Refuge!

October 17th, 2020| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

This current COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t treated Mexico well (or most other countries, for that matter). The 85,000 deaths in that nation is the world’s fourth-highest coronavirus toll. Many have lost a relative, friend, loved one, or neighbor. And, in response, some of Mexico’s citizens have resorted to paying homage to a strange deity.

Santa Muerte (“Saint Death”)!. She, a female folk deity that personifies death, is paradoxically associated with healing and protection and safe transport to the afterlife of devotees. From the days of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Mixtecs, the traditions relating to the worship of death has survived, and even resurged. That, despite the Catholic church frowning on this practice as “blasphemous.” Several years ago, the Mexican government briefly tried to suppress the cult, with the army demolishing forty roadside shrines close to the U.S. border. But those efforts never succeeded.

Santa Muerte is usually a skeletal figure in a long robe, wielding a scythe, à la the Grim Reaper of the European tradition.

Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and an expert on the cult said:

Santa Muerte attracts an estimated 10 to 12 million devotees, primarily in Mexico, Central America, and the U.S., as well as in the U.K. and Australia.”

Followers, by the way, include drug cartel members. Counter-narcotics teams have often found shrines in raids on drug lords’ safe houses. Prison inmates draw her on cell walls.

Cristel Legaria, whose late mother erected a 70-foot fiberglass statue to the saint in Tultitlan, 20 miles north of Mexico City, reported:

With the pandemic, more devotees want to come to ask for health and protection.”

23-year-old shoeshiner, Jonathan Flores added:

The only thing I ask of my saint is to give me strength, health and harmony. Nothing else matters if you don’t have good health.”

The faithful—some shuffling on their knees—arrived with more effigies of Santa Muerte, while others offered flowers and sweets. Some bore tattoos of the saint. One lit a cigarette for the skeleton. Another offered a bottle of cheap tequila. The saint apparently made this former alcoholic sober, so he now visits the shrine every two weeks to make his sacrifice!

No one wore masks. Social distancing? Forget it. And a reporter noted:

The aroma of marijuana filled the street, where street vendors hawked Santa Muerte statues and candles.”

Declared hairstylist, Suri Salas:

I came to thank her for everything that she’s given us this year, which has not been easy due to the pandemic. Fortunately, she’s always there to support us.”

But there is only one deity who is divine. Only One who hears prayer and answers. Only One.

Watch over me, O God, for I take refuge in You.
I said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord; my good, [there is] none besides You.”
Psalm 16:1–2

Following after other deities, the psalmist said, brings only trouble.

Their pains will increase—those who espouse another [deity].
I shall not pour out their libations of blood,
And I will not take up their [deities’] names on my lips.
Psalm 16:4

But worshipping God brings peace.

I have set Yahweh before me continually;
Because [He is] at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my glory shouts with joy;
Yes, my flesh will dwell in safety.
Psalm 16:5–6, 8–9

And delight, and joy, and exultation.

You will make known to me the path of life;
Fullness of joy [is with] Your face;
Pleasures in Your right hand always.
Psalm 16:11

Forever!

SOURCES:
MSN News; Daily Telegraph