Celebration of the Virgin of Carmen food offering?

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EvangelistVictor

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Today I went to a celebration of the Virgin of Carmen’s birthday. My wife and I had never been to such an event. We grew up Catholic as youth, but our parents were never involved this deep in Catholicism. Is this what deep the Catholic Church allows? A priest was there earlier.

As a recent convert back to the Catholic faith, my initial reaction was one of caution as I walked in seeing all the statues. Something didn’t feel right.

Upon closer inspection upon the altar, I noticed food offerings to the Virgin of Carmen. I was honestly in shock. Only other time I saw anything like this in a mini temple offering of food to a statue of buddha, which as pagan idolatry.

I asked a seasoned Catholic that was invited there if he thought the food offering was ok to do. He said NO, as satan invades the Catholic Church too.

Any thoughts? Protestants warned me of this type idolatry, but I never saw it first hand.

Was I really at a Santeria Celebration?

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As the night progressed, these guys started their whipping.

Watch “Whipping Celebration??” on YouTube
 
EvangelistVictor said:
Today I went to a celebration of the Virgin of Carmen’s birthday. My wife and I had never been to such an event. We grew up Catholic as youth, but our parents were never involved this deep in Catholicism.

As a recent convert back to the Catholic faith, my initial reaction was one of caution as I walked in seeing all the statues. Something didn’t feel right.

Upon closer inspection upon the altar, I noticed food offerings to the Virgin of Carmen. I was honestly in shock. Only other time I saw anything like this in a mini temple offering of food to a statue of buddha, which as pagan idolatry.

I asked a seasoned Catholic that was invited there if he thought the food offering was ok to do. He said NO, as satan invades the Catholic Church too.

Any thoughts?

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Did you actually ask anyone what the food was doing there, and what is done to it during the Mass/service and afterwards?

Some cultures have traditions on various feasts involving blessing of food - which is a different thing entirely to the food actually being an offering to a saint or indeed God.

I believe a common Polish custom before Easter is to bring baskets of food to the church to be blessed by the priest - happy to be corrected if I’m wrong. Similarly at harvest time agricultural communities in different parts of the world may bring produce into the church to be blessed. It’s a way of thanking God for His bounty and the saints for intercession.

On the other hand it may indicate an improper level of syncretism - this particular feast seems to be associated with South America and may have over time incorporated elements of pre-Christian practice.
 
LilyM said:
Did you actually ask anyone what the food was doing there, and what is done to it during the Mass/service and afterwards?
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When I got there, it was after their local Priest had left. The food offering was sitting there the whole evening.

I’m just trying to make sure I didn’t accidentally attend a Santeria Mass on accident. My brother-in-law invited us, saying it was a baptism party. Obviously that was a lie!
 
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EvangelistVictor said:
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LilyM:
Did you actually ask anyone what the food was doing there, and what is done to it during the Mass/service and afterwards?
Click to expand...
When I got there, it was after their local Priest had left. The food offering was sitting there the whole evening.

I’m just trying to make sure I didn’t accidentally attend a Santeria Mass on accident. My brother-in-law invited us, saying it was a baptism party. Obviously that was a lie!
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Sounds very much like you’re at risk of jumping to conclusions without bothering to find out the necessary information - ie to ask the participants what they are doing and, more importantly, why they are doing it!

I’m not familiar with this particular celebration so can’t help you too much except that none of the limited research I have been able to do suggests any connection to Santeria or that food offerings to the Virgin form part of the celebration.
 
I’d want to ask someone local about this before reaching any conclusions. It seems possible to me that they were offering food in the same way someone might place a bouquet of flowers at the feet of the Blessed Virgin’s statue.
 
It was not a Santaria festival.

It is the Memorial (Feast in certain dioceses) of the Virgen of Carmen, not her birthday. This day celebrates the veneration of Our Lady through the devotion demonstrated in a region of Peru. Under her protection were placed the tribes and mixed peoples of the area and they have shown their devotion to Our Lady ever since using their tribal practices of celebration and veneration. This is a common practice with regards to Catholicism and tribal cultures and is adapted all over the world. It may seem offensive to European sensibilities, but if you put it into perspective, the Christmas Tree is actually one of these types of traditions stemming back from the ancient germanic tribes. The “Whipping Celebration” is a demonstration of bravery and fortitude in honor of the one it is demonstrated for. It is similar in respect to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain in honor of St. Fermin, who was the first Bishop of Pamplona and a martyr. The altar with food is also a very latin cultural tradition. It is practiced in Italy as well as those countries of Spanish and Portugese origin. At a celebration or birthday, it is custom to bring the one being celebrated food. This still happens in those countries even outside of religious feasts and is even present in our own country in the form of bringing a gift for the host of a party. As Mary is the one being celebrated, the people show their love by cooking food, not as ritualistic offerings, but as a way to show that they are making a sacrifice of something that could feed their own families in honor of Our Mother.

