Bernadette Abraham, 84, recalls life in Moruca 

       Mrs. Bernadette Abraham of Kumaka Road, Santa Rosa, Moruca (Photo Medino Abraham).

From Medino Abraham

Mrs. Bernadette Abraham is 84 years old and is from Santa Rosa, Moruca. For the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Catholic faith in Moruca, the oldest Catholic mission in the interior of Guyana tells her story of what is like to be a Catholic for all this time.

Mrs. Abraham is of the third generation of the first Morucans who came from Venezuela to Mariaba (present-day Santa Rosa). She was educated at the convent school run by the Mercy Sisters that time. From that school came a few indigenous religious sisters from Santa Rosa. There were also a few young men who entered the seminary to train for the priesthood but they did not continue. She lamented that Moruca has not produce any priests in its 200 years of Catholicism.

Mrs. Abraham narrated to me her memories of going to church very regularly as a child with her parents who were strong Catholics and who themselves were educated by the sisters at the convent school. Mrs. Abraham is the eldest of five siblings, who are all still alive.

She recalled that when she was a small child, her life revolved around the home, school, the church and the farm. Being subsistence farmers, they worked hard to plant cassava and other crops to sustain the household. Their family life was very strong and despite the hard work, they had fun. “We prayed together, ate together, discussed issues and tried to solve matters about life as a family” she said. Mrs. Abraham noted that today this has changed much, with people not spending time with their families. “Nowadays people are married one day and sometime after they will separate. They make a joke of married life and the holy sacrament of matrimony. This is not good”, she said.

Another concern she has are the high rates of promiscuity seen today. “Today we have men making ‘pickneys’ all over the place with women who just think it is normal. The children grow up with single parents and most times they are wayward because there is no structured parental guidance”. She said that during the time when most of the people lived according to Church teachings this issue was not so common.

Mrs. Abraham noted that she heard her parents speaking the Arawak and Spanish languages at home to one another, but she never learnt those languages, except for a few words in Spanish. When I asked her if she regretted not knowing to speak her native language her response was a quick ‘yes’, and lamented that most people of Moruca nowadays don’t know their language either.

In our conversations about her experience of the celebration of Mass prior to Vatican II in the 1960s , Mrs Abraham narrated “I remember seeing the priest facing the wall and backing the congregation. The priest used to celebrate Mass in Latin, and the congregation used to accompany him with responses in Latin. I learnt a few words like ‘mea culpa,’ that means ‘through my fault’ and is an acknowledgement of having done wrong.

Then after the 1960s the priest began to celebrate the Mass facing the congregation. This I found strange for the first. But after sometime I got accustomed to it.

“I got married at age 15 to my husband Joseph Abraham who died a couple years ago, God rest his soul. We lived our married life happily together through rough and through good times and with the grace of God we never separated until he died”.

When I asked her what kept their married life strong and firm, she related that they always prayed together at home, and also tried to show love and respect for one another. “This for me is what it means to be Catholic”.

They also sought advice from the priest and elders in the community for encouragement and good advice to keep them going.

Mrs. Abraham recalled too that during that time, Santa Rosa was a uncorrupted place where the main time and place of social interaction was around the church after the Mass on Sundays. There were rarely places where people went to dance and drink as nowadays. With a tone of nostalgia she said she missed those good old days and laments some of the changes that have taken place over these 200 years in Moruca, which, according to her, are for the good and the bad.

Over the course of these 200 years things have changed a lot in Moruca, with many people leaving the Catholic church and joining other churches in the community. Also many people nowadays don’t go to church at all.

“I don’t know why people have changed so much like this. Because in my day every Sunday the church used to be packed whether there is a priest or not. But not today. People hardly go and it’s only those who have kept the faith or the diehard Catholics that go regularly”, she said.

Mrs. Abraham always practices her Catholic faith by going to church regularly. Besides this, she enjoys doing voluntarily work assisting the priest in her role as Parish Lay Assistant (PLA).

She served as a PLA for a number of years in Moruca during the time of Fathers Terrence Petry and Bernard Brown. Under these Jesuit priests she learnt many great things about her faith and about the teachings of the Church. Then after some years she decided to step down and encouraged younger people to take over.

This, I found it very interesting because nowadays there are a lot of long standing, generous PLAs who continue to be there and may not be giving the chance to the young ones to take over.

When I asked her about this common issue with the young verses the old in the leadership of the Church she said it was always there. “But I used to know how to deal them. We need the youths in the Church to be active and for the senior ones to help them to learn so that they can take over and not just to shut them out.”

Craftwork depicting the 200th anniversary of Catholicism in Santa Rosa. (Photo Medino Abraham).