Self-management not control.

The bride is relaxing ...

Last Saturday's bride was incredibly laid back.  All dressed up ready to go, there she was relaxing in the back row with her family, waiting for the wedding to begin.  Where is the groom at the same time?  Doing what he does best, organizing.  He is busy up front running the last minute practice for the wedding that is due to begin shortly.

Shouldn't the bride be nervously standing at the door to the church, waiting for her musical cue?  Shouldn't the groom know his place and be up the front, waiting for his bride?  Well, it is not happening that way here.  This scene before a wedding was most amusing and atypical for me and I was impressed.

The bride and the groom are both capable people, acting for their own good and as they so choose.  They are not simply fitting into stereotypical roles, even in 'wedding world' which is so highly controlled.  

...while the groom is organizing.  

Control?  Does it work?  People are never easily controlled, nor are they meant to be.  Those in authority may think they have the control but let us not fool ourselves.  There is no amount of control that can ultimately determine people.    

Who is running the show?   Well, maybe what is at play in life is good self-management and never control, or so I hope.

Focus on what matters.

Life gets so busy and for what purpose?  Really, for what purpose?  You worry about doing everything and you are ready to respond to the next task that may arise but is this what life is about?  Is it all so important when you have not seen a friend in an age or someone is waiting to talk with you from the side?  In a busy life, do I lose sight of what really matters?  Then what about good self care?  And, no, don't go down the road of Catholic guilt on that one!  

Doing, doing!  This is not the way to live life or to nourish oneself.

I then saw again this picture of two poor, young Burmese guys who are back in the news here.  They have been found guilty of rape and murder in a high profile case where the tragic victims were two young western tourists holidaying on a favoured Thai island.  These two guys now face the death sentence or many years in jail.  So doubly tragic when the whole case against them seems so fragile, unfair and unjust.  Basically, they just didn't do it but look at what they have to deal with as their appeal is before the courts this week.  Looking at their story gives a real sense of what really matters in life, and it has to be much more than doing, doing all the time.  We matter.  People matter.  That is what comes first.  As I say at church, being before doing.  

Stand back and take a look at life.  If it is being overcome by doing and all that goes with it - stress and loss of perspective in life - then it is time to do life differently.  Life is too precious to waste on just focusing on doing.  Life is too precious to see two innocent souls suffering for what they didn't do.  I pray for them and I thank them this day as they, in their distress, have reminded me of what really matters in life. 

I think too rationally

On Sunday, I arrived at the cathedral to see many symbols at play.  A clash of symbols or just too many?  This is a week when we celebrate our patronal feast - the Assumption of Mary.  I expected that but then I see the Thai Church celebrating at the same time 100 years since Our Lady of Fatima appeared to the three children in Portugal.  The apparition of Mary to these children happened on the 13th of each month from May to October in 1917.  The last apparition saw the major miracle of Fatima - the Miracle of the Sun.  I am not sure why here they chose August as the month to remember and not another month.  I say this as Mary did not appear on the 13th day in August that year.  She chose to be different that month.  Why not remember Fatima in October - month of the rosary and month of the last apparition?  Everything all at once here?  Why? 

That was my take but, on sharing this with a friend after mass, he automatically replied - In Thailand, it is this month because of the Queen's birthday and Mother's day both being on 12 August and Assumption being the patronal feast.  Of course, Thailand is remembering 100 years of Fatima in August due to local Thai factors and not due to history or universal factors. 

Obviously, I do not have a Thai mind as I think too rationally for here.  Like it or not, when you live in Thailand, Thailand has its own thought patterns with the focus being Thailand and all things Thai.

Then on Tuesday, the actual day of the feast of the Assumption, I am in Yangon for work.  I had travelled in the morning from Bangkok. I had arranged with a Burmese who works with me and also going for the same meeting, but on a different flight, for him to meet me at Yangon airport and we get a taxi together.  Easy!  Not so!  My plane had a problem and so I was two hours late arriving.  On talking with my Burmese colleague already in Yangon, I told him not to wait for me.  Well, guess what?  On arriving at Yangon, my Burmese colleague and his wife were there patiently waiting for me to see that I got to our office okay.  I was so touched by such a kind and gracious act.

