{"id":58571,"date":"2025-03-10T09:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T14:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/?p=58571"},"modified":"2025-03-10T09:52:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T14:52:15","slug":"the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mass of the (Amazonian) World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by<\/strong>:\u00a0Alex Maldonado-Lizardi<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Xiomara Cintron-Garcia<\/a>\u00a0who serve with the Christian Centre for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action (Justapaz), Bogota, Colombia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To pronounce God\u2019s name is
to affirm the possibility of open paths,
\u00a0it is to bet on the unpredictable,
even when what we expected
no longer has the conditions to come to fruition.
-Ivone Gebara<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n

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Outside the Our Lady of Carmen Parish, right at 9:00 a.m., there are already tents and tables with hot \u201caborrajados\u201d[1]<\/a>, pumpkin cupcakes, a\u00e7a\u00ed and hibiscus flower juices, coffee, and buckets of cold oatmeal. It\u2019s a huge square plaza that every September 11th hosts the \u201cDepartmental Cultural, Spiritual, and Environmental Celebration for Father Alcides Jim\u00e9nez.\u201d By this time in the morning, the stews for lunch are already cooking in the square, farmers cross it with their products, and the UN trucks are still warm from the 3-hour drive from Puerto As\u00eds to Puerto Caicedo, Putumayo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Edilberto and I sat on a bench, share a cupcake and coffee, and he tells me about the pumpkin crops and sapote trees in Puerto Caicedo, but also about Father Alcides, who died at the foot of one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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He told me that Father Alcides wasn\u2019t a 19th-century chronicler nor an expedition captain; he wasn\u2019t a naturalist scientist like Von Humboldt, nor an encyclopedist, an apostolic prefect, or missionary conqueror of the colonial settlements along the Putumayo River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he told me that Father Alcides Jim\u00e9nez Chicangana officiated mass in the midst of the Putumayo Amazon surrounded by farmers and parishioners, jasmine bushes, annatto, ferns, and heliconias. He also tells me how he organized the local farmers to develop \u201cintegrated farms as an alternative to coca cultivation,\u201d since the state\u2019s alternative was different: to destroy half of the coca bushes in the region with glyphosate[2]<\/a>. Father Alcides said the best thing was to \u201cplant food, give health, and provide organizational development.\u201d[3]<\/a> According to the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth, in his pastoral and organizational work, Father Alcides focused on five fundamental \u201cseeds\u201d for the community’s \u201cgood living\u201d (sumak kawsay<\/em>): disease prevention, vegetable garden development, economy, participation and autonomy, and the policy of community participation[4]<\/a>. \u201cThe future of human life is self-sufficiency!\u201d he would proclaim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He insisted on the conservation of native seeds, rejection of GMOs, strengthening of agricultural production, promoting hygiene, and transforming the fruits of the land. He supported the formation of community cooperatives and rural community promoters who traveled the pathways of the territory to verify the progress of sanitary unit projects, kitchen improvements, crops, and processes for transforming Amazonian fruits into cakes, jams, cookies, and medicinal products made from the leaves, stems, roots, and fruits of regional plants\u2014all of these as alternatives to the disasters of coca monoculture, drug trafficking, and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the blossoming of these processes, a need for communications arose. For this reason, and under the benefit of a call from the National Government, Father Alcides supported the project that would later be known as \u201cOcaina Est\u00e9reo Community Radio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The 14 years of priesthood and service to his people are captured in one of his speeches: \u201cIt is not enough to live in a community to be part of it; you have to feel its problems and be active in their solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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On September 11, 1998, at noon, two men in white ponchos entered the church of Our Lady of Carmen Parish and ended Father Alcides\u2019 life while he was celebrating the Eucharist. His body rests under the shade and breeze of a sapote tree next to the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


What does the gospel walk of such a person do to our lives, to the territory, to the fatality that sometimes holds things together?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The commemoration began at 10:00 a.m. in the church with the participation of several priests from Putumayo, municipal government staff, students, and people in general. During the meeting, Father Alcides’ sister, Olga, who had come from the city of Popay\u00e1n, Cauca, shared a short reflection:<\/p>\n\n\n\n


