Aug. 30, 2009: 22nd Sunday Ordinary (B)

Many of you during summer have taken some time off for vacation or took a class to learn something new. I know some young people of our diocese went to mission work in Virginia near Appalachian mountains. And some went to mission work much closer to us, in Vacherie in conjunction with Our Lady of Peace parish. The young people who go on these mission trips are told up front that they are not going there expecting to give people something. Instead, the young people are told to be ready to be present to the people, to listen and to receive. Being a missionary is not about painting walls, tearing down moldy dry walls, or pulling up weeds for someone; that would be a social work. But being a missionary for Jesus means that with our presence we radiate God's gentle compassion which stirs the hearts of others to know more about Jesus. And the missionaries themselves need to be prepared to be touched by the persons they are helping; for it's never one-way giving. We receive far more of Jesus's compassion from the very person we're helping, if we have eyes to see it.

(Photo of Kristen Murphy, from NY Times) That's what happened to a 38 yr. old medical school student named Kristen Murphy. She was interested in geriatric medicine, and she was given a chance to experience life as a nursing home patient for two weeks in a real nursing home. For two weeks, Kristen assumed a role of a wheelchair-bound 80 yr. old patient who had a mild stroke with loss of right side function and difficulty swallowing. Why did she want to do this? Kristen's desire to help the elderly began in her childhood when she visited her grand mother in a nursing home. She remembered that her grand mother was always in bed and the television was usually set to channels which the staff enjoyed, like wrestling. Kristen had many preconceived notions about the nursing homes. For one thing, she was scared of nursing homes. She said, "but I don't think you can be a good doctor of you're scared of the place where a lot of your patients live."

So what was Kristen's two weeks like? As an 80 yr. old stroke patient, Kristen learned that simple things like getting out of bed, going to bathroom, and taking shower all required help. In the middle of night when she wanted to go to bathroom, she had to call the staff to hoist her out of her bed with a lifter and set her on the toilet. And Kristen hated being bathed by another person. It was uncomfortable, if not embarassing for another person to be present for something so private. Personal privacy and personal space she used to enjoy were not there. Eating pureed food was another consequence of being a patient who had difficulty swallowing. Trying to maneuver wheel chair with limited right hand coordination was another challenge. When she wedged her wheelchair into a corner and could not get out, she cried in frustration. She said, "All I wanted to do was shut my door and stay in here." Kristen learned that many patients cried because they knew that they would most likely never live anywhere else, or because they miss family and their old life. She said, "At times I felt really lonely and got depressed. Sometimes it was an emotional roller coaster, up and down, up and down."

What did Kristen learn from those two weeks? Prior to spending time at the nursing home, Kristen was puzzled as to why elderly patients were reluctant to be more physically active. But Kristen saw for herself how the physical pain of arthritis and emotional pain of losing independence and loneliness can make one tired and want not to move. She learned that it was better sometimes for the person to rest and stay in their wheelchair; that may be what that person needs. Kristen began to see the person from their shoes rather than from her own. And she began to be more present and listening than trying to fix the person.

Some of us here know the experience that Kristen went through. For some of us, this is our daily life. For some, our loved ones are living in nursing homes right now. St. James asks us today, "Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls. Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves." To be a missionary is to spread the Good News, by making flesh with our own actions the Word of God we have received. St. James continues, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world." St. James suggests here that our missionary field is not so far as another country, another state, or another city. It may be right in our midst.

Mother Teresa said the following to the graduating class of Harvard University. "People ask me, where is that hunger in our country, where is that nakedness in our country, where is that homelessness in our country? Yes, there is hunger. May be not the hunger for piece of bread, but there is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives, the pain and loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize the poor we may have right in our own family. Find them and love them. Put your love for them in living action. For in loving them, you are loving God himself.

(The story of Kristen Murphy was featured on the New York Times on Aug. 24, 2009.)

