If a person were to write about a man like Cesar Chavez, whose tireless efforts led to his successful establishment of a union for farm workers in the early 1960s, a huge book would be required to do justice to the man and to all he accomplished in his life.
But no comprehensive book could be written Chavez's life without careful and complete attention to his spirituality. Most people who knew Chavez only through newspapers and radio and TV broadcasts would have little awareness of how deeply spiritual he was. It was a facet of his life that was never publicized much or talked about, certainly not by Cesar himself. Others who knew him well, however, would have been familiar with how religious, how deeply spiritual he was.
I was one of those who were aware of his profound spirituality, as a priest and as a member of National Farm Worker Ministry. I lived and worked for the United Farm Workers for 12 years (1977-89) at the UFW's La Paz headquarters at Keene, California, near Tehachapi, and I was fortunate enough to come to know Chavez well.
He was deeply spiritual for a very good reason. He grew up in a home in Yuma, Arizona, that was totally immersed in the Catholic faith. Chavez learned how to pray in the earliest moments of his life from his father and mother, Librado and Juana. As dedicated Catholics, they prayed regularly in devotions at home and at Mass in church every Sunday and holy day. In all the years that I knew Chavez at La Paz, I never knew him to deliberately miss Mass.
On one occasion after I first arrived in La Paz, Cesar was in Detroit on a Saturday night speaking engagement. By the time he got back to Los Angeles International Airport it was around 4 a.m. Sunday, and around 6 or 6:30 before he arrived home. And there he was, a couple hours later, in his customary front row seat, ready for Mass.
It was only later that I realized I should not have been surprised. He simply never missed Mass -- no matter where he was the night or day before. He learned the value of regular attendance at Mass --- with no excuses for missing --- at home, and he never betrayed what he learned from his faithful parents.
When his father was swindled out of his little ranch near Yuma and was forced to take his family to California and become migrant workers, Chavez learned firsthand from watching his defeated and humiliated father that even the cruelest mistreatment at the hands of evil people never justified revenge. Never.
And Chavez' later utter rejection of revenge and violence was further reinforced at home by his mother. Juana would not, under any circumstances, condone fighting by her son for any reason at all, but especially as a means of getting back at someone.
Whenever Cesar came home disheveled and bruised after a fight, no matter how much he tried to justify the fight to his mother --- pleading, for example, that he didn't start it --- she would simply say, "It takes two to fight." In other words, no excuse would do. Not wanting to be known as a coward was not an acceptable excuse, either. She would tell him, "It is better to say that he ran from here than to say he died here."
Is it any wonder, then, that Chavez later embraced Jesus' message of nonviolence enfleshed in St. Francis, Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King, and put the doctrine of nonviolence into practice in his own life and the life of the union?
In 1968, when many striking farm workers were beginning to respond with violent behavior to the mistreatment they were suffering at the hands of growers, Chavez embarked upon a painful 25-day fast to make farm workers understand once and for all that revenge and violence would never be a part of the farm worker movement if they wanted him to be their leader.
Chavez knew how important it would be to make the deepest spiritual values the bedrock of the farm worker union. While I was working in the UFW at La Paz, I can't remember a time when every small or big community meeting, every minor or major march, and every convention didn't begin with either a prayer or a Mass.
And, of course, always prominent on those occasions was the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Chavez loved Our Lady of Guadalupe and was never ashamed to show it.
One of the most familiar sites on the La Paz compound was the Guadalupe Room, which we reserved for some of our most cherished celebrations. For example, after observing the days of Las Posadas in different homes before Christmas, on Christmas Eve the people would process a long distance down to the Guadalupe Room to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
And on Holy Thursday night after Mass, the Guadalwpe Room is where we held our vigil, watching and waiting with Jesus during the night before he was to be arrested and led away to be crucified. Our Lady of Guadalupe was significant for all of us at La Paz, and Cesar's devotion was a big reason for that.
Finally, a word about private meditation, a practice Chavez was profoundly committed to as part of his spiritual life. He knew --- and it is something good for all of us to learn --- that it is one thing to go to Mass regularly and to participate in certain religious devotions, but these must be accompanied by pondering their value, by meditating on their meaning, and reflecting upon how they affect the way we live.
Chavez was very private about when and where he went to meditate. Some of us were aware, however, that he would go off to certain hideaways in La Paz, often but not always, early in the morning to meditate. Had not meditation been an important part of his life, how could he possibly ever have decided to suffer through not one, not two, but three excruciatingly long fasts? You simply don't do things like that without reflecting deeply upon them beforehand.
Again this year, we celebrate Chavez's birthday on March 31. He would be 77 this year. And again we celebrate his birthday during Lent, this year during the fifth week of Lent, when the passion and death of Jesus are drawing rear. Just as Jesus often used to hide from his disciples and go off somewhere to pray and meditate, so did Chavez.
It might be a good idea during this time for us also to find a hideaway where we can not only pray, but also where we can reflect upon two deeply spiritual men we love and admire --- Jesus first, of course, and Cesar Chavez.
We could learn a lot from both of them --- in solitude. Father Ken Irrgang finished a 12-year period with the United Farm Workers in 1989. A priest of the Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota, he is now retired and living in St. Cloud, Minnesota. |