  Just like last year’s Christmas, a small group of local lay faithful, as they were finding a way to make their holidays meaningful, again asked me this year to join them for some volunteer trips. We visited Lar de São LuÃs Gonzaga on December 24, Centro de Santa Margarida on December 25, and Instituto de Menores and Ká Hó Settlement on January 1, 2012. All the same places! Yet my experience of faith and of life was not necessarily the same; it was renewed. The trips have added new vigor to my beliefs and helped me better understand how “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us†(Jn 1:14), primarily to the shepherds (cf. Lk 2:8-14) – those who were generally poor and to some extent outcasts, considered by the “respectable†to be ignorant, dirty and lawless (Jerome Kodell).
SIMPLE FAITH STRENGTHENED
Lar de São LuÃs Gonzaga and Centro de Santa Margarida are rehabilitation centers that provide health care services for male and female adults who are mentally retarded, physically handicapped, or with mental disabilities. Thanks to the Sisters of Saint Ann and the Macau Caritas staff, we were arranged to meet the residents of each center in their recreation room, which was much cleaner and more hygienic than one could think. There we sang, danced and played with them. From them I’ve learnt that even when we cannot do anything, just a handshake or a little word “Hello†could also make them a day.
People with mental retardation, nowadays called “intellectual disability†or “developmental delay†to avoid hurting people’s feelings, are those who learn and develop more slowly than others of similar age. In fact, the residents we met seemed to be mentally disabled or disordered rather than retarded – they came out with serious trouble acting and functioning in everyday life. Their physical appearance was mostly disfigured and changed. Many of them liked to talk and make friends with the guests, though they could not articulate their thoughts or express themselves properly. While those who still stay physically healthy were singing, dancing, making noise, and thus making the center sound as if a paradise; the others were much weaker, looking so depressed in their wheelchairs.
One the member of our group, Pablo, told me that he has a younger brother living in the center. Wondering why his brother was not present in the recreation room and also as a way to express my appreciation for his generously offering me a drive, I had the Sister in charge bring me to the man. It was a place of total silence and almost without hope. The residents staying here appeared to be in persistent vegetative state. They lost cognition and could not act voluntarily. Thinking of taking care of these people and making sure to treat them with full dignity I see not only a strenuous and energy draining but also stressful and depressive job it is. Moreover, who can say if the caregiver’s emotional well-being won’t be one day affected? Looking outside the door was walking from side to side a Sister whom without her religious habit I would not be able to tell who she was!
So admired the hard work they have been doing I asked the Sister in charge if the Sisters have ever been wearied of this daily routine and if they have ever failed to see the human being of those appearing in the vegetative state. The answer I had was quite straightforward and not as much theological as I expected. It’s just a simple faith! Their care for the patients is more than mere duty. Grounded in their simple faith in a God incarnate of Christian faith, they see beyond these ignorant and dirty faces the different facets of God’s Image. Yes, it is with simple faith that they recognize how precious these intellectually delayed are; because God has intended to be born for them and to dwell among them, they are fully and simply deserving respect, affection, care, attention, and dignity. It is with simple faith sustained by a prayerful life that the Sisters never fail to trust in God who always provides enough for their daily life. It is with simple faith that the Sisters are able to acknowledge God’s love bestowing upon their lives and that they are, in turn, called to love the brothers and sisters sent to them.
From the witness of the Sisters I have learnt that, since we do not know what kind of life God may call us to be in the future, it should be a right attitude for me to live fully today just with simple faith, constant hope and grateful love. Looking at Pablo’s brother, who could tell that this gentleman used to be an altar server about forty years ago? Yes, this was true until he got a very bad cold.
LITTLE HOPE BOLSTERED
January 1, 2012 – New Year’s Day and feast day of our Mother of God – we set off for the Instituto De Menores – a government institution in Coloane where juvenile delinquents are kept for certain re-education. Here we met a group of about thirty young boys, roughly ten persons less than last year. Thank God! Among many new friends I, however, recognized an old one. He now looked thinner but more mature. We were both happy seeing each other; and with confident we were talking for quite a while.
Learning from last year’s experience, this time I made myself so bold as to try to add some spiritual values into the program. But how could we go further once we had not known one another before? Several icebreaker and teambuilding activities were used to create an open environment in which all participants should be willing to open up and take part. Common Christmas and New Year songs were also employed to break down our barrier of languages and cultural differences to the minimum. After nearly two hours singing, dancing and playing together we could finally create a friendly atmosphere in which all people felt it more comfortable and relaxed to open up to one another. Before it was time for us to call it a day we made use of the last thirty minutes to tell the students the purpose of our visit, also the culmination of the program, using 1 John 1: 1-3. Sitting down in a circle facing each other, we began sharing our faith, then exchanged the meanings of life, stayed in communion with one another’s intentions, and finally joined in the prayer of the Lord.
