THE GREAT WALL

January 29th, 2012

"We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." - Plato

I started the day with a trip to St. Paul's Hospital to check on Br. Sebastian who was admitted last night with some chest pains. He was resting comfortably this morning and waiting for the doctor to come in and give him the results of the tests they ran last night.

In a little while I'll be heading to St. Joseph College where I'll have mass with a group of young people...later today I head to the mainland for a quick trip to Hangzhou and Ningbo. I plan to be back in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon.

Today's gospel and some comments:

Then they came to Capernaum,
and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are?the Holy One of God!"
Jesus rebuked him and said,
"Quiet! Come out of him!"
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
"What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him."
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee. Mark 1:21-28

Karl Marx once said that the aim of philosophy should be not just to explain the world but to change it. The same can be said about the gospel we live,  preach and teach. The people of Capernaum received sacred instruction in their synagogue every Sabbath. One Sabbath they had a different teacher, Jesus. What Jesus taught them that day, as well as the way he presented and demonstrated his message, simply amazed them. Why? “They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22).

Jesus’ teaching contrasted sharply with that of the scribes. In one word, Jesus taught with authority, the scribes did not. What does it mean to teach with authority? When we compare and contrast the teaching of Jesus with that of the scribes we notice three distinguishing qualities: The teaching of Jesus is from the heart and not just from the head,  focuses on the spirit and not on the letter of the law, and  it inspires a positive change of heart in the hearers.

Jesus teaches from the heart. He teaches with absolute conviction in his message because he knows that his message is in accordance with the mind of God. As he says in the Gospel of John when trying to persuade his unbelieving audience, “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony” (John 3:11). His preaching is a personal testimony of his intimate relationship with God his Father. The scribes, on the other hand get their knowledge not from their personal communion with God but from their long and intricate study of commentaries on the Law. As a result, most of their teaching is from the head and not from the heart, as they try to recall the portions of the commentaries that apply to the situation at hand.

A second difference between the teaching of Jesus and that of the scribes lies in the content of the message. Whereas the scribes seek to apply the prescription of the Law to the letter, Jesus goes deeper to find out the spirit, the original intent of the law. Consequently Jesus is able to discover the positive value that the law seeks to protect whereas the scribes busy themselves with words and their minutest applications. Take, for example, the law of Sabbath observance. The scribes would busy themselves trying to determine precisely when the Sabbath begins and ends, and what constitutes work and what doesn’t. Jesus would rather seek the mind of God who gave the law to His people as an expression of His fatherly care and love. His conclusion: the Sabbath is a day we keep away from our work in order to serve God and do God’s work (John 5:17). On account of this positive accent of his message, people perceive the teaching of Jesus as liberating good news in contrast to that of the scribes which they perceive as a heavy burden.

The final difference between the teaching of Jesus and that of the scribes we shall consider is that Jesus’ teaching is always intended to bring about a positive change of heart in the people, not just to make the people feel bad. Whereas the scribes teach whatever makes sense in terms of their understanding of the Law and Traditions, Jesus teaches that which made a positive difference. Presented with a man blind from birth the scribes seek to explain why he is blind -- whether it was he who sinned or his parents. Jesus, on the other hand is only interested in curing the blindness. For this reason Jesus performed healings and exorcisms together with his teaching, to show that his primary concern is to change the human situation not just to explain it.

What is our attitude to the word of God we hear? Do we allow it to challenge us and bring about a positive difference in our lives or is it simply to satisfy some intellectual curiosity? If it is the gospel of Jesus that we hear, then we cannot hear it week after week and remain the same.

 

Happy 85th Birthday Aunt Margaret!!