Aug. 23, 2009: 21st Sunday Ordinary (B)

As a newly ordained priest I have done around 7 weddings the past year. Talking with the couples about to get married, the wedding day is one of the most anticipated yet stressful event for them. Usually the day before the wedding the bridal party meets at the church for the rehearsal. There is a lot of choreography, you see, for entrance of parents, grand parents, groomsmen and bridesmaids. For those of you who were married at Our Lady of Mercy, you may recall what you did during the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. While bridal party and guests are sitting down most of the time through the mass, the groom and the bride, sit? Oh no. They are kneeling 90% of the time. So the bride and the groom usually react, "We're kneeling the whole time?" It's a very nice penance for the couple before they get married, isn't it?

This brings to question, "Why?" Why do couples about to be married need to kneel in front of the altar? I'll explain this by way of telling you about a pilgrimage I took to Portugal. Before arriving in Fatima, Portugal, about an hour south is a small town of Santarem. At the entrance of a small church of St. Stephen in Santarem, I noticed a poster explaining a miracle that happened there. Sometime between the year 1225 or 1247, there was a woman living in Santarem who was very unhappy. She was convinced that her husband did not love her and was cheating on her. As a desperate last attempt, she went to a sorceress. The sorceress promised the wife that her husband would return to his loving ways, if the wife would bring her a Consecrated Host from a mass. The wife knew that this was sacrilege, but relented and went to mass and received the Eucharist on her tongue and quickly took it out of her mouth and placed it in a hankerchief. Immediately, the Host began to bleed profusely. Frightened, instead of going to the sorceress, she went home and placed the Host in the bottom of a trunk. That night as she and her husband slept, they were awakened by bright rays coming from the trunk which lit up the entire room. In one account, the couple saw holy angels adoring the Holy Host bleeding. The wife confessed to her husband what she had done. Both her and her husband repented and spent the rest of the night kneeling in adoration and reparation before the miraculous Host. The next morning, they informed the parish priest. As the Host continue to bleed for several days, they fashioned a reliquary made of beeswax to contain it. They placed it in the tabernacle, but after few years, they noticed that in place of beeswax, miraculously a glass formed around the host in place of the beeswax. Still today, that miraculous Host is in display in this little town of Santarem which I got to see in 2004.

Today, Our Lord gives us two images that are interwoven. First, through St. Paul, Our Lord gives us the command to be subordinate to each other. He says,
"Brothers and sisters: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord...As the church is subordinate to Christ,
so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything." How many husbands when this was read few minutes ago elbowed their wives? But this passage doesn't stop there does it? It continues. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her..." This is a call to martyrdom, husbands. St. Paul is saying, 'Husbands, you should be willing to give up your lives for your wives." The second image that Our Lord gives us is of the large number of his disciples abandoning him because they could not accept his teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He presents this challenge to those who decided to stick with him. “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve..."

Husbands, what do you think the number one complaint by wives about their husbands? "My husband never chooses me." Husbands, we know we are distracted by many temptations and desires, the very desires that pull us away from the love of our life--our wives. What are we to do? St. Paul exhorts us, "Husbands, love your wives." This is a great act of sacrifice and a great act of love, to deny oneself from temptations so that we will choose our wives. After this homily, a representative from our men's spirituality program, That Man Is You, will speak about how we can once again learn how to commit to love our wives.

Wives, what do you think the number one complaint by husbands about their wives? "My wife does not respect me." Wives, do your husbands not deserve respect from you because the way they treat you? Then, it is a great act of sacrifice and a great act of love, to give respect when one does not deserve one. Yet this act of sacrifice, promotes peace in the household which preserves the husband as the head of the household and preserves the wife as the heart and the love of the family. We need both the head and the heart for this body to work; one is not greater than the other; both are equal in dignity and importance.

So husbands and wives, why did you kneel before the altar to pronounce one of the most important vows of your lives? It is impossible by human strength alone to keep your wedding vows to each other. Listen to the nuptial blessing that the bride and the groom receives at the wedding mass: "Father, may her husband put his trust in her and recognize that she is his equal and the heir with him to the life of grace. Lord, may they both praise you when they are happy and turn to you in their sorrows. May they be glad that you help them in their work and know that you are with them in their need." And as the bride and the groom kneel before the altar, right before their eyes on the altar, Jesus sacrifices his own fleshly body and sheds blood to nourish both the bride and the groom to be able to make the same sacrifice for each other.