On that day, I went to mass at Yangon cathedral.  The priest spoke too long and it was all theory and doctrine.

Well, what spoke to me that day of Mary, our model in faith, whose feast we celebrated today?  It wasn't the priest's homily.  Maybe I am not that rational after all.

Who said there is a shortage of priests?

Lo and behold, last Sunday, there were four priests seeking to formally join me in mass at the cathedral.  Three were Vietnamese in town with a group of 40 Vietnamese tourists who were a fun group, being wild on the photo taking front. The other priest was a diocesan priest from Italy who was a French speaking African.  He seemed to be doing his Thailand holiday thing.  So there were five of us together last Sunday.  I was a bit taken aback as were we overdoing the priestly thing at church?  

As I already had three Vietnamese priests joining me for mass, I was internally shocked when another priest, the African from Italy, appeared before me, asking that he join in as well.  It was all too much, all at once, and right before mass.  It was putting me into a theological spin.  Sound a bit dramatic?

For me, what was at play was a theological point of order which reflects on how one sees community at worship.  We are all one community gathered for worship, celebrating together.  No matter who we are, we are all co-celebrants with the one presider, while playing our different and necessary roles.  Each role is important.  So why do some priests feel the need to concelebrate at every mass they attend?  The danger is that, if we overplay one role, specifically the clerical role, what are we saying about the other roles?  Are we engaging in an exercise that is overly clericalizing the Church?

Priests have a specific role and ministry which is at the heart of church.  That said, clericalism, the over playing of the clerical role on the basis of power, is an abuse based on hierarchical position.  This abuse is to be fought and not encouraged.  My questioning is not about the good men who are priests but about an issue of power in the Church which is to be always used for the good of the community.  To use position to highlight one group of the church over the rest is not about Church but about power and its abuse.  This is to be guarded against and avoided.  Hence my caution last Sunday. 

Transformation - me?

The gospel calls us not simply to do good and be nice people.  It calls us to transformation.  And who is able for such a task?  Not necessarily those many  would first expect. 

This week, I read the story of a 55yo Filipino Monsignor who was arrested for procuring a 13yo girl for sex.  The story gets even worse when you read that the priest was using the services of a 16yo male pimp.  The police were actually after the pimp and got the priest as a surprising added bonus.  He was found with a gun which he tried to pull on the police.  Now I would be willing to doubt the veracity of this story but I read it on the official website of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Phillipines.  I was just shocked to read such a story.  I will not try to excuse or explain it.  It is just an evil act and definitely should never happen with a priest as the main player.  As the Filipino Archbishop talking on this matter rightly counselled, we are all capable of evil. 

Reading this, I am once again assured of my conclusion that the Church is ripe for reform and even for much more - transformation.  Reason is that the Church needs much more than just a makeover or new structures.  I would add that we are all ripe for such a radical life changing path.  This transformation is for me and not just for an institution, hitting us at the very core of who we are and affecting us all.  This is the transformation offered by the gospel, and it is just what we need right now.   

Transformation is poignantly described for me in a small book I just discovered through a good friend.  It is called "The Bells of Nagasaki".  It is the story of a Japanese doctor and university researcher in Nagasaki at the time of the dropping of the bomb.  He did survive the explosion but he suffered terribly and died a few years later of leukemia.  Despite all, he and his surviving colleagues immediately got up and went out to respond to the suffering of the people around them.  Everyone, including them, was in dire straits and shock but this small group of medical professionals purposefully chose to use their skills to help their fellow sufferers. 

As this doctor, a good man of strong Christian faith, describes - within days of the devastation of Nagasaki, he had gone from working to help Japanese suffering in the war to reaching out to a suffering humanity; he had gone from believing in peace through a victory for a Japan at war to believing in peace for the whole world.  Through this experience of horror, his basic life stance naturally turned round to believing that this man made devastation could never happen again.  Such an awful and barbaric tragedy was the catalyst for his transformation - seemingly complete and immediate. 

What will be our catalyst?  Transformation is for you and me. 