"The inability to forget is infinitely more devastating than the inability to remember," - Mark Twain

Special Greetings today to my Aunt Margaret who is celebrating her 85th Birthday down (over) in Texas. I was with Aunt Marge last October when I traveled to Texas and it was great to see her and my cousins after so many years.  We lost my uncle (mom's younger brother) T.E. Nicholls a few years ago.As we get older it is more and more important to celebrate these special events! 祝你生日快乐， 祝你生日快乐， 祝你生日快乐！！！(The birthday song in Chinese!! ^_^) I have a few meetings on schedule for today and in between the meetings I hope to be able to attend a few of the talks scheduled for the Maryknoll Sisters retreat. I sat in on the first talk yesterday afternoon and it was really excellent. The picture on the right is from breakfast this morning. It was really cold here last night, so everyone was glad to have a hot cup of coffee or tea in front of them.      I loved this catch... Today’s gospel and some comments: He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come." He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples. Mark 4:26-34 For ‘kingdom’ say ‘presence’. Then read it again. “The presence of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” The seeds of awareness of God are in us. They will not suddenly leap into the air, bypassing all stages of growth, and fill the grain loft to the door. Instead they will lie in the damp earth, lost and forgotten, seeming dead. But the miracle of life is happening there where no one can see and no one can understand or explain. Then the most vulnerable part appears just above the ground. It has no defenses, it doesn’t find itself in a glasshouse; it is exposed to everything that could happen to it. That's life. Only love could take such risks. In this parable Jesus says that the presence of God is like that. Now, for ‘presence of God’ just say ‘God’. God doesn’t appear with flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. God appears slowly, in almost hidden ways, but humbly and tenderly…. Our part is to wait, to listen, to have the wise humility of the earth, and to have faith and hope and love.

 

January 26th..The Feast of Saints Timothy and Titus

 
My niece Emily graduates from Law School!

If heaven made him, earth can find some use for him- Chinese Proverb

The three-day Chinese New Year holiday is over and it was back to work today for the crew here at Stanley. We have been on our own doing the cooking, etc. so it is nice to have the workers back. The breakfast crew was really happy!

I got a new camera yesterday to replace the one that broke a while back, so my blog will have plenty of pictures once again. Below are two of our young China Teachers...

Patrick

Maggie

The Maryknoll Sisters arrived and began their retreat today. I am going to join them for the first three days of the retreat (I have to travel starting Sunday) as Sr. Claudette has a very good retreat lined up. When the sisters are in the house there is always a good supply of cookies!! I was tempted to open the boxes up so that all of my readers could see the cookies, but once you open a box of cookies baked by the Maryknoll Sisters, they tend to disappear very quickly!

Fr. John Vesey is an early riser...I caught him in the computer room a little after 4:00 am this morning!

Fr. Jack Cuff and some of his parishioners braved the cold outside and had a BBQ in the backyard.

And of course the famous red envelopes were very visible this morning... (Shirley and Loretta)

Today’s gospel and some comments:

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' Luke 10:1-9

All followers of Jesus are sent out to proclaim the Good News. In the previous chapter Luke had described the sending out of the Twelve. The instructions that Jesus gave to the Twelve and to the seventy are practically the same. Every Christian is called to proclaim the Kingdom of God - even reluctant followers. To the man who was making excuses for not following, Jesus said, “Go and proclaim the Kingdom of God” (Lk 9:60).

Do you need a diploma in catechetics? No! Not one of the seventy had a diploma of any kind – nor any of the Twelve. Jesus himself had no diplomas or degrees. But what you have to have is love. If you have the right kind of love, you are a missionary: you are going out of yourself. If you go out to even one stranger you are, in a way, going out “to the whole world.” And if you go out to an enemy, you are standing on the highest peak of the Christian life.

The two whose feast we celebrate today did not know Jesus in the flesh, and they had pagan blood in their veins. Yet they spent their lives preaching the Gospel. They must have listened avidly to stories and memories that others had of Jesus. Timothy, whose name means ‘to honor God’, was the son of a pagan Greek father and a Jewish Christian mother. He was Paul’s disciple and companion in preaching for fifteen years, and was co-author of many of the greatest Pauline letters.