It\u2019s incredible… those who silenced your voice were going to destroy what you had built, but they didn\u2019t count on the fact that Alcides is the people, their land, their harvest, and their voice; that he still feels like a son of God. They didn\u2019t silence his voice; it is felt with greater strength in the very land he walked on. Those who killed him were wrong because the wind and the trees pronounce his name, and his teachings continue to accompany us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In his homily, around the sermon on the plain in the Gospel of Luke, and from the same altar where Alcides had been shot, Father Campo El\u00edas de la Cruz spoke of actions driven by love. He pointed to the God of the great homeland, encouraging us to hope because \u201cwith utopia, there is a path. To remember Father Alcides is to think about that path which, for him, beyond utopia, is sustained by the people.\u201d He invited everyone to live an Amazonian-faced church by updating Father Alcides’ legacies. In this way of walking, the Beatitudes are not foreign to the realities of the territory: they accompany the lament where the poor nourish the Beatitudes and are positioned as a condition for the joyfulness and grace of life. In that gesture, Father Alcides was able to say to a woman who was crying, \u201cWoman, let me cry with you,\u201d making the pain of the other alive, and the Beatitude alive.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Walking with the poor becomes one with the pain of the Amazon. There are no departmentalized pains. The pain of the poor is the pain of the land; the pain of the land is the pain of the poor, and the poor are blessed. There is no care for creation if there is no deep living of what is created. \u201cIsn\u2019t this our problem?\u201d asks Campo. \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t hurt us, what will happen to the poor?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


He challenged us with more questions: \u201cWhat does the martyrdom of Father Alcides tell us? How long does his spirit remain? Who has changed his deep message for a caricature?\u201d He asked these questions knowing that \u201cthe rich have already had their comfort since they have taken \u2018easier\u2019 paths,\u201d and that, on the contrary, \u201cwhoever loves their neighbor does not accumulate the unnecessary because it might be necessary to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, he gave an alternative pastoral example from the very community that was listening that morning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You decided not to plant coca and chose other seeds. The day we run out of seeds, we will die. The day we run out of water, we will die. The presence of God is in the Amazon. We embrace these alternatives when we embrace the land, the Amazon, \u201cthe fraternity of the leaves\u201d… And while the multinationals are draining the life out of the territory, it is important to look with God\u2019s eyes at what is happening to the world. The rich, the companies, the corporations… will have money, but no food, no seed. This is how we must stubbornly believe in the dream of Jesus of Nazareth. Our biggest tree is to believe, to promote harmony, food, and seed. To live the cosmic Eucharist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the service, Edilberto told me that one day in August 2022, Father Campo found a small, tattered book with green covers tangled in fluff and trash in the parish. It was an old edition of Teilhard de Chardin\u2019s Hymn of the Universe<\/em> where an urgent message appeared: Community life in tune with the gospel awaits on the union and solidarity of all creatures that are consecrated in the World, since all are suspended from the same real center, a true life we experience in common. The opposite of this is the blind effort to feed on a single reading of reality, a \u201cmonodiscourse\u201d that requires the support of violence to sustain itself on a world that it destroys[5]<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father Alc\u00eddes, during a Eucharist celebrated at the altars of the jungle, told the farmers of the territory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Jesus Christ arrives at this mountain as he liked, and he mixes with us and walks here and gathers us so we can share the \u201cyotas\u201d[6]<\/a>, the \u201cchicha\u201d[7]<\/a>, the \u201cguarapo\u201d[8]<\/a>, the friendship, some sweets, a \u201csancochito\u201d (stew). Good Father, send your spirit over this Mass, which is the Mass of nature and of us[9]<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the cosmic Eucharist over the Amazonian earth, a way of knowing how to pronounce God\u2019s name on the open path and the fresh land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> \u201cAborrajados de pl\u00e1tano maduro\u201d or \u201cAborrajados colombianos\u201d is a dish of deep fried plantains stuffed with cheese, sometimes also guava or \u201cchicharr\u00f3n\u201d (fried pork belly) in Colombian cuisine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/kaired.org.