The Eucharistic miracle of Santarem is one of the only Eucharistic miracles that occured for a married couple, especially a couple whose marriage was in trouble. The image that we should remember from this miracle is how the wife and the husband kneeled before the Holy Eucharist both confessing and repenting of their sins. Good marriage happens not by accident but by knees bent in worship of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Aug.18,2009: Tuesday of 20th Week Ordinary (B)

If you had $100 to prepare a dinner for 5 tonight, what would be on your menu, perhaps steak or salmon on the grill, salad with vinaigrette dressings, and lemon-meringue pie? A couple of years ago, a group of 5 seminarians from Uganda who were studying at the Notre Dame Seminary were given $100 to go out and eat. They instead chose to BBQ. They procured six-pack of beer, some chips, BBQ sauce, and a live kid goat. Someone slaughtered it and put it on the BBQ grill with all the entrails and all. I know many of you are frowning. If I was given that money, I’ll go out and get few pounds of raw salmon and tuna and make sashimi and sushi. I’m sure you’ll frown on that, too. Perhaps we don’t appreciate that in Uganda, a kid goat is valuable livestock for a family.

When we heard from today’s 1st Reading, we probably missed a little sentence which said, “Gideon went off and prepared a kid and a measure of flour in the form of unleavened cakes.” What’s happening here? You have the Midian army plundering harvest from Israelites and Gideon is trying to hide some of his harvest from them. And then he receives a call from God to be the very person to deliver Israelites from Midian army. God tells him,"Go with the strength you have and save Israel from the power of Midian. It is I who send you." But he answered him, "Please, my lord, how can I save Israel... I am the most insignificant in my father's house…If I find favor with you, give me a sign that you are speaking with me.” This is where the kid goat comes in. Even when food is scarce, Gideon offers as a sacrifice a kid goat which is probably one of the most valuable things he owns. This was an act of faith; he offers up his livelihood and sustenance hoping that God may give him the grace to carry out what God called him to do. By that act of sacrifice, Gideon was freed from the fear of undertaking new direction.

At the time I was leaving the company that I was working for and was about to enter Notre Dame Seminary, I had to give away all that I owned in a small house that I rented. I drove to the Salvation Army and dropped off everything. Everything I owned had to fit in a single 12x20 seminary room. My mom is still upset that I gave away her prized Corning brand cookware set that she lent me. But that giving away was necessary for me to not look back. Some of us here may be called by God to a new direction after losing a job, losing our savings, or our relationships. What is God asking you to offer up and let go in order to undertake that new direction? May God give us the grace to free us from fear and freely embrace the new road that He set before us.

Aug. 16, 2009: 20th Sunday Ordinary (B)

A couple of years ago I was leading a communion service at a nursing home nearby us. As I was giving communion to an elderly lady, she looked at me and said, "Are you my husband?" I replied, "Ummmm, no." One of the volunteer whispered into her ear, "That's Deacon Paul, here to give you communion." I was reminded of this little incident when I was reading an article in the last Sunday's New York Times.

The article began with a 19-yr-old Adam Lepak saying to his mom, "You're fake." His mom, Cindy Lepak replied, “What do you mean ‘fake,’ Adam?” she said. Adam replied,“You’re not my real mom,” he said. “I feel sorry for you, Cindy Lepak. You live in this world. You don’t live in the real world.” Cindy was used to this. Earlier that day, Adam spent all day doing physical therapy and memory drills that required him to remind himself-- I had a motorcycle accident, I hit my head and have trouble remembering new things, I had a motorcycle accident. Yet, the brain damage was severe enough that Adam lost the ability for his right and left brain to cooperate together; his memory may work, but the emotion centers are not sync'd with these memories. Adam remembers what his family looks like, but they don't feel like that they are his family. So he has deep suspicions about them. Adam, on bad days, insist that his mom and dad are impostors, body doubles, or a duplicate version. He also has problem recognizing himself in the mirror. It looks like him, but doesn't feel like it's himself.