The wedding that was

Well, last Saturday's wedding did occur and it was very pleasant.  I did go to the reception and I was glad I went for I got the background story and warning for an upcoming baptism.  Yes, the bride and groom are expecting.

This was an absolute first for me.  No, not that they are having a baby but that they used their reception as the public platform to announce the news and that this was followed by their running a competition for their guests on guessing the sex of the baby.  There was even prize money for the first opened correct entry.  All this at one of the poshest hotels in the country.  Different!

My first reaction was one of internal disbelief and discomfort.  Shouldn't they have told me before the wedding?  I thought - Hold on!  Do not react.  Do not try to control the situation.  Just see where it goes. 

What I saw was how everyone present was so happy and supportive, even in a conservative Thailand where prestige and public presentation are everything.  I reflected how the Church needs to reform itself so as to be able to speak to people today in their reality, instead of always being seen as standing above and telling people what to do with sex and their private lives.  The Church is too much about upholding a morality that it uses to pronounce from on high.  I am not advocating that that the Church simply be relevant or abandon good and needed values and a challenging vision needed for life and the uplifting of humanity.  God forbid! 

Rather it is about being able to lead by being with people and not above them, by affirming them ore and condemning them less, realising that control never works.  They will ultimately do what they decide to do.  Despite a controlling Church and even controlling society, people make their choices.  Their chioices may not be in line with a Church stance nor with the rule of the elite in any society but that does not make their actions intrinsically evil.  People are just being people.  Let them relish their exploring more and let them enjoy the journey more.

The world is a mess but it is always thus.

I have another wedding this Saturday.  Once again, here in Thailand, the wedding is between a Catholic and a Buddhist.  He is Filipino, she is Thai.  Hence they have me, as they want the ceremony in English.  Once again, they want all the trimmings.  Personally and theologically, when it is a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian, I am not sure why they always demand to celebrate their marriage within the eucharist. 

It seems illogical to me when at least half the people there, including one of the two getting getting married, have no idea at all of what is happening as they are not Catholic.  Secondly, in marriage, we celebrate unity but, with eucharist in the same celebration, we highlight disunity as one partner and one whole side of this new family cannot share eucharist as it is not their belief.  Then there is the added factor of language as the celebration is in English and many present will not understand English.  So why bother?  There are just so many mixed messages in the one celebration.  Basically, we are highlighting disunity while our focus is celebrating unity.  What is religion about?   

Another couple agreed with me that celebrating their marriage during mass was contradictory when one of them held no religion.  The Catholic partner had then told a Thai Catholic friend that the wedding ceremony would not include mass and the response of the good Catholic was one of shock as mass would act to make for a successful marriage.  Really, even when one partner has no religion?   Is religion reduced to superstition? 

Back to this Saturday's couple.  As usual, they are lovely people but I have to ask - where do they come from?   Why come to the cathedral to get married?  Why get married during mass?  

I did raise the issue of not celebrating the marriage within mass with this couple and I was asked a question by the Catholic groom. 
How long does it take with the mass? 
About 50 minutes, I responded.
The groom, who is the Catholic, replied - That is good timing for the reception.  So we will have mass.
So in this case, is it all reduced to timing? 

I wanted to share another story of this week.  Briefly, it concerns a well bred, older, educated American who comes here every six months.  He is full of how the world is spinning out of control, especially under a Trump presidency.  It is as if his life mission is world salvation.  For him, it is all about talking and philosophising so as to try and bring the world under his cloud of control.  If no control, it will not work.  I agree, the world is a mess but it always has been.  Reality is I cannot solve it and neither is it my place to do so alone. 

My point in both stories of this week is really about how religion has been lost in our world, when our world so needs it so as to provide an ethic for order and unity.   When religion is so needed, it is either not understood and so not used or abused to present what it is not about.  What then is religion about? 

A key is in the gospel for this week's wedding - building our house on a solid foundation.  One basic premise is that it is not my house alone.  We then build our house together with God.  The world is a mess.  That is for sure.  True religion aims to make sense out of the chaos and so give us a sure foundation in the midst of the chaos that is with us always.