Milton Public Library

My Penitente land, reflections on Spanish New Mexico, Angelico Chavez

eng

no index present

non fiction

My Penitente land

electronic resource

dictionaries

Angelico Chavez

reflections on Spanish New Mexico

This unusual book, Fray Angélico Chávez's personal meditation on his cultural heritage, is also a kind of spiritual autobiography of the Hispano people of New Mexico. The spirit of New Mexico, he feels, grows out of its dry mountain terrain whose hills and valleys resemble those of Spain and of ancient Palestine. Just as this kind of landscape helped the Hebrew shepherd Abraham to find his God, so in Fray Angélico's view, have New Mexico's mountains kept her people close to their God. In evoking this special closeness between the divine and the human, the author returns repeatedly to the Penitentes of New Mexico-the societies of men who scourge themselves and replay the Crucifixion each Holy Week to share the sufferings of their Savior. Some of his ideas will spark controversy over the meaning of New Mexico's past, but Fray Angélico Chávez's viewpoint, representing that of many native Spanish Americans, deserves the attention of every reader with an interest in the state's Hispanic heritage. No one can read this book without gaining a new understanding of the world of the New Mexican Hispano imbedded in the dry, hilly landscape of the majestic Sangre de Cristo mountains

adult