CRUZ DAS almas: a BRAZILIAN VILLAGE' — PIERSON 



153 



[irrival of the first bus in the village and of the 

 news of the German surrender in the last war. 



MASS, REZA, AND NOVENA 



"The principal hour of religion," said a vil- 

 ger, "is the hour of the Mass." At 7 : 30 and 

 again at 10 o'clock each Sunday, as has been in- 

 dicated, Masses are held in the village church. 

 The 10 o'clock ceremony is the regular parish 

 Mass. The earlier one is sometimes said for the 

 soul of a deceased person.^- 



At the 7 : 30 Mass there is communion but no 

 sermon or singing. At the 10 o'clock Mass on 

 a recent Sunday, following the preliminary rituals 

 common to the Roman Catholic Church, the padre 

 read the "Gospel for the First Simday of the 

 Forty Days (Lent) " in which the fasting of Jesus 

 "during forty days and forty nights" and "the 

 temptation in the wilderness" are recounted, and 

 commented upon this passage. The padre then 

 said: 



My dear brethren, "the Gospel of the First Sunday of 

 the Forty Days" affords us a lesson from which we 

 all can learn. When Satan tempted Jesus during his fast, 

 Jesus could have yielded for he is Lord of Heaven and 

 Earth and has power to transform stones into bread. 

 But if he had done so, the lesson which he wished to 

 give to the world would have been lost. So he rebuked 

 Satan, saying, "Man does not live by bread alone but 

 also by the Word that comes from God." My dear 

 brethren, there are persons who, although they work 

 without ceasing, from morning until night, still live in 

 want. They should not, for tlds reason, however, allow 

 themselves to be tempted and to leave the way of God. Be- 

 cause it is not only by bread that man lives but also by 

 the Word of God. Our life here in this world, my dearest 

 brethren, soon passes away. Our purpose in this life 

 is to gain heaven whicli is our permanent dwelling place. 

 We should never let Satan tempt us with the things of 

 this world. Riches are worth nothing if we leave off 

 worshiping God. We cannot take them to the other world ; 

 everything must remain here. When the rich man dies, 

 he may have a coffin which is very fine but it is put be- 

 neath the ground and consumed by it like any other. 

 To gain heaven we need to repel the temptations of Satan 

 as Christ taught us to do, saying : "Get thee hence, Satan, 

 for it is written. Worship the Lord thy God and Him 

 only."-'^ 



Most attendants at Mass are adults, adolescents 

 being fewer than their percentage in the total 

 population. At a recent Mass, for instance, 5-± 



percent of those present were adults, 30 percent 

 small children, and only 16 percent adolescents. 

 Women and girls ordinarily attend Mass in 

 greater percentages, and men and boys in lesser 

 percentages, than their actual distribution in the 

 population. Of 95 persons present at the 10 

 o'clock Mass on a recent Sunday, for instance, 32, 

 or one-third, were men and boys, 63, or two-thirds, 

 were women and girls. Of the 78 persons present 

 on another occasion, 39 percent of the adults were 

 men, 61 percent were women; 30 percent of the 

 adolescents were boys, 70 percent were girls. The 

 children were about evenly divided as to sex. At 

 Masses held on Sundays immediately preceding 

 Christmas, however, on Palm and Easter Sunday, 

 and during other special seasons in the year, 

 especially at the 10 o'clock Mass, the men and boys 

 are present in larger numbers so that their per- 

 centages in the congregation are more in keeping 

 with their distribution in the population. These 

 various data are indicated in tables 13 and 14. 



Table 13. — Attendance at7:S0 Mass, by age and sex groups, 

 village church, Cruz das Almas, six Sundays during No- 

 vember and December, 1948 and January, 1949 



'^^ The fee, in this case, is 10 cruzeiros. 



"" In a sermon at another Mass, after reading from the Gospels 

 the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the padre said, "Work 

 gives man dignity. It is not a punishment from God ; it is a 



blessing. God blesses the hands of the worker and this blessing 

 extends to his house and his family. No one should despise the 

 man who works the land. He struggles from early in the morning 

 until late at night to support his family and to rear his children. 

 This is noble and praiseworthy. He who does no work deserves 

 nothing. There are. however, two kinds of work : physical work 

 and spiritual work. We should not think only of doing physical 

 work. We should think also of our souls. Of what value are 

 earthly good.i if one's soul is lost? We should try to come closer 

 to God because when we die we can take no earthly goods with us 

 but only the fruits of our spiritual work. The soul is very 

 precious. We all know how to purify it; humility, chastity, pa- 

 tience, and resiguation are the virtues which wo should cultivate. 

 Everyone should also come to Holy Jlass and observe the sacred 

 Sacraments. This is the road to eternal life. It will take us to 

 Paradise. For the sacrifices we make in order to serve God. we 

 one day will receive a well-deserved reward. Those who receive 

 no reward on this earth, will receive their reward in heaven." 