Titus too was a disciple and co-worker of Paul’s, and the first Christian of pagan birth to become a missionary.

 

January 25, 2012 Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

 "When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."

This is the final day of the three-day New Year holiday in Hong Kong. Up in the mainland the holiday continues for another four days. Needless to say, the Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday of the year over here.

 

Year of the Dragon Fireworks in Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong

The Year of the Dragon started off on the chilly side here in Hong Kong. I went out to one of the islands to have dinner with some friends and nearly froze on the way. Below is the four-day weather forecast for Hong Kong!

Weather for Hong Kong

43°F | °C

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Light Rain

Wind: N at 13 mph

Humidity: 76%

57°

52°

64°

52°

66°

52°

70°

63°

I had a couple of days of R&R, but spent most of today in the office working on a few retreat talks that I will be giving in the months ahead.

The Maryknoll Sisters working in China will be here at Stanley beginning tomorrow, for a one-week retreat! It will be great to have them with us for a week.

My Tigers surprised everyone when they signed  Prince Fielder to a 9 year.... $214 million dollar contract. The two big winners on this deal are the Detroit Tigers and Little Ceasar's Pizza. The Tigers will once again have a strong hitting team to go with a pretty good pitching staff...and Little Ceasars Pizza they are providing the dough for this contract and by the looks of Fielder, they should be making a lot of dough in the years to come, too!

Today’s gospel and some comments:

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptised will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it. Mark 16:15-18

Today the Church celebrates the conversion of St. Paul!!

Jews look to Jerusalem, Muslims to Mecca, but Christians are not asked to regard any city as more sacred than another (Rome has quite a different meaning for Catholics than has Jerusalem for Jews or Mecca for Muslims). Christians were sent out to the whole world and were not told to look back. We are free in many more ways than we want to know. There is a hymn that says, “Let us build the city of God....” Your own village is the city of God. “In Christ Jesus,” wrote St Paul, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female” (Gal 3:7).

 

Let us Build the City of God!

Into the Year of the Dragon!!

"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it." - Joseph Joubert

This is the second day of the Year of the Dragon 龙年!! Here is a little information on the Chinese Horoscopes.

Chinese Horoscopes: Dragon

In Chinese Astrology 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. The Year of the Dragon will start on 23 January 2012 and end on 09 February 2013.

The dates for the Chinese Horoscope coincides with the lunar calendar and the Chinese New Year will always fall somewhere between late January and mid-February. As with the Western Zodiac, the Chinese have 12 signs that follow in the same order. However, the Chinese name the actual year after one of twelve animal signs.

These Chinese Astrology signs are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Similar to western Astrology, every Chinese Birth Sign has a particular character and qualities. People born in a specific year are believed to take on the character and qualities of the animal after which the year is named.

The Dragon is the fifth sign in the Chinese Horoscope and signifies luck.

 

I'm going to meet some mainland students who are in Hong Kong for the New Year and then go out for dinner with some Maryknollers!

Today’s gospel and some comments:

Jesus’ mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Mark 3: 31-35

Belonging to the same family or race as Jesus does not make one a disciple (see Mt 3:9). Not that, but doing the will of God. This was the passion of his life; anyone who was not part of that was not part of him. In the agony of Gethsemani he was able to say, “Not my will but yours be done.” In him the passion to do the Father’s will was deeper than death; it is not surprising then that it should also be deeper than birth and natural life.

How many things are deeper than birth and death? Or more practically, how many things are deeper in me than birth and death? Or still more practically, what would I live and die for? “Nothing to live or die for,” sang John Lennon, imagining an ideal world. But when the great priest was asked, what he would do if he was faced with martyrdom, he replied, “I’d probably deny the Faith immediately!” It expressed the humility of a man who knew that in the real world everything is grace when it comes to the crunch. “Nothing to live and die for” is not a description of an ideal world but precisely the opposite: a world without an ideal. Better to be a failure (under grace) in the real world than to imagine one where it is impossible to fail because there is nothing at which to succeed.

