In the year of the Amazon Synod, we wish to recover the memory and testimonial of Florentino Zabalza, Augustinian Recollect and Bishop of the Prelature of Lábrea (Amazon, Brazil) from 1971 to 1994, who left his memoirs that are now offered to all audiences, for the first time, through AgustinosRecoletos.org.
Trying to know and interpret the present of the Amazon and its possibilities for the future without paying attention to its past would be to deceive oneself, to decontextualize reality and, most seriously, to hide and not tackle the reasons why this region of the world has come to suffer so many conflicts. , inequalities and crimes against people and the environment.
One of the most significant and revealing tasks in preparing for the Synod is, precisely, recovering the witnesses, and even more so those who took the trouble to write and describe reality.
From AgustinosRecoletos.org we have wanted to rescue part of that history and one of its witnesses, the Augustinian Recollect Florentino Zabalza, who missioned between 1970 and 1994 in the Prelature of Lábrea, in the southwest of the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
Zabalza gathered in a single document, which he titled Letters to my Parents, explanations about the region, the way of doing mission and its protagonists, the day to day of some of his pastoral actions and rich descriptions of the physical space and the personality of his population.
The full document is now published on this website AgustinosRecoletos.org. In addition, in this report, we will offer an anthology of some of those texts, which hopes to be an appetizer for the reader to be encouraged to read the complete work.
Until now, before electronic publication, the work had remained practically hidden in drawers and on shelves. Letters to my Parents survived in almost personal and personalized copies, first by multicopier and later by photocopier, a few more in home printing when information technology made it possible to easily share documents without the ties of paper and packaging.
Even so, Letters to my Parents had a couple of “speakers” who spoke of the work of Bishop Florentino even when his access was not easy. Recollectio magazine, the main showcase for articles on the history and spirituality of the Augustinian Recollects, published a review of Letters to my Parents written by the Augustinian Recollect Luis Garayoa (1983, pages 478-479:
This work reveals a new facet of Dom Florentino’s polyhedral personality: his vein as a writer, and as a writer with an easy, agile, entertaining, sparkling pen. As a writer, an attentive observer of what happens around him, of the people, of the life and miracles of the people. He has written a work that is read in one sitting, and that is priceless, full as it is of a thousand news about the various aspects of life and environment of the Prelature of Labrea, and its religious, social, economic, and environmental problems.
Written —and it’s a pity, because it deserves to be better dressed— on a multicopy machine, and embellished by a series of drawings by Father Jesús Moraza. The author says that he has chosen the epistolary style, of Letters to my Parents, who surely have read them from heaven, in order to be able to dialogue with more familiarity with the readers and talk about the various topics like someone who does not give excessive importance to the stuff.
In the Introduction he indicates that he wanted to answer a series of questions through these pages: “Where, with whom, among whom, how is he working”. And in faith that he has fully responded to each and every one of them. He mocks mocking and always with a certain joy he exposes the situation of Lábrea, from its geographical aspect and its fauna and flora to the pastoral problems that most worry the missionaries today. I sincerely believe that this work is an essential source for future historians of the Prelature.
Through these pages one admires the renewed effort of our missionaries in their excursions -freely- through the Purús and its tributaries to administer the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, marriage, etc. to the people who live on its margins; the commitment to form base communities, which meet to celebrate the word of God and pray in the absence of the missionary.
Bishop tells us about two free excursions made by him, as an example of what everyone, especially Father Moraza, does. Together with our brothers, he highlights the work of the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries, of the Marist Brothers, who are already in three mission posts, of the missionaries – a German priest and several lay volunteers – of the indigenous group, which had contacted a new tribe.
Special mention to the pages dedicated to the rubber tappers, to the Indians and their customs, to the people who went there after the lure of rubber, and who today live in great poverty and are often victims of injustice and exploitation by great owners. Likewise, those pages that he dedicates to narrating some awesome Indian legend, to celebrating the Purús River, which crosses the Prelature for many kilometers, and which is the torment and delight of the missionaries and all who live on its banks. It tells us well that the Purús and its tributaries mark the rhythm of the life of the inhabitants of the interior.
It is also worth noting the news that it gives about popular religiosity, as well as what it tells us about the efforts they make to help the poorest and most needy, to resolve clear situations of injustice, even at the risk of confronting the chieftains and authorities.
The work is dotted with numerous Portuguese words, denoting the familiar and somewhat careless style with which the letters are written. Perhaps it would be convenient, when the work is printed, since I have no doubt that it should be encouraged to do so for greater dissemination and propaganda of the missionary work of the Order and of the Church in Amazonian lands, to take care of the language a little and eliminate these Portugueseisms at least in part.
I congratulate Father Florentino -sorry, Bishop- for this work, and I hope he continues writing about what he lives and observes in those Labronian lands.
Years later, an Augustinian Recollect bishop, Martín Legarra, published his own memoirs, which he called De mi acontecer misionero in the Avgvstinvs publishing house (Madrid). In volume III (1986), p. 177, he said:
The Bishops write
And they write not only pastoral letters and moral exhortations, but also on many different subjects. Concerning some of the bishops of the Order [of Augustinian Recollects] I can say that they also do it.
