Cholito Jesús

The Catholic Church is a universal church. But as universal as the Catholic mass may be, each mass is also unique. The experience of a mass if affected by the priest saying the mass, the community attending the mass, and of course, the music played at mass. Here, I want to focus on just one Peruvian Christmas song before the Christmas season is over (it ends tomorrow). The song is called Cholito Jesús.*

*The word "cholo" is something I hope to discuss at length at another time. It's a very complicated, often racially charged, word. For today, I will only say that cholo applies to people of Andean descent.*

I love this song because it an example of claiming Jesus and the Holy Family for one´s own culture. All too often, Jesus looks like this: 

Many people like to point out that Jesus was a native born Palestinian and therefore probably looked more like this guy: 

The reason we tend to imagine White Jesus is because the people who spread Christianity to most of the world were White people. There´s nothing inherently wrong with White Jesus. White Jesus is the mainstream example of a culture crafting an image of Jesus that they can easily identify. Sometimes, in order to better see the God in ourselves, we need the aid of seeing a God who looks like ourselves. "So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27) If we are created in God's image, then each person you see on the street is an accurate depiction of God. 

Most depictions of Jesus and the Holy Family aren't attempts to capture a photograph. They are tools for us to enter into the stories from scripture. That brings us to Cholito Jesús. Like I said, I love this song because it claims the Holy Family for the Andean culture in very definitive ways. The most obvious is the name of the song. Instead of singing about White Jesus, since those first masses in the communities I talked about, we´ve been singing to Cholito Jesús. Cholito Jesús isn´t just Peruvian Jesus. He´s Andean Jesus. He's one of the people from here.

The other half of the coin of mixing culture and religion is bring our culture to our religion. In this case, instead of claiming Jesus as one of "us" (whatever your idea of "us" may be), we offer to God the distinctive aspects of our culture. It is a fitting thing to reflect upon as we approach Three King´s Day. The kings brought Jesus gifts from their culture, rich gifts from their palaces. So what do the Andean people bring to offer the newborn king? They bring clothing very typical of the Andes.

un ponchito de color  

un chullito muy serrano 

But unlike the Three Kings, the Andean people bring gifts for Mary and Joseph as well. The indecitos pastores (the indian shepherds - even the shepherds are claimed in this song!) bring the new parents vino y quinoa (wine and quinoa) as well as buena chica (good chicha)*

Finally, I want to point out the chorus of Cholito Jesús:

Y todos le gritarán:

(¡Uy Cholito!) 

¿De dónde viniste tú? 

(¡Uy Cholito!) 

Y todos le creerán 

que naciste en el Perú 

Everyone will shout

Oh Cholito!

Where did you come from?

Oh Cholito!

And everyone will believe

That you were born in Peru

We talk about Jesus being born "in our hearts" on Christmas. Here in this song, Andeans are singing about Jesus being born in Peru. They are singing about Jesus being born into a small community in the Andes. Cholito Jesús says "Jesus is one of us." Which means that here in the Andes, on Christmas, Virgen Mary and Jesus looks like this:

*Chicha is a fermented corn drink that was considered sacred by the Incas. It is still very popular today. There's a new chicha museum across the street from us. After I go there, I'll fill you in on all the wonders and history of chicha.

Image Credits

White Jesus

Palestinian Man

Poncho

Chullo

Andean Mother and Baby