten
years, a parish priest in Dublin for six years, secretary-general in
Rome for Justice, Peace and the Environment for seven years, and was
recently invited as visiting scholar to Berkeley, where he taught a
course in cosmology.
Last year, he returned to Cork where he is involved in church
work and helping asylum seekers.
While in Arima, he will give two talks, one on “A
Contemporary Spirituality”, taking into account the integrity of
creation and some insights from cosmology, and a second on
“Mediation and Non-violence”. These talks will be on August 29 and
30, following the Santa Rosa celebration.
However, he is here primarily to celebrate Santa Rosa and
visit Arima.
The celebration of Santa Rosa will start with a mass
at 9 a.m. in the yard of the Arima Boys RC School.
This will be followed by a procession around the town.
The procession ends with Benediction in the Santa Rosa Park
where the Capuchins began 252 years ago.
During the afternoon there will be a free concert in the
schoolyard.
A traditional Amerindian lunch will also be available for
sale in the Carib Community Centre.
Thursday is the feast day of Santa Rosa and will be
celebrated on Sunday with a service at the church at 9 a.m.
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