At first glance, many of these traditions may seem alien or even demonic to western eyes, but once you actually dive into the meaning behind them, they open up and you can understand why they are enacted. Just know that any tribal custom which is introduced at these types of festivals have first been analyzed by the bishops of the country of origin who understand the meaning and have found them worthy to be enacted in honor of Our Lady.

Our Lady of Carmen was also declared the Patroness of Folk Dances in 1972, so this can explain the dances and practices you witnessed. Pope John Paul II witnessed this festival when he visited Peru and did not find anything wrong with it.
 
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EvangelistVictor said:
Today I went to a celebration of the Virgin of Carmen’s birthday. My wife and I had never been to such an event. We grew up Catholic as youth, but our parents were never involved this deep in Catholicism. Is this what deep the Catholic Church allows? A priest was there earlier.

As a recent convert back to the Catholic faith, my initial reaction was one of caution as I walked in seeing all the statues. Something didn’t feel right.

Upon closer inspection upon the altar, I noticed food offerings to the Virgin of Carmen. I was honestly in shock. Only other time I saw anything like this in a mini temple offering of food to a statue of buddha, which as pagan idolatry.

I asked a seasoned Catholic that was invited there if he thought the food offering was ok to do. He said NO, as satan invades the Catholic Church too.

Any thoughts? Protestants warned me of this type idolatry, but I never saw it first hand.

Was I really at a Santeria Celebration?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Click to expand...
OP, you might want to look up ‘St Joseph’s Table’ - a venerable Sicilian custom of honouring St Joseph on his feast day with a lavish feast which is first spread out on an ‘altar’, aka a shrine rather than a spot where the Eucharist is celebrated. Tradition goes that it is a thankyou to St Joseph for a particular occasion on which there was a drought that was ended through his intercession.

Looks a lot.like your first photo - and NOT pagan worship nor anything demonic!

As for the second video - it seems purely to be a cultural thing without religious overtones at all.

Looks very much like they’re not actually whipping each other, given the participants aren’t showing any signs of being hit.

Remember the old stage trick where a performer would have a volunteer hold a lit cigarette in their mouth and then flick the tip of it with a whip so that the cigarette was extinguished and/or knocked out of the volunteers mouth? A harmless but exciting demonstration of skill, nothing more.
 
Yes, thanks for that info. My wife though, still Evangelical used this against me saying, “Uhh huh, and you want to be Catholic”. Its really testing my faith now with these foreign practices that in my limited knowledge is not part of the early traditions of pure Catholicism in the early centuries. Pray for me.
 
LilyM said:
Remember the old stage trick where a performer would have a volunteer hold a lit cigarette in their mouth and then flick the tip of it with a whip so that the cigarette was extinguished and/or knocked out of the volunteers mouth? A harmless but exciting demonstration of skill, nothing more
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It was interesting to see this though.
 
This made me nervous, at first…until I remembered all the ‘festivals’ in New York, mostly Italian or Italian-American, which can last for as long as two weeks! Mostly in honor of Saint Anthony or Saint Rocco, there are processions, fireworks…you name it! But, food is not ‘offered’…it’s sold and eaten!
So, unless strange names, and requests for evil things are made, I’d say it was all right…not for everyone’s tastes to be sure, but definitely in line with what the church allows!
 
I found this article about the origin of the celebration:

"History:

There are several stories about the origin of this holiday, one that:

"When the then ruler of Peru Pedro Fernandez de Castro Andrade, Count of Lemos, traveled to Upper Peru, came from Puno to Cuzco, he was told that in Pucara, a miracle happened because a rock appeared in the likeness of the Virgin and when he personally found it, the Viceroy was admired for its perfection. When he returned to the viceregal capital, he sent a painter to Pucara for the miracle to be transported on canvas, work that was unbeatable.

"Thus the Viceroy Count of Lemos himself ordered to carve identical effigies and the same size as the destinations were Pucara and Puni, to be worshiped in the temple.

"Although several years had passed, the image was not picked up by people from Puno, staying in Pucara. When Doña Maria Campos, a woman with good economic status who used to travel from Puno to Paucartambo, heard the news, she made her efforts to bring the image to Paucartambo from which date the feast is celebrated with the solemnity possible.

“La Virgen Del Carmen was declared patron of folk dances in 1972 and it has been brought to the city of Cuzco to be honored by Pope John Paul II in February 1985.”

It’s obviously the celebration of a miracle related to the Blessed Virgin Mary, similar in some ways to the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I don’t think there is anything “evil” going on there.
 
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