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Alcides-Jimenez-Chicangana.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/kaired.org.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Alcides-Jimenez-Chicangana.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.comisiondelaverdad.co\/las-semillas-del-padre-alcides<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Taken and adapted from the book Incidencia del pensamiento C\u00f3smico del jesuita y paleont\u00f3logo Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881 \u2013 1995) en el pensamiento Andino \u2013 Amaz\u00f3nico del Padre Alcides<\/em>, by Ediberto Lasso C\u00e1rdenas, September 11, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Also known as Chayote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> A fermented, typically alcoholic beverage of Latin America, emerging from the Andes and Amazonia regions made from a variety of maize landraces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Sugarcane mostly fermented juice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Taken from the book\u00a0Incidencia del pensamiento C\u00f3smico del jesuita y paleont\u00f3logo Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881 \u2013 1995) en el pensamiento Andino \u2013 Amaz\u00f3nico del Padre Alcides<\/em>, by Ediberto Lasso C\u00e1rdenas, September 11, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decir Dios es afirmar la posibilidad de caminos<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abiertos, es apostar a lo imprevisible<\/p>\n\n\n\n

aun cuando lo que esper\u00e1bamos<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ya no tenga condiciones de realizarse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Ivone Gebara<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La misa sobre el mundo (amaz\u00f3nico)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afuera de la Parroquia Nuestra Se\u00f1ora del Carmen, apenas a las 9:00 am, ya hay carpas y mesas con aborrajados calientes, ponqu\u00e9s de zapallo, jugos de a\u00e7a\u00ed y flor de Jamaica, caf\u00e9 y baldes con avena fr\u00eda. Es una plazoleta enorme la que cada 11 de septiembre aloja el \u201cEncuentro Departamental Cultural, Espiritual y Ambiental, Alcides Jim\u00e9nez\u201d. A esta hora ya huelen los guisos para el almuerzo sobre la plazoleta, los campesinos la cruzan con sus productos y las camionetas de la ONU aun tienen los motores tibios del recorrido de 3hrs de Puerto As\u00eds a Puerto Caicedo en el departamento del Putumayo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

El profe Edilberto y yo nos sentamos en una banqueta, compartimos un ponqu\u00e9 y un caf\u00e9, y me habl\u00f3 de los cultivos de zapallos y los \u00e1rboles de zapote en Puerto Caicedo, pero tambi\u00e9n del Padre Alcides, que hab\u00eda muerto a la ra\u00edz de uno de ellos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me cont\u00f3 que el Padre Alcides no era un cronista decimon\u00f3nico ni capit\u00e1n de expedici\u00f3n; que no era cient\u00edfico naturalista a lo Von Humboldt ni enciclopedista, prefecto apost\u00f3lico o misionero conquistador de los caser\u00edos junto al r\u00edo Putumayo.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me cuenta, m\u00e1s bien, que el Padre Alcides Jim\u00e9nez Chicangana oficiaba misas en medio de la amazon\u00eda del Putumayo rodeado por campesinos y feligreses, arbustos de jazm\u00edn, achiote, helechos y heliconias. Tambi\u00e9n cuenta c\u00f3mo fue organizando al campesinado del territorio hacia el desarrollo de \u201cgranjas integrales como alternativa al cultivo de coca\u201d[1]<\/a>, puesto que la alternativa del estado era otra: arrasar con la mitad de los arbustos de coca de la regi\u00f3n a fuerza de glifosato. El Padre Alc\u00eddes dec\u00eda que lo mejor era \u201csembrar comida, dar salud y proporcionar desarrollo organizativo\u201d[2]<\/a>. Seg\u00fan la Comisi\u00f3n para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad<\/em>, en su ejercicio pastoral y organizativo, el padre Alcides trabaj\u00f3 sobre cinco \u201csemillas\u201d fundamentales para el \u201cbuen vivir\u201d (sumak kawsay<\/em>) comunitario: prevenci\u00f3n de enfermedades; desarrollo de huertas; econom\u00eda; participaci\u00f3n y autonom\u00eda, y la pol\u00edtica de participaci\u00f3n comunitaria[3]<\/a>. \u201c\u00a1El futuro de la vida humana es la autosuficiencia!\u201d, pregonaba[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insisti\u00f3 en la conservaci\u00f3n de semillas nativas, el rechazo a los transg\u00e9nicos, el fortalecimiento de producci\u00f3n agropecuaria, la promoci\u00f3n de la higiene y la transformaci\u00f3n de los frutos del campo. Auspici\u00f3 la conformaci\u00f3n de \u201ccooperativas comunitarias\u201d y \u201cpromotor\u00edas rurales\u201d de personas que recorr\u00edan las veredas del territorio para verificar el avance de los proyectos de unidades sanitarias, el mejoramiento de cocinas, los cultivos y los procesos de transformaci\u00f3n de frutas amaz\u00f3nicas en tortas, mermeladas, galletas y productos medicinales que se elaboran con hojas, tallos, ra\u00edces y frutos de plantas de la regi\u00f3n, todas estas como rutas frente a los desmanes del monocultivo cocalero, el narcotr\u00e1fico y la