Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Holy week is just about finished here in Costa Rica. Since most all of Latin America is largely Catholic this week is filled with lots of rituals. We got to witness this procession close to our house. There were men dressed as Roman soldiers. Some of which were beating drums. There were alter boys swinging incense, a Catholic priest would occasionally stop and say a few words, men were carrying statues (Jesus, Mary, and John.) All this accompanied by a van with speakers on top so we could all hear any time someone spoke into the mic.

Twice the procession stopped in front of two different women who spoke to the statue of Jesus. One had water and the other a cloth to wipe the statue's face.
It was quite sad frankly. Since Catholic doctrine teaches that salvation is by faith plus works we can be assured that many in the crowd were believing that their participation pleased God and they were hoping for His acceptance. My Costa Rican friend Julio told me that this is exactly the case. So Amie and I prayed for them before we left.

Will you pray too? Pray that they will understand that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. And that they will also understand that the Scriptures are our only source of spiritual authority and not a man or church tradition.

Christian history fact: By the way, one of the reasons Catholicism is so strong here in Latin America is because the Jesuits (Catholic missionaries of old) were some of the first to get here. Plus, they were willing to do a lot of the hard and dangerous work here that us protestants of old were not as willing to do.
This goes to show us that our obedience or disobedience to the Lord can have very long lasting and very serious consequences.

Obedience = Joy