Solentiname is an archipelago of islands on Lake Nicaragua. When the priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal arrived there in the late 1960s, instead of a sermon during the Sunday Mass, the gospel lesson was handed to a campesino1 (typically a child because they were more likely to be literate) to be read, and then the community held a dialogue on that gospel.
The Gospel In Solentiname is a collection of these dialogues. Cardenal used a tape recorder and each Sunday recorded the dialogues, then transcribed them into the four volumes we now have.
Most of the commentaries were made in the church, at the Sunday Mass. Some were made in other locations, occasionally at the communal lunch after Mass or at open air Masses held on other islands.
Cardenale writes, “Each Sunday we first distribute copies of the Gospels to those who can read. There are some who can’t especially among the elderly and those who live on islands far away from the school. One of those who read best (generally a boy or a girl) reads aloud the entire passage on which we are going to comment. Then we discuss it verse by verse.”
The dialogues themselves are more rich than most academic commentaries I’ve read. Although I’m a late-comer to this resource, they will become a staple of my exegetical work for the foreseeable future.
However, please forgive me for focusing, at least for a moment, on the theological import not of the commentary, but of the radical moves made utilizing alternative media in order to produce the commentaries in the first place—because rarely have we had such a prime illustration of Marshall McLuhan’s axiom, “The medium is the message.”
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Cardenal, intuitively it seems, makes a series of moves in his work as a priest that set the context for the production of unique text. Perhaps this comes partially out of his life situation (he was born in Nicaragua near Solentiname), partially out of his education (he trained for a time under Thomas Merton), partially out of the spirit of the moment (liberation theology and base communities were influential in the 1960s) and partially out of his unique personality and spirit.
Whatever the admixture of influences, we all benefit from the result. But from a media ecology perspective, I highlight the following moves:
Move #1: Location, location, location… Cardenal does not bring the campesinos in to a conference center or urban context in order to produce the commentary. Instead, he forms his community where the people already are, and does the work of biblical commentary there, on location. Throughout the text, you see how this “being on location” influences how the community interprets the gospels.
Move #2: Children read the Gospel… The only “authority” necessary to read the gospels in the Mass in this context was related to literacy rather than age. But the fact of the children reading the gospel for the Mass highlights something crucial… that the gospel is especially for the people, the poor, the “little ones.” Remember it was Jesus who said to the disciples, “Let the little children come to me.” It’s remarkable to me how few communities (including the congregation I currently serve) have taken this instruction literally. But to be obvious, since Jesus is the Gospel, and the Gospels are the story of Jesus the Gospel, it should be immediately apparent to us that one way to follow that instruction would be to have children read the gospel in worship.
Move #3: The sermon is a dialogue… Here Cardenal goes full radical. Rather than claiming the preaching office for himself as the priest, he makes the communitarian, socialist, communal move to have the good news proclaimed by the community by itself, to itself. He certainly plays a role as facilitator (and tape recorder), but it is not an outsize role and the only way it has some authority is in the sense that it gives its authority away in order to give space for many voices. I want to be careful here and not describe the situation incorrectly. It’s not that the priest no longer has any role or function in relationship to the sermon. They still speak. And they definitely coordinate. But they speak along and with and among, and the coordination is not ten hours of writing on a Thursday in individual study to produce a manuscript. Instead it’s coordination that facilities (and mediates) the voice of the community.
Move #4: He uses a tape recorder… 2023 is the year of the record. LPs sold more copies this year than CDs, and the rate of sales of LPS has been rising for a decade. Now, I don’t know whether tapes will make a come-back, but it is fascinating to consider using a recording device to record community dialogue. I wonder but do not know if the presence of the tape recorder changed how the speakers thought about what they were saying, but I do know that mediating device made it possible for those of us who don’t live on Lake Nicaragua to listen in.
Move #5: We now have a book… It’s worth noting that we do also have a book. The recordings needed to be transcribed, the transcriptions needed to be edited and find a publisher. Books have the push-pull of authority and equality much like the dialogical sermon. On the one hand, you have to find a publisher to be heard. On the other hand, once a book is out in the world literally anyone can read it if they can get their hands on it.
In his introduction to the commentary, Cardenal writes, “The true author of this book is the Spirit that has inspired the commentaries: the spirit of God instilled in the community, whom Oscar would call the spirit of community unity, and Alejandro the spirit of service to others, and Elvis the spirit of the society of the future, and Felipe the spirit of proletarian struggle, and Julio the spirit of equality and the community of wealth, and Laureano the spirit of the revolution, and Rebeca the spirit of love.”
Those speaking during the dialogues are indeed the true authors, and I simply add that authorship is always mediated. We also can celebrate the artist who made the book covers (Miriam, one of the children who often read the gospels), Donald Walsh who translated the commentaries into English, Orbis Press who published the books, etc.
It’s my prayer that Christian communities everywhere, my own included, might be inspired by and open to the Spirit that inspired Ernesto Cardenal and his community to comment on the gospels in this unique way. The medium is the message. Perhaps it’s time for us to evaluate what message we think we are delivering as a result of the media we include or exclude, use or don’t use.
The term most frequently used in the book to identify the peasant farmers that make up this community.
Fascinating. I’d love to see you establish your claim on Christological grounds.
The thing is that Cardenal encouraged and the campesinos actually saw themselves in the gospel. They WERE Joseph & Mary; Jesus & Thomas; fishermen Peter, James, and John. While the church taught them that they were ignorant and sinful, Cardenal valued their role and perspective. They knew people like the pharisees. They knew what it meant to be occupied by a foreign country and ruled by a traitorous dictator. Cardenal was actually in internal exile while the first two volumes were developed. Their interpretation of scripture came from their lived experience.