Sr. Karen Thein cherishes memories of Christmases in Guatemala

There was a sense that we were truly preparing for the coming of Christ.”

Sister Karen Thein SSND, former missionary in Patzun, Guatemala

Her first Christmas on mission in Guatemala was vastly different from the rest.

“I was there when we had the earthquake in 1976,” Sister Karen Thein SSND recalled, “and our village was almost completely destroyed.”

Only 18 houses in Patzun, where she was serving, were left standing after the earthquake.

The sisters’ convent and the school where they taught about 1,000 children were both leveled.

“That was a difficult Christmas,” said Sr. Karen. “We didn’t celebrate that year the way we usually did. But then, we started to build up again, and we celebrated each year after that.”

Sr. Karen, a School Sister of Notre Dame now serving as a pastoral minister for Holy Cross Parish in Cuba, St. Francis Caracciolo Parish in Bourbon and St. Michael Parish in Steelville, was a missionary in Guatemala from 1976-1989.

The country is located in Central America, south of Mexico.

Vivid memories remain with Sr. Karen of the sights, sounds and tantalizing aromas of those Guatemalan Christmases.

“It was a long time ago, and I know some things have changed,” she said, “but when I was there, the best preparation was through the Posadas.”

“Las Posadas” — which means “The Inns” in Spanish — is a communal celebration that takes place throughout many Latin American countries in the nine days leading up to Christmas.

It is a reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s long and frustrating search for a place to rest and to have Mary give birth to her baby.

Participants spend nine evenings actively preparing to open their own hearts to welcome Christ on Christmas.

“We would begin on Dec. 16,” Sr. Karen noted. “And because there were all of these little villages outside Patzun that belonged to Patzun, we would go to a different canton or aldea every day.”

They’d walk at night by lantern light, because there were no cars in Patzun at that time.

“We would pray the Rosary together and sing while we were walking,” she said.

The people sang in the  Cakchiquel, of which Sr. Karen only knew a few words.

“I knew how to say God and things like that,” she said.

When the group of about 30 people would arrive at one of the little enclaves, a local family would be waiting for them.

The group would knock on the door and ask for a place for Jesus.

In the mode of the innkeeper in Bethlehem, the family would say there’s no room.

The people in those homes would walk to another enclave the following night and perform the same ritual.

Sr. Karen would walk with many of them, because she was a pastoral minister of their parish.

“They weren’t very far,” she noted. “They were probably a half-hour away.”

Then, on Dec. 24, people from all the places the group had visited would walk to the church in the center of Patzun.

“We’d have a large fire outside the church,” she said.

People would bring special treats to share — tamales with pork or chicken in them.

“And they would be wrapped in a banana leaf, not a corn husk,” Sr. Karen noted.

Everyone would sing joyful songs, because Jesus was born.

“And they would have firecrackers!” said Sr. Karen. “That was one of the big things. People would bring them down to the fire pit and set them off there at midnight.”

Then, they would carry an image of the Christ Child into church, which would be adorned with fragrant plants and mosses hung from the ceiling.

“It was absolutely gorgeous!” said Sr. Karen. “And there’d be pine needles on the floor.”

After Midnight Mass, the sisters would walk back to their convent, stopping to greet people at homes along the way.

“And they always gave us more tamales with the meat in them,” she said.

A local gentleman would cut a large  branch from a tree — not necessarily an evergreen — to be the sisters’ Christmas tree.

People would come and decorate it with little apples strung together.

“It was different but it was all the natural materials,” she said. “And the people did it for us. They would bring in the apples and string them.”

The gift of oneself

Sr. Karen was amazed by the beauty and distinctiveness of the Guatemalan Christmas traditions she got to be a part of.

“Throughout the world, people of different cultures celebrate the coming of Jesus in ways that are meaningful to them,” she noted.

“When I was in Guatemala, what they did there was very meaningful for me,” she said. “But I also missed how we do it here.”

Over time, she entered more deeply into the Guatemalan culture and grew in appreciation of it.

“You begin to see how everyone is different, but we’re all looking for that same kind of Christmas spirit, and knowing that the Son of God is born in areas all over the world,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter how we celebrate. God comes to that.”

Years after returning to the United States, Sr. Karen still appreciates how Americans celebrate the birth of Christ.

“But I honestly miss how they did it in Guatemala,” she said. “There was a sense that we were truly preparing for the coming of Christ.

“It was carrying the dreg of hot chocolate,” she stated. “It was sitting on mud floors in people’s homes. The natural elements were always there. It wasn’t fancy.

“It was all the natural things and the very human and deep love that people had there,” she stated.

She said it’s too easy to make Christmas celebrations fancy at the expense of the things that are natural.

“Jesus came in a very, very humble way and gave himself,” she said. “And I think that’s the invitation he gives us.

“Wherever you are and however you celebrate, I think that invitation is to take who you are and present that to the Lord and not feel like you have to be someone else.

“We let him be born to who we are, and that’s what we give back to God,” she said.