The Fourth and Not-so Great Commandment
San Xavier Mission is a white edifice looming off the I-19 South. It glows against the backdrop of desert dirt and blue-gray mountains. Two white towers, one with a dome atop, the other unfinished. The Mission has an asymmetrical appeal. A white cross stands on a hill near by, like Calvary. We take Exit 92 off the 19. The Mission is on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation. We drive over a bridge, spanning the banks of the now dry Santa Cruz River. Farm land surrounds the Mission. I think of Indian water rights and the CAP canal as we drive past the fallow acres. My mother-in-law asks what they grow. "Probably cotton," I say.
"I didn't know cotton could grow in the desert," she says. "Doesn't it need a lot of water?"
I don't answer and let the question disappear with the water.
The dirt parking lot is filled with cars. People of all ages and sizes walk or stumble or are pushed towards the church. The wind blows and I smell smoke, grease and then flour. We press onward with the crowd. A gravel lot separates the parking lot from the Mission. Vendors selling fry bread and Indian Tacos stand under handcrafted ramadas made from ocotillo and saguaro skeletons. There is something desperate about the twenty or so vendors standing under similar ramadas, selling the same food for about the same price. How will I know which vendor to buy from? Will I over-hear someone suggest the gray ramada made from saguaro bones? Will I be able to discern among the twenty gray ramadas which one he is talking about? The vendors compete within a cruel economy.
Today is Sunday and that's why the Mission is so busy. San Xavier is an active parish, which means priests and friars and parsons reside there and do Catholic things. I am here for mass, like the rest of the people. I wonder if the vendors are here everyday or just on Sundays. I think of the fourth commandment, handed down by God to Moses on what I imagine to have been a foggy morning: "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."
Growing up, keeping the Sabbath day holy included church and also not leaving the house for the rest of the day in order to show true religious devotion. No shopping, no friends, no spending money, no playing. As a family we spent the day watching TV. Very reverant. I suppose for the Catholics, keeping the Sabbath day holy does not include a prohibition against spending money. They can buy fry bread after Mass. Maybe even go to a movie and then hit the gym. Attending Mass is enough remembering.
I am dressed in jeans, a hooded sweatshirt that belongs to my husband and a pair of clear jelly shoes. As I got ready this morning, I wondered what appropriate "Mass wear" would look like. I usually wear a dress or skirt to church. My husband, still half asleep at 10:00 in the morning, threw on unwashed jeans and a t-shirt. I suspected I didn't need to dress up for the occasion. The various people at the Mission are dressed similarly-- t-shirts, jeans, hair in pony tails, sneakers. Nothing in most patron's dress and appearance suggests today is holy or they are about to participate in something special. Today is just Sunday and it's just Mass.
We edge closer to the front doors of the Mission. Mass has begun and people are spilling out the doors. A man's voice echoes from a microphone. I am not sure what he's saying, but it sounds Evangelical. My husband, his mother and sister decide we shouldn't attend Mass. We are late and there are no seats. Plus, we're not Catholic. I hide my protests. I was looking forward to tasting my first Communion wafer and discovering the purpose of Holy Water. I linger around the entrance as they walk off towards the museum. I realize the intention was never to go to Mass. I had been told a lie so I would agree to come.
"How about it Sarah?" my husband had asked me last night when we were discussing possible Sunday activities. His mother is in town from Florida and wants to do all five cool things Tucson has to offer. Going to church, at least a church of our own faith, is not one of those five things. "What do you say we worship with the Catholics tomorrow?"
I glanced at my mother-in-law and then my husband. "Okay," I replied without enthusiasm. This would make week number three that we had missed church. At least we would be going to a church.
I follow them to the museum. I noticed a sign that tells the time of the next mass. 12:30. Lucky for me, I might still be able to make it. I enter the museum and am greeted by a middle-aged woman sitting at a counter. Before her and behind her are hundreds of prayer candles, for sale for three dollars each. My mother-in-law is looking at them and says to her daughter that she wants to buy one before we leave.
The museum recounts the history of the Mission, beginning with Father Kino in 1692, a Jesuit missionary from Spain, and ending with displays depicting the Mission today. A common theme runs throughout: Exploitation of the Natives. I think of the fry bread outside.
My mother-in-law purchases a candle in a glass jar with a sticker of the Mission on it. There is a shelf by the door with glass jars that have white waxy residue from burnt-away candles. A sign posted on the shelf says: "Help us recycle! Put your used candles here! Or take one for free!" The exclamation marks are a little much. I read the sign again, taking note of the word "free." I turn to the lady at the counter. "Are these free?" She replies yes. I select a jar with a sticker of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. I plan to use the jar for change.
We exit the museum onto a courtyard. There are people, Mass-goers, milling around. A silver cistern marked "Holy Water" sits on a wooden perch. A young woman is dousing her pink rosary beads in the water. Water drips on the ground from the flowing valve. Another young woman catches some lose water and draws an invisible cross on her forehead. I am thirsty. I ask my husband what will happen to me if I drink Holy Water. He laughs and tells me I should probably just find a water fountain. He won't even permit me to take a little. "Leave it for the believers."
***
The hill with the white cross is volcanic. Signs posted along the way warn that the Grotto Hill is not Mission property. We climb along a dirt road that curves up the hill, past two lion sentinels, to the grotto. The grotto is a big, wide hole carved into the side of the hill. "Erected by the Bishop of Tucson, A.D. 1908, the fiftieth anniversary of the wondrous apparitions of the blessed Virgin, mother of God, at the grotto of Lourdes," a stone tablet reads. The hole is fenced off by an iron gate. Photos, letters and long prayers are tied to the gate with ribbon. Behind the gate, inside the grotto, is an alter with prayer candles and statutes of saints. The prayer candles are burning. I want to go inside and take a closer look. The gate is sealed with a pad lock and a steal rod. The burning prayer candles must be a Catholic miracle.