violencia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Con el florecimiento de estos procesos se manifest\u00f3 una necesidad en temas de comunicaciones. Por ello, y bajo el beneficio de una convocatoria del Gobierno Nacional, el padre Alcides impuls\u00f3 el proyecto que luego ser\u00eda conocido como \u201cla emisora comunitaria Ocaina Est\u00e9reo\u201d[5]<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Los 14 a\u00f1os de sacerdocio y servicio a su pueblo quedan recogidos en una de sus locuciones: \u201cNo basta vivir en una comunidad para ser parte de ella, hay que sentir sus problemas y hacer activa en su soluci\u00f3n\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El 11 de septiembre de 1998, a mediod\u00eda, dos hombres con ponchos blancos entraron al templo de la parroquia Nuestra Se\u00f1ora del Carmen y acabaron con la vida del padre cuando oficiaba la eucarist\u00eda. Su cuerpo descansa bajo la sombra y el viento de un \u00e1rbol de zapote junto al templo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bfQu\u00e9 hace la caminata evang\u00e9lica de una persona as\u00ed con nuestras vidas, con el territorio, con la fatalidad que a veces sostienen las cosas?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

La conmemoraci\u00f3n inici\u00f3 a las 10:00 am en el templo con el acompa\u00f1amiento de varios sacerdotes del departamento del Putumayo, personal de la alcald\u00eda, estudiantes y personas en general. Durante el encuentro, la hermana del Padre Alc\u00eddes, Olga, quien ven\u00eda de la ciudad de Popay\u00e1n, Cauca, comparti\u00f3 una peque\u00f1a reflexi\u00f3n:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Es incre\u00edble\u2026 aquellos que silenciaron tu voz iban a acabar con lo que hab\u00edas construido, pero no contaban con que Alcides es gente, es su tierra, su cosecha y su voz; que a\u00fan se siente como hijo de Dios. Su voz no la callaron; se siente con mayor fuerza en el mismo suelo que pis\u00f3. Se equivocaron los que lo asesinaron porque el viento y los \u00e1rboles pronuncian su nombre, y sus ense\u00f1anzas nos siguen acompa\u00f1ando. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

En su homil\u00eda, alrededor del serm\u00f3n de la llanura en el evangelio de Lucas, y desde ese mismo altar donde recibiera disparos Alc\u00eddes, el Padre Campo El\u00edas de la Cruz habl\u00f3 de las acciones que se ven impulsadas por el amor. Se\u00f1al\u00f3 al Dios de la patria grande anim\u00e1ndonos a la esperanza pues \u201ccon la utop\u00eda hay camino. Rememorar al padre Alcides es pensar en ese camino que, para \u00e9l, m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de la utop\u00eda, se sostiene con la gente\u201d.  Invit\u00f3 a vivir una iglesia de rostro amaz\u00f3nico actualizando los legados del padre Alcides. En ese caminar, las bienaventuranzas no son ajenas a las realidades del territorio: acompa\u00f1an al lamento donde los pobres alimentan las bienaventuranzas y se ubican como condici\u00f3n de la dicha y la gracia de la vida. Bajo ese gesto, el padre Alc\u00eddes fue capaz de decir a una mujer que lloraba: \u201cMujer, d\u00e9jame llorar contigo\u201d, haciendo vivo el dolor del otro, y viva la bienaventuranza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El caminar con los pobres se hace uno con el dolor de la amazon\u00eda. No hay dolores departamentalizados. El dolor del pobre es el dolor de la tierra; el dolor de la tierra es el dolor del pobre, y el pobre es bienaventurado. No hay cuidado de la creaci\u00f3n si no hay una vivencia honda de lo creado. \u00bfNo es este un problema nuestro?, pregunta Campo. Mientras no nos duela, \u00bfqu\u00e9 le va a pasar a los pobres?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nos desafi\u00f3 con m\u00e1s preguntas: \u201c\u00bfQu\u00e9 nos dice el martirio del padre Alcides? \u00bfHasta d\u00f3nde su esp\u00edritu se mantiene? \u00bfQui\u00e9nes han cambiado el mensaje profundo por una caricatura?\u201d Preguntaba estas cosas sabiendo que \u201clos ricos ya han tenido su consuelo puesto que han tomado caminos m\u00e1s \u2018livianos\u2019\u201d, y que, por el contrario, \u201cquien ama al pr\u00f3jimo no acumula lo innecesario porque puede ser necesario al otro\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entonces brind\u00f3 un ejemplo y alternativa pastoral de la propia comunidad que le escuchaba esa ma\u00f1ana:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ustedes decidieron no sembrar coca y optaron por otras semillas. El d\u00eda que nos falte la semilla morir\u00edamos. El d\u00eda que nos falte el agua morir\u00edamos. En la amazon\u00eda est\u00e1 la presencia de Dios. Asumimos esas alternativas cuando abrazamos la tierra, la amazon\u00eda, \u201cla fraternidad de las hojas\u201d … Y mientras las multinacionales le van sacando la sangre al territorio es importante mirar con los ojos de Dios lo que le est\u00e1 pasando al mundo. Los ricos, las empresas, las compa\u00f1\u00edas\u2026 tendr\u00e1n dinero, pero no comida, no semilla. Es as\u00ed como tenemos que creer con terquedad en el sue\u00f1o de Jes\u00fas de Nazaret. Nuestro \u00e1rbol m\u00e1s grande es creer, promover la armon\u00eda, la comida, la semilla. Vivir la eucarist\u00eda c\u00f3smica.       