While in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the highly-regarded American novelist Willa Sibert Cather was captivated by the story of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and his friend, Father Macheboeuf. She was so enchanted by these two men that she decided to write a novel based on the events of their lives serving as Roman Catholic clergy in New Mexico. Her 1927 novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, tells the story of Bishop Jean Latour and his friend, Father Joseph Vaillant, as they travel to New Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century to strengthen the Catholic faith of the natives. In Death Comes for the Archbishop, the natives of New Mexico are devout, but their religion has been corrupted by superstition because there have been no priests to instruct them on their faith. “This country was evangelized in fifteen hundred, by the Franciscan Fathers. It has been …show more content…
Throughout Death Comes for the Archbishop, New Mexico is described as a very harsh environment, especially for those who are not used to living in it. Unlike the Native Americans and the Mexicans who had lived there for a thousand generations, Father Latour does not know his way around and ends of getting lost in the New Mexico desert, which was “so featureless—or rather, that it was crowded with features, all exactly alike” (Cather, 17). The New Mexico desert is not only “featureless,” but also very brutal. According to Father Latour it is “… like a country of dry ashes; no juniper, no rabbit brush, nothing but thickets of withered, dead-looking cactus, and patches of wild pumpkin—the only vegetation that had any vitality” (Cather, 88). A major theme of Death Comes for the Archbishop is perseverance. For instance, Father Latour did not let the harshness and brutality of New Mexico stop him from planting the seed of Catholicism. He kept preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins until this seed had grown in the strange and “featureless”
In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather first portrays the dichotomy of the highly cultured Old world, and the primal beauty and history of the New world. Cather goes on to show the successful merging of the two worlds, through the centralization of the church and the creation of a European-style cathedral against the New Mexican landscape. Religious order and duty are central themes within the novel, and consequently various religious symbols and allusions appear throughout the text.
In Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, the heroic ideal whose definition began with Moby-Dick is again viewed. Father LaTour is clearly seen as having an elevated status, concern and understanding for the people, and a desire to make a lasting mark on the land that becomes his home. These characteristics were seen in differing ways in both Ahab and Jo in Little Women. In The Red Badge of Courage, the concept of courage in the hero was addressed. This quality too is seen in Father LaTour. Father Vaillant also displays many of these characteristics. Both priests are fully consecrated, they just live it out differently. They have committed themselves to self-sacrifice for the sake of those whom they seek to serve and exhibit strong inner courage in the setting aside of self. However, Father Vaillant's very presence has hinged upon the influence of Father LaTour in his life, thus ultimately pointing back to Father LaTour s the heroic figure in the novel.
Willa Cather is the author of the award winning novel Death Comes For The Archbishop written in 1927. She was born in 1873 near Winchester, Virginia and soon moved to Nebraska (Cather, 1927). During her childhood she was surrounded by foreign languages and customs. Even at her young age she felt a connection to the immigrants in Nebraska and was intrigued with their connection to the land. Willa also loved writing about the vanished past of the American Southwest where nature and Christianity is opposed to the modern urban life and society (http://fp.image.dk). She was raised Episcopalian and later in life she joined the Protestant Church in search for spirituality while still being captivated with the grandeur of ceremonies performed in the Catholic Church. These fascinations were projected directly into to her writings, as seen in her book Death Comes For The Archbishop. This book was awarded the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1930 (http://www.geocities.com).
The perspective of another society is always subjective, especially when two completely different cultures interact for the first time. In Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s The History of the Conquest of New Spain, the first hand account illustrates a barbaric and pagan society where sacrifices are pervasive in everyday life. However, David Carrasco’s essays titled “The Exaggeration of Human Sacrifice” and “Human Sacrifice / Debt Payments from the Aztec Point of View” shed a significant amount of insight into the religious roles that human sacrifice played in Aztec society rather than the cruel and barbaric connotations which Díaz heavily implied. Based on the readings of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Carrasco’s essays offered an outside perspective
The Clarion Herald states, “Philip Matthew Hannan fifth of eight children of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Francis Hannan, was born in Washington, D.C.” (Clarion Herald 1). Archbishop Hannan was born on May 20, 1913 where he spent most of his young life. Tom Benson told the Clarion Herald, “Archbishop Hannan once told me that the New Orleans Saints were part of the unique culture and social fabric of our city. The same can be and must be said of him,” (Clarion Herald 35). New Orleans mourned the death of Hannan on Thursday, September 29, 2011.
The theme to this story is that people will always be different and you cannot force your ideas into them. In this story the priest is ignorant to the fact that these Indians do not want to have a Catholic burial and that they only want to use the holy water to bring rain. All the priest is interested in is gaining parishioners, while the Indians just want to pay their respects to the old man by staying true to their heritage.