Had the students been Christians, this kind of activities might be only mediocre. As most of them were not, the way they responded really touched all the members of our visiting group. We did not expect them to open up that much. Yet they did; for it was the Word and the Holy Spirit that opened their hearts and helped them utter their own words of intentions. Unadorned but filled with hope they one after another spoke their mind and offered prayers for a brighter new year for themselves and for their family back at home. I wished that their parents, relatives, and friends had just been there to hear how they prayed for them. Their hearts have been softer than one might think! The Word has obviously struck a chord with them and enlightened their hope for a better future.
No one is born a criminal, I believe so. We are mainly made by the environment we live in. The boys indeed reminded not only the parents of their children at home, but also anyone of us, who are basically vulnerable and can be any time affected by negative social influences from a city of indulgence like Macau. Why not we let the Word rather than the world outside make up our lives? Why not we continue to hope that we can transcend ourselves to become perfect as our Father in heaven who is perfect?
Leaving the Instituto De Menores at about 5:00 pm, we then headed for Ká Hó Settlement. It was at twilight in a remote leper colony when an 86 year-old woman was hanging in there waiting for the last Christmas visitors like us.
HUMILITY EXTOLLED
Very often we are told that people able to receive God incarnate into their lives are those simple in life and humble in heart. “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the humble†(Mt. 5: 3-5). Though being poor and having nowhere to latch onto would help people easily depend on God; being able to acknowledge that what we have is nothing as compared to knowing the Truth from God and to detach our selves so as to lovingly attach to God is more important and blessed. The Christmas trips have allowed me an opportunity to meet both of those people. Writing down these reflections on the feast day of the Epiphany of our Lord, the story of the magi has again illumined the teaching why so important is the virtue of being simple and humble for those who want to find God.
The magi are indeed the simple and humble persons. No matter whatever meaning the Latin word “magus†may be rendered (e.g. sage, priest, astrologer, wizard, seer, or king), the crucial point is that they are typical intellectual and noble people who might have enough. They are, however, ready to leave everything behind and follow the star travelling far to do the new born king homage. In our human logic, not many people would actually risk leaving certain things seeking for something uncertain. How could the magi do it if they did not have faith, hope and love for God? And even when they happen to possess such (theological) virtues, still they could not find God in “an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger†(Lk 2:12), if they did not humble themselves to enter the dusty, dirty, filthy stable where Jesus was born. Moreover, “on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of god, frankincense, and myrrh.†(Mt. 2:11) They have emptied themselves of all the best of the earth out of their love for God. Still intellectual and noble they are even praiseworthy for being simple and humble seeking and thus manifesting the Love of God. They are not intellectual noble snobs!
In contrast to the gentile magi are the intellectual noble Jews in Jerusalem. Precisely mentioned in the Bible they are King Herod, chief priests, and the scribes of the people. Without doubt they must be learned people, very well educated and highly ranked in the society of that time. Certainly they have ever heard of the Messiah, where he would be born and what he would do (cf. Mt. 2: 4-6). Nonetheless, the knowledge they have could only bring them fame and fortune of anyone but God, unless they were humble enough to love God more than their egos and things. The danger increases when they were so concerned about their earthly security and let themselves be tempted to sin and go against God. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the intellectual like chief priests and scribes are but hirelings or ornaments to the evil authority like King Herod’s. They indeed knew it very well, even quoted from the prophet that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem of Judea. Nevertheless, they did not move their legs following the magi to find him and pay him homage. Knowing what kind of person King Herod and how greatly troubled he was at hearing the news, still they told him the information, which later led to the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity
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“The Word has become flesh and dwelled among us†(Jn. 1: 14). The Good News has become visible to all creatures in the whole universe. Through the humble beginning of Jesus, God has made his love manifest to all peoples and nations. Though the light has come, the glory of God shines upon his creatures (cf. Is. 60: 1-6), the humility of God incarnate, nevertheless, invites us to humble ourselves so as to find him first of all in the lowest places – the outcasts, seemingly ignorant, dirty and lawless. With simple faith, constant hope, grateful love, and especially with profound humility, we can, therefore, find and meet God in any walks of life. O Baby Jesus, fill me with faith, hope, love and humility so that I can daily live fully the life you have called me to be. Amen.
On the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, 2012
Peter Thoại O.P.