So it’s that time of year again, it’s Holy Week.
What is Holy Week? It’s the week before Easter that all Catholics come together to get holy and celebrate Jesus Death. Not so much His resurrection, because the focus for any Catholic is more on His horrible death.
Well, here in New Mexico there are two sacred sites. One is Tome Hill which has a cross on top of a big sandy hill. People walk up to this cross and believe something will happen, but it is just another man made holy site.
The biggest one is El Santuario De Chimayo in Chimayo, NM. It is in between Santa Fe and Espanola. Every year during Holy Week thousands make a pilgrimage to this holy site which has an old style adobe Catholic Church. It also has a garden style walk-thru with many shrines dedicated to Mary. Each shrine tells a tale of where Mary appeared and what happened.
There are booths where you can purchase holy jewelry to wear, or to do your penance prayer to Mary—also known as the rosary. There are also many spots where people can kneel and do a prayer to Mary. The church is open to anyone and while inside the church all people are bowed or in a kneeling position as they chant in repetition their love and devotion to their god Mary for hours. It’s something to watch and to hear.
Attached to this church is another room similar to a lean-to where you can walk in and see items such as crutches and canes and various stuff. These items were donated to the church as a symbol of that person’s miracle from visiting the church and no longer had a need of that item. So they are symbols of reminders of the healing that have taken place because of this visit.
As a kid I was here at this place every year and my Gramma would always point out a family members crutches. But the family member never got healed they just donated them to the church after they died. It was displayed on the wall of the church.
Also in the back of the room there is a place that has dirt. It’s what they call holy dirt—it’s dirt that’s blessed every morning by the Priest and it is said if you get dirt from there that it will give you a healing and you can take it home as a relic.
It is also said that no matter how much dirt is taken from that room that it never runs out, further adding to the miracle story. A personal friend of mine has actually seen the Priest refill the dirt in the morning for the day. But hey, if you believe, I guess the tale will just continue. Also if you don’t have anything to hold the dirt in to carry it home, you can purchase a very small tin can with holy dirt in it at the gift shop for 20 bucks. Take your miracle home.
Many who come here are Catholics, but you will also find many people from other religious persuasions. Even atheists come just for the experience.
Several years ago I went to take some video and talk to some people. You can find these videos on my Biblical Thinking Facebook Page in the media section under New Mexico’s holiest site.
Any biblical Christian can see through the sham that is the false pagan ritual and carnival style appearance of all of this. You also see sincere people who want to find God but they just don’t know how. I believe God uses any opportunity to do Good, even if it’s in a place like Chimayo.
While interviewing and just talking with people I had a chance to pray and just converse with people who weren’t religious as they say, but had no other options. Some were nominal Christian’s and just wanted God to help them change their life, and someone told them about this place and they came to see if they could find God.
Many also are of the loyal variety who upon arrival kneel and pray and go to every shrine and say the rosary then spend hours in the church chanting and praying to Mary. Then just before their departure they contribute money and go buy from the gift shop and the food vendors.
This can be a touching experience for many, and we all know feelings come and go. But for a few I’m sure there has been miracles of transformation, as visiting this place might have been a step to find Jesus.
I mean look at the friends who carried the man to Jesus to be healed and ultimately tore apart the roof to get to Him. It was a last ditch effort to get help for their friend. And the faith on the friend’s part helped heal this man as Jesus spoke to him. I know it’s easy to condemn these places outright because they make it so easy. But underneath it all there are gems who are waiting to get polished. There are coins waiting to be found. If these people are there we should go and try and help them find Christ because the one thing everyone there has in common is that they all have a open mind.
Even the atheist I talked to and the wiccans and the classic hippies I talked to may not fully believe in God but they say that that place has a power about it.
I do agree it has a power. It may not be a Godly power but in the midst of it all there will be some who really want to know Jesus. Those people are who God wants us to pray for.
At times it’s easy to outright condemn an event we don’t think meets our standards of Christianity and with that thinking we may miss those who God is working on because we lump everyone into a category. Remember when the religious leaders were mad that Jesus was eating with tax collectors? That meeting was viewed as unholy yet in the midst of that place was the Messiah. That makes it holy.
At one point in my Christian experience I found myself in a Pentecostal church. This was the year I decided to give God a chance, and that year I experienced many so-called Godly things. One was speaking in tongues and understanding everything that I was saying and the elders around me were saying. This is deemed as a true Christian experience by many. When I did get baptized, I learned the true teaching of the gifts of tongues and I realized my experience was not Godly but demonic, yet God used it as a faith building experience for me to continue searching for him and to stay open minded.
Finally some months after that experience I found the truth. If those close to me that I shared this experience with (and had true bible knowledge) had told me I was wrong and my experience was wrong and condemned me for going there, that would have hindered me. What if because of that ridicule I didn’t find Jesus? We need to be careful about our criticism because God does work in ways that may seem wrong to us but in the end we see that everything He did was perfect.
So while we can prove through Scripture all the wrong that is happening with these types of things, let us not hold back on teaching truth. But let us also analyze our approach. Perhaps the biggest reason why many don’t follow God is not because of Satan per se but more because of the way those who profess Christianity treat others.
“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4:21-23).
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Rey Chavez is the founder of Biblical Thinking on Facebook and YouTube. He is a graduate of AFCOE and ministers in the New Mexico area. He is happily married to Jessica and a father of 4. He enjoys preaching and teaching wherever he is welcomed. His main goal is to help anyone who wants to know Jesus to find Him. You can contact Rey at BiblicalThinking777@gmail.com or just private message him on the Facebook group.