The article raises some interesting questions. How do I come to know myself? How do I come to recognize my mama and my daddy? Many of you have visited Women's Hospital's nursery. Nowa days if you go there, there are no babies in display because they are all with their mamas. But in the old days, all the babies were in the plastic bed for you to point and say hi. And I'm sure the little babies would have raised their hand and said, "Hey maw-maw and paw-paw, I'm here! Uncle Boudreaux, comment ça va?" The reality is that new-born baby's vision is blurry for several weeks and can see only as far as 12 inches. That's about the distance between the baby and mama's face while the baby is nursing. So within several weeks, the baby begins to recognize mama's face visually. When daddy helps with bottle feeding, his face will be reconized, too. For the baby, then, there is a connection between the meal time, someone looking at me, and an overall feeling that I'm being loved. And in the baby's complex brain, one region will store the image of mama and daddy, and another region stores the emotions of warmth and love. This is how children bonds with us parents isn't it? So experts encourage family mealtime to strengthen family bonds. That means no TV and other electronic distractions during mealtime. I hear that now some mother's have to text on their cell phone to get the children scattered in the house to come to the dinner table.

For several Sundays, Our Lord has been emphasizing in the gospel how we need to eat his body and drink his blood to have eternal life in us. Why this emphasis? Why has weekly eating of Jesus' body and blood have become obligation for us? Is there some deeper mystery behind this obligation? In order to get into this mystery, I would like to go back to Adam who had brain injury. In Adam's case, the motorcycle accident damaged what's equivalent of major highways of his brain. Now his brain has to use the back roads to function; so all sorts of detour signs have to be put up so that the traffic can be rerouted. Undamaged brain cells need to recruit nearby, healthy brain tissues to bypass damage and compensate for lost function. And in order to reroute this traffic, brain experts say that brain needs to be active, solving problems, and rebuild relationships. And that's what Adam does everyday repeating to himself-- "I had a motorcycle accident, I hit my head and have trouble remembering new things, I had a motorcycle accident." This is where we have something in common with Adam.

We had something equivalent to motorcycle brain injury happen to us, spiritually. We were born without consciously recognizing who created our very soul and who knitted us in our mother's womb. In the beginning, it wasn't so; our spiritual brain injury was due to the Fall of Adam and Eve. And without proper religious education, we may live the rest of our lives not recognizing our own Heavenly Father, despite the fact that He continues to support and sustains us, just as Mr. and Mrs. Lepak cares for their son 24/7 regardless of whether their son calls his own mom and dad fake or impostors. And we also know that sometimes even when we have gone through pre-K thru Catholic high schools and Catholic colleges, we may still abandon our own Heavenly Father believing that He's just a make-belief or a myth. A good example of this is the novelist, Anne Rice, whom I talked about last week.

How does Heavenly Father tries to rehabilitate us from our spiritual injury? He uses mealtime--that is, the mass--to rebuild that invisible, supernatural bond with us. Just as a mother gives her infant the milk that her very own flesh and blood produced, Our Lord gives his very own flesh and blood to nurture and rebuild relationship that was once severed. We know that mother's milk changes to exact needs of the infant as they grow. Likewise, Our Lord's body and blood gives us just the right grace for that week. The Lord is doing His part 24/7. As the doctors told Adam to keep his brain active, we need to do our part to keep our spiritual brain active. And there no better therapy than coming to mass faithfully every week. When Jesus is on our hands at communion, the distance between Jesus in the Eucharist and our face is around 12 inches. It is a perfect time to gaze at the Lord and recognize Him who gazes back at us with incomparable affection.

Aug. 9, 2009: 19th Sunday Ordinary (B)

This past Wednesday, I spent a whole day with my 2 1/2 yr. old nephew who came home to Dallas. And I learned two lessons in life from him. First, have paper towel handy, always. His mama was potty training him without the pull-up diaper in the house, and he would just show up saying, "I'm wet." And it was my job to look around the house to see where he pee'd on the floor with plenty of paper towels. The second lesson in life is that even at an early age of 2 1/2 yr. old, we can push away someone who loves us. My nephew is named Pio after St. Padre Pio, but that did not mean that he was like the saintly Padre Pio most of the time. He was playing with his sister and his mama was next to him helping him play. He did not want his mama interfering with his play, so he pushed his mama away. She got up and walked away. Pio must felt guilty. He got up and chased after his mama and asked her to hug him. She ignored him. He began to cry out louder and louder. My sister said, "What do you say first?" Pio replied, "I'm sorry, mommy." Pio was back in his mama's arms, all content.

