WHAT IS TO GIVE LIGHT MUST ENDURE BURNING.

Bob Wright continues the story of the foundation of the Texas mission:

Since Brownsville was a new town on the north bank of the Rio Grande, the river that had just become the international boundary between the United States and Mexico as a result of the United States war against Mexico in 1846-1848, there was as yet no Catholic church or religious residence. One or the other outlying ranch already had its own family chapel, but the people on what had just become the Texas side of the river had traditionally depended for religious services upon the priests in the Mexican city of Matamoros just across the river. Given its location on the new international border where the Rio Grande flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, Brownsville with its port of Point Isabel was from the beginning an important commercial and administrative center for the entire Lower Rio Grande region of Texas and Mexico that stretched above it along the Rio Grande. As such, especially in the initial years in which United States political, civil, and economic structures were just being established in the region, it drew many European and American adventurers with little interest in religion into what had been and remained a traditional Mexican Catholic rural countryside.

At the beginning the three Oblates struggled with very little support, even from the Mexicans who traditionally gave much respect to priests. The Oblates attributed the Mexican’s initial diffidence to their hearing the priests speaking in English, halting as it was, which the Oblates said made the Mexicans believe that the priests were not really Catholic…

Very gradually, as civil order improved and the missionaries began to learn Spanish, they gained more people’s confidence in Brownsville itself. They were able to recommence celebrating Mass in town on Holy Thursday in a small house lent to them for free, and by the end of June they managed to buy some property on credit and build a small wooden church they named St. Mary. They regularly held separate church services in English and Spanish. By September they were beginning the construction of a boy’s school and hoping to obtain women religious to build one for girls. Ironically, just as things were looking more promising, the Oblates’ earlier letters from Brownsville and Galveston describing the dire conditions in both places had finally reached France. Unaware of the recently improved prospects, the General Council decided to recall to Canada Father Soulerin in Brownsville and Father Gaudet in Galveston, leaving Father Telmon solely responsible for the work in Brownsville. After Soulerin’s departure November 14, Father Telmon continued to minister until he felt his isolated position was no longer sustainable with his weakened health. He finally departed on January 22, 1851.

https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/brownsville-texas-united-states-1849-present/

REFLECTION

“What is to give light must endure burning.” Viktor Frankl

From the ashes of this apparent failure new life was to spring: the Oblates were to return to Texas a year later and to write  a magnificent page of missionary history which endures to this day.