Today I am pleased to mention the book, still in the duplicator, Letters to my Parents, by Bishop Florentino Zabalza, OAR, Bishop of Lábrea. He has chosen the epistolary form, the most direct and lively of all forms of communication, which, as we know, was introduced by Saint Paul in the Scriptures.
I know of the existence of the book more than by direct knowledge, by references from those who can judge its value. By the way, I’m afraid that the postal service from Labrea to Panama is not as efficient as from Panama to Labrea. While Bishop Zabalza received by air Volume 2 of “From my missionary event”, I am still waiting for Letters to my Parents. That’s not fair. However, I am pleased to read the review of the book published in Recollectio by Fr. Luis Garayoa (…).
I will add that a French gentleman, Bishop Zabalza’s traveling companion on one of his air flights, and who was interested in Letters to my Parents, asked the author for a copy and got it. I wonder why I wouldn’t be born in France to be so lucky. Although no, please: for nothing I renounce Murguindueta that God placed in the delicious and picturesque valley of Araquil, Navarra, Spain. I will also tell you, sisters, that the generous French gentleman (whose name, surname and address Bishop Zabalza has not communicated to me) has begun to publish Letters to my Parents in his own language. And long live internationality: we all benefit.
Unfortunately, we have not found references to the French edition to which Legarra’s writing refers, so we think that it was done manually, in duplicator, similar to the distribution of the original in Spanish. Neither by author nor by title in French can one find references of him.
This report from AgustinosRecoletos.org focuses on presenting an anthology of this almost unknown gem. Handwritten letters to the family were until the 21st century the only form of communication for the missionaries; Even the telephone reached most of the mission well into the 21st century (in 2002 to Tapauá and Canutama and even later to Pauiní), and international calls were very expensive for the mission’s finances.
Florentino chose his most descriptive, curious or explanatory letters and later called the whole Letters to my Parents, although, sadly, his father who had died on January 15, 1968 did not read any of them: Florentino arrived at the mission in 1970. Neither do we know for sure when the originals that were later integrated into Letters to my Parents were written, although there are a few temporary references to later corrections made for publication in the book.
In any case, the epistolary style always allows a didactic tone to explain what the Labrea Mission is like to those who have never set foot in a jungle and cannot imagine what it is like to live in a place where isolation is precisely one of the fundamental characteristics that most influence people’s life.
This 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the pastoral care trips to the population dispersed by the Amazon rivers that Florentino narrates in Letters to my Parents and that we include in this anthology.
Four decades later, little or nothing has changed: in some things the improvements have been great, in others we could even say that it has gotten worse. We have set aside and do not publish, among other chapters, two other complete debriefs that are in Letters to my Parents and can be read in the complete electronic publication.
Although the typical sacramental parades continue to be celebrated, today they have new components, such as formation for the entire community, specific formation for leaders, greater use of written materials, Sunday sheets, local action guides; The communities, in general, have a little more resources and the level of illiteracy does not resemble that of thirty or forty years ago.
There are also these communities that are somewhat more empowered compared to the “owners” of the place. They have local leaders and pastoral agents, and the dependence on the system of semi-slavery described by Florentino Zabalza has been reduced to the extent that the number of people dedicated to rubber is also much smaller. But the economy continues to be based on subsistence, barter, and social life which continues to be far from the interest of the authorities or normal public services.
Those events described by Florentino were the germ of that work which is more systematic today and which he added to the sacramental task other tasks to strengthen the rural Amazonian population in their experience not only of faith, but also as a social entity.
We have not edited much of the texts chosen for this anthology, apart from some language updates or removal of references or descriptions which, in the current context, would not be well understood. Yes, we have divided and ordered the chosen chapters in a different way to facilitate their online reading.
We have also eliminated some contextualizations which Florentino made for his time and today we would have to “re-contextualize” them to find any meaning. Half a century does not pass in vain, and the sensibilities of the readers are also different.
Florentino mixes his Navarrese expressions with Amazonian speech, and he does so with great humility, but always narrating the life of the mission, its people, the environment that surrounds them and the agents that work there, away from any personal role on his part. He exudes affection, understanding and fine sensitivity towards the people he serves as a bishop, something that is between the lines throughout Letters to my Parents.
We also did not publish in the report any of Florentino’s Poems, which came together as a second part in the home editions of Letters to my Parents. Yes, we have saved them in the electronic edition in PDF.
In this way, we try not to distract the mind of the reader from this report regarding the Amazonian reality. Except for one dedicated to the Colombian mission of Tumaco, the rest are mostly Augustinian poems and give an idea of the love that Florentino felt for the charisma that he had chosen for his life.
Let it be Florentino himself who speaks again, forty or more years later, about the Amazonian mission of Labrea. Serving in homage and gratitude of this community to his figure, to his evangelizing action, to his witness as a missionary and as a bishop.
It also serves as a preparation for the year of the Amazon Synod and also serves to recover, safeguard and facilitate the access of more people to these Letters to my Parents.
NEXT PAGE: 2. Friar Florentino Zabalza, Augustinian Recollect
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