Isn't it a mystery that we hurt those who love us? Why is that? Is it because we are taking them for granted? Is it because we're so used to be forgiven that it's understood that no repentance is necessary? Taking this analogy beyond our moms and dads, relatives, and friends, do we take God for granted that He does not require, "I'm sorry," from us when we push Him away?

Not long ago, I read a book by Anne Rice named, "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession." She grew up as a Catholic in the 1940s and 50s in the neighborhood of New Orleans near the Irish Channel and the Garden District. She was baptized at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church and attended school there. Those of you who have been down in Irish Channel neighborhood, St. Alphonsus is directly across from St. Mary's Catholic Church where the Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos is located at.

She said, "I left the church at age eighteen, because I stopped believing it was 'the one true church established by Christ to give grace'...When I

married two years later, it was to a passionate atheist, Stan Rice." They had a daughter together, but she died at the age of 5. And Rice channeled her grief through her first vampire novel called, "Interview with the Vampire." She later reflected, "The novel reflected my guilt and my misery in being cut off from God and from salvation; my being lost in a world without light." Yet, she said, "I kept trying to give up on God, but God wouldn't give up on me."

She was drawn to the person of Jesus. But she couldn't explain her attraction. In mid 1990s, she went to the Holy Land without knowing reasons why. She said, "Why did I insist that we remain in the church at the Garden of Gethsemane, as three priests said the Mass...What did it mean to me to be staring at the Garden of Olives, where just possibly Our Lord experienced his agony before the arrest that changed the history of the ancient world?...I continued to deny faith in God. I truly didn't think faith was possible again for me."

Then she went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to see the great statue of Jesus Christ whose arms outstretch over the city. After climbing up 2300 feet up the steep mountain she saw this 100 feet high and 1,145 ton statue. She said, "I remember a kind of delirium, a kind of joy. I didn't acknowledge faith, but a sense that this Lord of Lords belonged to me...Surely what I felt in that moment was love." Back down in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, she stopped at a religious gift store and bought a 2 ft. statue of Jesus nailed to his Cross and St. Francis of Assisi reaching up to

embrace the Lord. One of Jesus' arm was freed from the Cross; and Jesus tenderly embraced St. Francis. She remembered that many years ago during her Catholic school days, she once read the life of St. Francis and how he received the Stigmata. In her youthful zeal, she also asked the Lord if He would grant her the Stigmata. Her Stigmata turned out to be many years of her life in the darkness cut off from her Lord. Later in Brazil, she walked into a church, and there she saw a giant version of the statue she bought earlier at a shop. She was shocked. It was as someone was whispering to her: "This is not some statue you bought in a shop and put among your collectibles. This is a figure of the love of Jesus Christ that is waiting for you. This is the mystery of the Incarnation. This is the Lord bridging the gulf between God and humankind. This is the Lord, in the midst of his atoning suffering, reaching out for...you."

And finally one day she said, "I wrestled with a lot of theological questions, and then one afternoon, I thought, I love you--I want to come back to you."

Can we see ourselves in place of St. Francis at the foot of the cross, being embraced by Jesus' arm like Anne Rice? At the moment when we place our hands out to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, aren't we reaching out for Him and He reaching out for us? If we have pushed Him away this past week with our bitterness, anger, shouting, and malice, does He not need to hear from us, "O my God, I'm heartily sorry for having offended you. I detest all my sins because of your just punishment, but most of all, because I offended you my God, who are all Good and deserving of all my love." And as we embrace Him during Communion, we will hear Him say, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Aug. 2, 2009: 18th Sunday Ordinary (B)

This coming week, many of our children and grand children will be going back to school after a long summer break. I saw signs of this in our local mall. I sometimes walk around the mall with my pedometer as exercise, and the few days ago I was at the Mall of Louisiana walking. I saw a lot of back-to-school shopping. It was nice to see mother and daughter shopping together. I noticed that men are not great shoppers. I saw sitting on a bench a father and his son staring into the space waiting for over an hour for mom and sisters to finish shopping.