Hackel speculates that “With each passing year Junipero Serra exerted less influence on the overall shape of the colony itself. In the final years of his life, above all else, the baptisms and the confirmations he could provide to California Indians gave his life direction and motivation” (142). Hackel aims, not to create a sort of idealistic image of Serra as a saint, but rather one which portrays him as a man who was dogmatic, with imperfections and faults, who categorized, captured and reflected the time and culture of “colonial enterprises”.
The portrait of Mexican Americans is layered in shades of ambivalence. Aside from the fact there is evidence that they can not really be classified as a migratory culture in that the land where they tend to migrate once belonged to Mexico, they can also lay an earlier claim to the land as Native Americans. The Spanish Europeans who settled in the area that became Mexico evolved as the dominant culture over the oral culture of the Native Americans. Nevertheless, there is evidence of ambivalence among the Native Americans to the dominant culture of the Spanish in what is arguably one of the Mexico's basic texts, the story of the Miraculous Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1531. The Virgin of Guadalupe does not fit the usual model of the Virgin as she appears to believers, the biggest change being her native appearance. She is of the dominant culture's religion, and yet she is not. Her appearance is one of only eight worldwide that have found acceptance by the Catholic Church (Apparition 48). Moreover, she is a symbol of the native culture as well and has reverence in the eyes of both Mexicans and Mexican Americans that remains evident to date.
Willa Cather's Death Comes For The Archbishop is a novel set in the nineteenth century in New Mexico. The story follows the adventures of Father Vaillant and Father Latour, two refined French priests on a mission to promote Catholicism in Santa Fe. The story follows each man's experiences in these unrefined surroundings causing them to go through dramatic changes as they experience the westward movement of the frontier. Through the struggles and journeys of a host of characters, we discover the underlying tensions of worldly distractions that can create a divided character between oneself.
Myriad syncretic spiritual forms evolved during the era of colonial Mesoamerica, expressing both public devotional practices and private household rituals that many times were veiled from Church scrutiny (Carmack 308). These rituals, born in indigenous culture and adapted to the drastically changed socio-economic and political landscape of colonial life, represent some of the few remaining links to the region’s spiritual and historical past.
It all started when I was in eighth grade. My decision was Cardinal Hayes. Cardinal Hayes was the school my brother was attending and my brother had told me so much interesting things about Cardinal Hayes. My brother told me about their trophy room and how successful the school was. He also told me how much fun they had there. My friend was telling me about Fordham Prep, but I had payed him no mind. If my friend wasn’t there I would not currently be in Fordham Prep. After I stopped being stubborn and started to listening to my friend about my friend about Fordham Prep I noticed that it wasn’t bad, but actually good.
Two such authors, searching for…well, searching for that certain enlightenment and repose that can only be found in nature, were Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac. And despite the fact that Big Sur, California, is the chosen destination for revelation for both authors and that both authors are torn between the introspective qualities of being ‘secluded,’ and the desire for connectedness to society, they were from (moderately) different lifestyles and backgrounds and viewed the revelations that nature bestowed to them individually quite differently. By contrasting the situations and temperaments of the two authors, one can begin to see why their experiences differed so greatly.
I arrived at Sacred Heart Cathedral for my first day of high school. As my friend’s mom drove through the populous streets of San Francisco, I sat in the back seat of her car running through the pages of the planner I had received at orientation. As the thick, smooth pages ran through my fingers, I worried over finding my classes, being on time to my classes, and having time to out my books in my locker. I found the page dated August 24th, my first day of high school. I had all six classes that day, French, English, Honors Algebra, Physics, World History, and lastly Scripture.
The biblical references throughout the Chronicle of a Death Foretold help identify the characters, Bayardo San Roman, Maria Cervantes, Divina Flor, and the Vicario children, and add depth to the death of Santiago. Without the many religious symbols such as, the Divine Face, the murder of Santiago, the cocks crowing, and the characters, there would be little weight placed on the reactions of the townspeople towards the knowledge of Santiago’s impending death. The religious symbols solidify the idea that Christ has come again in many different forms and ideas, yet dies to renew the people’s covenant with the Lord. “Give me prejudice and I will move the world” (Márquez 100).
The first time I heard about Bishop Carroll was early September. I heard that it is not like the other schools where students learn in a class, people told me that the student gets to learn by themselves. I remember thinking to myself “what kind of school allows students to learn by themselves? Wouldn’t that be difficult?”. Now that I’ve talked to my counselor and been to the open house, I am more informed and educated about what Bishop Carroll is really about. It’s about learning how to become independent and being in the driver's seat of my own learning, but of course with the help of a teacher. I think that Bishop Carroll is for me because I am the independent type of learner. I like working in pairs but I feel like I work better individually because I can focus more on the topic given to me.