We head back down the dirt road to the base of the hill. A yellow dog follows us, wagging his tail and running away when we try to pet him, only to come back. I am smitten by his cute-dog face and his happy disposition. My heart swells with love, like it usually does for furry or little things. I ask my husband if we can get a dog. "Think of how much joy one would bring us!" I exclaim. He tells me no, that we will just neglect it because, "Remember, we're not animal people." I sigh and know he's right. I have a dog at my parents' house that I never play with. Saint Francis of Assisi would hate me.
The only way to get to the cross at the top of the hill is to do some non-treacherous rock climbing. We scramble up the hill among red, porous volcanic rock. Dirt fills my jellies. My husband beats us girls to the top. My mother-in-law stops every few steps to rest and take a picture. I reach the white cross and touch it. Its paint is worn and the stone base is graffitied. The ground is covered in the dark brown glass of shattered beer bottles. I think of the type of person who would climb a volcanic hill at night to drink beer by a white wooden cross. Perhaps very religious teenagers. Or a pious alcoholic.
To the North I see the City of Tucson, once called the Presidio of Tucson back when the Apaches owned this land and any desert city. If a city were to survive, it needed to be encased in a fort. The city now is sprawling and unrestrained except by a circle of mountains. Nothing like the small, adobe Presidio it was when San Xavier Mission was first built in 1783. I can see the downtown "sky scrapers" and the University's football stadium. A thin coat of brown-gray smog settles over the city like light linen. One of my professors last semester told me the sunsets in Tucson are pink because of the pollution. My mother-in-law wants a picture of us by the cross. My husband, his sister and I turn toward the camera and pose, attempting to look pious.
I am the first back down the hill, shaking rocks out of my non-shoe shoes along the way. I reach the bottom and look back up at the cross. My husband is clamoring down the rocks, his mother and sister behind him. The cross looks especially white against the blue sky. My husband smiles at me, a self-conscious smile, like he doesn't really want to be smiling at me but doesn't know what else to do. I became acquainted with that smile over the summer on our way to Arches National Monument. Off of Route 6 on a hill outside Spanish Fork, Utah stood a white cross much like the one behind him now.
***
We venture into the gift shop. We are a family now, joined by blood, matrimony and, finally, by the experiences of this day. I have forgotten it is the Sabbath. In the gift shop, I look at figurines of saints, flip through prayer books and gaze at silver crucifixes. I pick up a laminated card with an illustration of Jesus on front. His hands rest on the shoulders of a boy and girl dressed in jeans. "10 Commandments for Teenagers," the card reads. I flip it over to the back. "Think before you drink" is the first commandment.
I am overwhelmed with the urge to become Catholic. I get to drink? I consider some of the Catholic people I know. Lauren who drinks, Kelsey who smokes and drinks, Lisa who drinks, Lara who is a lesbian, Brad who has promiscuous sex, Sean who smokes pot. Yes, I would get to drink and do whatever else I wanted.
***
San Xavier is a Baroque Mission. The interior of the chapel is ornate with gold-leaf scrolls, pillars and arches, carved wooden statues of saints, Biblical murals done in dulled hues. The ceiling is high and domed, painted with black and red flowers. There is an echo of Versailles and the the Sistine Chapel but everything seems to be covered in years of dust, the colors dull. I am overcome with reverence—a quiet feeling invoked by beauty and calm.
There is a line of people spanning the whole length of the chapel. My husband thinks it's the line for Communion and tells me to not get in it. It would be disrespectful to take Communion since I'm not Catholic, he explains. I get in line anyway. It moves slowly and as I get closer to the front, I discover the line is not for Communion. I see something that is a cross between a display case and a glass coffin. Inside the coffin is something corpse-like covered in a light blue satin cloth. I watch as the patrons rub the head of the corpse and then lift it. They cross themselves and walk away. Some whisper into the corpse's ear, others just look.
I move forward and am close enough to see that the corpse is not a real body but a wood craving. His face is brown with a prominent nose and long curly beard. His head rests on two white pillows. His blue blanket is covered with photographs and gold pins of various body parts. He is Saint Francis Xavier, the patron saint of missionary work. He is the Mission's name sake. I do not touch him when it's my turn because I don't know what touching him means. Instead I gaze, puzzled by the reverence this wooden statue is being treated with. I realize most of what I have experienced today has been absurd: A mission that was built by Native American slave labor. Holy Water I'm not supposed to drink. A grotto with magic burning candles. A wooden statue that people ask blessings from. I get out of line and look around the chapel once more. A crying and bloody red-robed Jesus and a masculine Virgin Mary in a white dress stand on either side of the transepts, two golden otter-like creatures by the alter. More religious iconography I don't understand.
I find my husband and tell him about the wooden corpse. "How is that not idol worship?" I ask him.
"Because God told the Catholics it's okay," he replies.
I sit down on a bench near Saint Francis. I watch a mother lift her son and help him rub the saint's head. He then crosses himself clumsily. I think of my own religious up-bringing. My parents teaching me how to take the Sacrament and how to pray. Practicing with my dad when I was eight for when he would baptize me. Memorizing the "Thirteen Articles of Faith" and reading the scriptures aloud with my family on Sunday afternoons. I should be more sensitive and understanding. People are critical of my religion all the time. I am, after all, Mormon.