The ecumenical Christmas festival of Las Posadas made its symbolic trek across the Holy Land of Perry Thursday night, with a homeless Mary and Joseph seeking shelter in a cold, dark and unloving world, as friendless as Haitian migrants on the Rio Grande.
The annual ceremony began at the First Christian Church in Perry, with prayers and the singing of popular Christmas carols in both English and Spanish. The First United Methodist Church pastor, the Rev. Andrea Brownlee, and the St. Patrick Catholic Church priest, the Rev. Luis Mejia, led about a dozen people in bilingual readings and recitations.
A procession followed, with a Perry boy and girl dressed as Joseph and Mary. They walked from the First Christian Church to Second Street, followed by the rest of the congregants bearing lanterns and candles and singing the Las Posadas songs.
The procession made three stops along the way, asking for shelter as the congregation sang. The holy family was symbolically rejected at each stopping place, as in the gospel accounts.
At last they found warmth and generous acceptance, and a community meal followed in the Fireside Room of the First United Methodist Church. The meal served about 50 people, with music provided by Juan Meraz of Perry and stories told Des Moines Public Library singer-storyteller Marlú Abarca. Mary Murphy and Rosa Gonzalez of Hispanics United for Perry (HUP) gave gifts to the children
The nine-day religious ceremony of Las Posadas represents the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus. The procession has been a Mexican tradition for at least 400 years and possibly blends elements of Spanish Catholicism with the December Aztec celebration of the birth of Huitzilopochtli, according to cultural anthropologists.
The Perry Las Posadas ceremony is sponsored by HUP, which works to foster intercultural communication and understanding in Perry and to preserve alive the richness of immigrant and native Latino culture in Iowa.