 

Some Videos for You!!!

 

Fr. Barron on New  Atheists

 

 

Fr. Barron on abortion

Sunday January 22, 2012 除夕。。。新年快乐。。恭喜发财

"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free." - Charles Evans Hughes

This is New Year's Eve here in the middle kingdom, the eve of the Year of the Dragon! I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you, especially students and former students and my many Chinese friends a very happy new year! Today’s gospel and some comments: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. Mark 1:14-20 In all three readings at today's Mass there is a sense of time running out. "Only forty more days…" shouted Jonah (1st reading). "Our time is growing short," wrote Paul (2nd reading). "The time is fulfilled," said Jesus (gospel reading). Everything in this world is transitory. We are not the first people in the world to think that everything is changing and that nothing remains the same. An ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, writing about 500 B.C., said, "Everything changes and nothing remains the same…. You cannot step twice in the same river, for the waters are perpetually flowing upon you…." When modern humans first arrived in Europe 40,000 years ago they found a population of Neanderthals who had already been living there for a quarter of a million years. They were human beings, but there is no evidence that they experienced much change during the course of all those millennia. It is modern humans who seem to have the 'change' gene; but obviously, 'modern' doesn’t just mean 'post-1960'! Change sort of feeds on itself: not only is change accelerating but the rate of acceleration is accelerating. Most of our new inventions (and not only computers) are in the service of greater speed. Jesus lived in tumultuous times, and his country was one of the cross-roads of the world. The people were on fire with revolutionary ideas. Into this atmosphere Jesus announced, "The time is fulfilled!" There is a kind of breathless haste in Mark's gospel. He tells the story as a child in crisis might. Phrases like 'straightaway' and 'immediately' occur almost 30 times; in chapter 3 there are 34 phrases and sentences one after another beginning with 'and'. He also loves to use the 'historic present': "Jesus sends two disciples and says to them…" (11:1-2). (This is not always preserved in translations.) The cumulative effect of this is a feeling that there is no time to waste. No people were ever so well-placed as we are to realize that "the time is short," "the time is come." But what are we rushing towards? What is the future into which we are accelerating? For many, it is a launch into nowhere. We are not so much intent on getting somewhere as on getting away. When we get bored at home we go somewhere "just to get away." We have never had such capabilities of moving and changing, but we are less sure where we are going, or why we should go anywhere. As in last Sunday's readings, the question the Lord would ask us is, "What are you looking for?"

 

Halftime Entertainment!!

 

Principal Ng of Maryknoll Fathers School awarded Ph.D

After the last Maryknoll School Board meeting we celebrated with Principal Ng who had just be awarded his Ph.D

 

Thursday January 19, 2012

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr.

I am still trying to figure out this one! Everything I have read about it leads me to believe the famous line of one of Maryknoll's seminary professors: "Something like this is proof that there are more horses' asses in this world than there are horses!"

I have to cancel my trip to Jilin for the Spring Festival as one of my men has been hospitalized and will need an operation over the weekend.

 

 

Today’s gospel and some comments:

Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, "You are the Son of God!" But he sternly ordered them not to make him known. Mark 3:7-12 Things were getting out of hand: this reading is crammed with people: ‘a large crowd,’ ‘a great number,’ ‘so many.’ And look at that litany of places they came from: they represent the whole country. Jesus hasn’t room to stand, he has to sit in a little boat and speak from there. Besides being a bit ridiculous, this is not the most stable platform for a passionate speaker. It seems to have been a turning point. After this he changed his method: he began to concentrate on teaching his disciples. This is a good reading for people who tend to over-stretch themselves and feel guilty if they are not always working frantically. More is not necessarily better. It doesn’t flatter the ego to say so, but sometimes the best thing you can do for others is to rest. Even Jesus had to leave many things undone.