The beginning of school is quite more intense and serious in other countries. In countries like South Korea and Japan, kids don't enjoy such leisure time. Few years ago when I visited my relatives in South Korea, several of my cousins' kids who were in middle school and high school were no where to be seen. Their moms told me that they are at their after-school academies until 10 or 11PM. Some of you may heard of 'cram schools.' Most of the Korean parents, who can afford it, send their kids to these cram schools to raise the chances of their kids entering elite universities. We as Americans would probably say, "That's too intense for that age. Studying isn't everything in life!"

(Photo: South Korean 'cram school' after regular school)

What if someone told you that the income and the lifestyle you'll enjoy when you are 60 years old are largely determined by which college you entered at 18?

What if someone told you that a college degree from an elite university is considered necessary for entering the middle class and there is very few alternative pathways of social advancement? When you have such outlook on life, you have a hyper-competitive Korean culture geared toward scoring high on high school GPA and college entrance exams. Parents may see their children only in the morning when they eat breakfast and late at night when they return from cram schools. Romance and extracurricular activities are discouraged for they are distractions from studying. Some Korean Catholic parents even tell their kids that it's okay to miss Sunday mass for the sake of more hours of study. Even family and God can be pushed aside until one gets into the right school.

What's your reaction after listening to the life of students in Korea? Mo

st of us would say, "We really have it good here." We saw how family and God can be pushed aside for the sake of survival. What about the opposite end of the spectrum, like in our case, where jobs and opportunities are relatively plentiful and leisure time is in abundance? In this country, do we also see the trend of family and God being pushed aside for the sake of enjoying my career, my choices and my leisure? Yes.

In both cases, we have to be mindful of what Jesus tells us today:

Do not work for food that perishes

but for the food that endures for eternal life,

which the Son of Man will give you.

What is Our Lord trying to get across? The Israelites in the desert reminisced about how good they had it when they were still slaves to the pharoah, and they grumbled by saying how they should go back to the old ways. Likewise, we can fall into grumbling about things that are still lacking in our relationships, things still we wish we had, how we really had it good in the past. But the Lord is saying to us, 'You guys really have it good, right now!' Our Responsorial Psalm points out why:

The Lord gave [us] bread from heaven

He commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven;

[We] ate the bread of angels, food he sent [us] in abundance.

This Bread from Heaven , the Eucharist, is something that we didn't have to go to 'cram school' or score high on entrance exam to earn it. Yet, Lord gives himself plentifully. He says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Lord, are you saying to us, if we receive you in this Eucharist today, all of my hunger is satisfied and all of my thirst is quenched for the rest of the week? But how could that be if I still feel the same before receiving the Eucharist and after receiving the Eucharist? Besides, my situation hasn't changed; I still need to work to pay bills and I still need to study past 10PM to get my grades.

Here, St. Paul offers us an advice:

"[we] must no longer live as the Gentiles do,

in the futility of their minds;

that is not how [we] learned Christ,

you should put away the old self of your former way of life,

corrupted through deceitful desires,

and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self,"

What does being renewed in the spirit of our minds mean? St. Ignatius of Loyola explains to us how to orient our desires of our heart toward God in his First Principle and Foundation. It reads:

“We are created to praise, reverence and serve God Our Lord, and by so doing to save our soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for us in order to help us praise and serve God." He adds, "we should not want health more than illness, wealth more than poverty, fame more than disgrace, a long life more than a short one, and similarly for all the rest, but we should desire and choose only what helps us more towards the end for which we are created.”

Can we be still be satisfied if we did not make the cut on our exams? Can we still be fulfilled if we did not have enough money to buy things at the mall? Yes, if we realize that we already have received the one thing that satisfies all of our hunger and desires for which we were made for, by receiving the Eucharist.