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al terminar la eucarist\u00eda, Edilberto me cont\u00f3 que un d\u00eda de agosto de 2022, el padre Campo encontr\u00f3 en la parroquia un libro peque\u00f1o, desbaratado, de tapas verdes enredado entre pelusa y basura. Era una edici\u00f3n vieja del Himno del Universo<\/em> de Teilhard de Chardin donde aparece un mensaje urgente:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La vida comunitaria en sinton\u00eda con el evangelio apuesta por la uni\u00f3n y la solidaridad de todas las criaturas que est\u00e1n consagradas en el Mundo, puesto que todas est\u00e1n suspendidas de un mismo centro real, una verdadera vida que experimentamos en com\u00fan. Lo opuesto a esto es el empe\u00f1o ciego de alimentarse de una \u00fanica lectura de la realidad, un monodiscurso que requiere de los soportes de la violencia para sostenerse sobre un mundo al que destroza[6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El padre Alc\u00eddes, en una eucarist\u00eda celebrada en los altares de la selva, dec\u00eda a los campesinos:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hoy Jesucristo llega a esta monta\u00f1a como le gustaba a \u00e9l y se mezcla con nosotros y camina aqu\u00ed y nos re\u00fane para que compartamos las yotas, la chicha, el guarapo, la amistad, unos dulces, un sancochito. Padre bueno, env\u00eda tu esp\u00edritu sobre esta misa que es la misa de la naturaleza y de nosotros[7]<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esta es la eucarist\u00eda c\u00f3smica sobre la tierra amaz\u00f3nica o saber decir Dios sobre el camino abierto y la tierra fresca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am\u00e9n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex and Xiomara\u2019s appointments are made possible by your gifts to Disciples Mission Fund, Our Church\u2019s Wider Mission, and your special gifts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make a gift that supports the work of Alex Maldonado-Lizardi and Xiomara Cintron-Garcia<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> https:\/\/kaired.org.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Alcides-Jimenez-Chicangana.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.comisiondelaverdad.co\/las-semillas-del-padre-alcides<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/kaired.org.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/Alcides-Jimenez-Chicangana.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Tomado y adaptado del libro Incidencia del pensamiento C\u00f3smico del jesuita y paleont\u00f3logo Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881 \u2013 1995) en el pensamiento Andino \u2013 Amaz\u00f3nico del Padre Alcides<\/em>, de Ediberto Lasso C\u00e1rdenas, 11 de septiembre de 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Nota del peri\u00f3dico El Espectador<\/em> citada por Ediberto Lasso.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by:\u00a0Alex Maldonado-Lizardi\u00a0and\u00a0Xiomara Cintron-Garcia\u00a0who serve with the Christian Centre for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action (Justapaz), Bogota, Colombia To pronounce God\u2019s name isto affirm the possibility of open paths,\u00a0it is to bet on the unpredictable,even when what we expectedno longer … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20221,"featured_media":58572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[],"topic":[20322],"region":[20034,20015],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Mass of the (Amazonian) World - Global Ministries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mass of the (Amazonian) World - Global Ministries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Written by:\u00a0Alex Maldonado-Lizardi\u00a0and\u00a0Xiomara Cintron-Garcia\u00a0who serve with the Christian Centre for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action (Justapaz), Bogota, Colombia To pronounce God\u2019s name isto affirm the possibility of open paths,\u00a0it is to bet on the unpredictable,even when what we expectedno longer … Read more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Global Ministries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-10T14:52:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-10T14:52:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/IMG_7219-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Global Ministries\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Global Ministries\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"16 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/\",\"name\":\"The Mass of the (Amazonian) World - Global Ministries\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-10T14:52:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-10T14:52:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/#\/schema\/person\/fd55f1d77b4604c30516841d557532c5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/the-mass-of-the-amazonian-world\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Mass of the (Amazonian) World\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.globalministries.org\/\",\"name\":\"Global Ministries\",\"description\":\"Global Ministries is a common missional witness of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. 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