Re-enacting Exodus

By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

MIAMI | They were not in the desert, but there was grumbling just the same.

As they picked up their tent and folding chairs and walked across the grassy field that surrounds Mother of Our Redeemer Church in northwest Miami-Dade County, a group of nearly 30 candidates and catechumens good-naturedly complained that their leader — Roberto Vargas, dressed as Moses — was walking too fast.

And where were they going anyway?

Literally, just around the parking lot; figuratively, they were re-creating the journey of the Israelis out of Egypt, through the desert and onto Mount Sinai, where God's chosen people received the 10 Commandments. At one point, the group of men, women and young adults even crossed the Red Sea — in a manner of speaking.

This symbolic Exodus has been taking place at Mother of Our Redeemer since 1990, always on the weekend of the feast of Christ the King, which marks the end of the Church's liturgical year. It also marks the end of the pre-catechumenate for people preparing to become Catholics or receive the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil. It is the weekend when they literally "knock on the doors" of the church and ask to be let in.

"So far, you've been exploring yourself. Now we're going to be exploring our lives as a community," Deacon Antonio Maceo told the catechumens and candidates.

Catechumens are those who will be baptized at Easter; candidates have received baptism in the Church or another Christian faith and will receive the other two sacraments of initiation — confirmation and Communion.

Deacon Maceo and his wife Gema started the Exodus walk at the parish to make the transition from pre-catechumenate to catechumenate all the more real.

"We are being born to a new spiritual life today. We have to place our trust in God and look up," he told the group before their journey began.

Off to the side sat a pyramid where the candidates and catechumens were about to post the things that enslave them.

"We may not be building temples for the Pharaoh. But we may be building temples for ourselves," Deacon Maceo said, referring to all the things that separate people from God, including "the realities of life today that we are inundated with."

At the next station, the crossing of the Red Sea, those things, written on rice paper, were magically erased after being dipped in water, "dissolved, like our sins," said Gema Maceo.

After more walking, the group reached Mount Sinai, where Mother of Our Redeemer's pastor, Father Jaime "Jimmy" Acevedo, explained the reasons for the 10 Commandments: "Not as laws that prevent us from living but as rules in our lives that help us live better, that free us. It is a way of life to help us to live better together."

Then Father Acevedo dismissed the group with these words: "You need to continue your walk."

Deacon Maceo said the second part of the Exodus catechesis will take place during Holy Week, when the group experiences how the Passover of the Israelites became the Last Supper with Christ as the Passover lamb — the Eucharist of God's new covenant with his people.

In the meantime, the candidates and catechumens were given a cross and a Bible, "signs of the faith and the life they have to follow, which is the word of God," said Gema Maceo.

"It is a beautiful process. I liked it so much that here I am," said Vargas, or rather Moses, who underwent the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) last year.

He said throughout it "I noticed a tremendous change in me. But it is a slow process. Conversion comes little by little."

"For me it was fantastic, very beautiful, lots of reflection," said Belkis Requeira, referring to the Exodus experience.

She and her husband, Norberto, left Cuba for Toronto in 2001 and arrived in Miami in 2004. They want to be baptized at the 2011 Easter Vigil.

"Yes, I was raised in a family where my grandparents had a lot of influence," she explained. They taught her about Catholicism and "I felt affinity for the Church," although practicing the faith in a communist country was difficult.

Then the couple found themselves in Canada. "When we saw ourselves alone, without family, without anybody, it was the Church that helped us," Belkis said.

Their three children are baptized. Their seven-year-old, in fact, is preparing for first Communion and attending, as he puts it, "God classes," the same as his parents.

"What example would I give my children?" Belkis said. "It has to start with us."