Fathers For Good

Pray for Philippine Flood Victims

My wife’s family in the Philippines was caught in the flash floods that hit the Manila area over the weekend. Their lives were saved by events that were nothing short of miraculous. I will recount here the amazing story one of my wife’s sisters told her by cell phone.

But first, let's all pray for the people of Manila and the surrounding areas. More than 240 are reported dead in the flood, thousands and thousands are homeless. A huge clean-up is beginning that will take weeks or months. Today is the feast of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, a Filipino martyr. Let's ask him to intercede for his people, who are enduring such suffering.

Tropical storm Ketsana hit the northern Philippines with little warning about the destruction it would wreak upon an area that is accustomed to violent weather. In 12 hours, about 17 inches of rain fell, which equals the average amount that falls in all of the September rainy season.

My wife’s mother and father live in the house in Marikina, a few miles east of Manila, where she grew up with her seven brothers and sisters. Living in the house with the parents at the time of the flood were a brother, his wife and their two teen sons; a sister and her 8-year-old daughter and a teen niece. My wife’s father is almost 80, with a spinal condition that makes mobility difficult.

Living a block from the river, they had seen floods before, the worst bringing some 8 feet of water into the house. With Ketsana, however, the water rose to 20 feet, forcing my in-laws to the second floor bedrooms, then onto a pitched roof.

Cell Phone Updates

It was a frantic struggle, and my wife and I heard bits and pieces by a cell phone relay as it was happening. Her sister who was in the house called her brother, who was safe in a higher suburb of Manila, with regular updates. Her brother started calling my wife at 2 a.m., Connecticut time (2 p.m. Saturday, Manila time).

First, the water was up to the twelfth step of the stairs leading to the second floor. That was one step above the highest previous flood, but still no cause to panic. In the next call we heard that the water was ankle deep on the second floor and rising quickly. Then it was knee deep, then belly deep. Those in the house were looking for something for my father-in-law to float on so they could get him to the roof. They got hammers to knock out the windows and bend the safety bars that were meant to keep out robbers. The water was just about to come in the window when they were preparing to climb out. They were praying more fervently than ever.

A Miracle of Prayer

My sister-in-law later told my wife that they felt the presence of Jesus as they prayed, and when they looked out the window, they saw a long, sturdy rope floating by. They grabbed the rope, thinking it would help them get to the roof. Then they saw a bunch of bamboo poles floating by. They were able to gather about 30 of them, and lash them together to build a makeshift raft. They put my father-in-law on the raft.

They decided to set out for a neighbor’s house, which was on a bit higher ground. Once again, the raft was a lifesaver. The two best swimmers pushed my father-in-law on the raft across the backyard to the next house. They returned to get my mother-in-law, and all the others, one by one. Amazingly, the hastily constructed raft stayed together the whole time.

Once everyone was safely across, my wife’s family and the elderly neighbors were then forced to the roof of that house, braving high winds and slashing rain for hours until the waters began to recede, gradually.

The miracle of prayer saved my wife’s family. We figured out that just about the time they were gathering the parts of the raft, my wife and I were praying the rosary at 2:30 in the morning, our time. We prayed specifically for a boat, or a raft or a helicopter to come to their rescue.

God is good. Let us continue to pray.

The 'Woo' Heard Round the World

(On October 1, we will mark 30 years since Pope John Paul II made his first apostolic visit to the United States.)

It was 30 years ago today … John Paul II taught America to pray.

What I remember best from his first trip to the United States as Pope was not a prayer, or even a huge outdoor Mass. Rather, it was a “woo!” Those attending the Pope’s meeting with young people in New York’s Madison Square Garden – and those, like me, watching on TV – will never forget.

High schoolers, most dressed better than they would for Sunday Mass – the boys with the 70s Sonny Bono look, the girls appearing as one of the Partridge Family females – were packed into the Garden, with JP II at center stage, where rock stars performed.

Today’s 20-something Catholics have to understand and the rest of us need to remember what a sensation this event was. Here was the Pope – young, strong, masculine and smiling, in the midst of an arena of New York teens. We had just been through a decade of post-Vatican II confusion and the deaths of two popes in 1978, and here was this vibrant, white-clad figure with a face that showed the sufferings of the century as well as the new life in the Church he came to lead. 

Selected teens had spoken of their lives and concerns, and presented the Pope with gifts, and all were ready to hear him speak. He paused, played on their anticipation. They screamed, shouted loving words and were ready to jump to their feet on cue. Then came the “woo!” Not just “woo!” but “ooh,” and a strange, guttural “hmmm”.

He sat in his chair, microphone positioned to catch his every word, English script in his hand, and spent two minutes making noises from the depths of his heart, as if to tell the teens and all Americans that mere words could not express his love, his hope, his joy, his utter amazement at the grace of God and the beauty of youthful faith. “Woo, woo, woo, woo …” he intoned. (You can see the moments on YouTube.)

My brother and I watched the TV, amazed. We had gone through eight years of New York City parochial school and graduated from Catholic high school, yet we had never heard anything like this.

I turned to my brother and said, “We have a Pope who says woo.”

That single moment set us back on the road to faith, to prayer and regular attendance at Mass. This man “from a far place” had touched us through the mass media that he loved, with the simple “groaning of the Spirit” that seemed to gather up all the confusion, hurt, missteps and sins of our early adulthood and offer them to a merciful God who could smile and tease his children. A 20-year-old in 1979 could feel pretty world-weary and cynical of religion. Yet John Paul told us to walk together with him and ask the deep questions we wanted to ask and find the surprising answers we were aching to embrace.

In him I saw Christ. Not Christ the Protector of my childhood that I had self-consciously left behind, but Christ the Adventurer, the Worker, the Warrior, ready to take on the world with great strength and a sense of humor. The Catholic faith was alive, and I was drawn to it anew.

We had a Pope who said woo!

(What moments do you recall? Please write in your own remembrances of the Pope’s historic visit.)

 

Only the Lonely - Final Reflection

Loneliness is not inevitable. It is not coded into a person’s genes or the result of fate. To a great degree, it is the result of a person’s choices and stems from one’s expectations for companionship. No one can avoid loneliness all of the time, but there is much that a lonely person can do to move out of that state.

 

An older female friend of mine whose children are grown and who lives alone showed little patience after reading my last blog. Just tell them that if they’re lonely, it’s their own fault. Tell them to volunteer for something, meet people, make friends, help people in need, she suggested. You can’t sit by the phone waiting for it to ring; you have to call a friend to dinner, she added.

 

There’s much wisdom in this, and it is clear that it works for my friend, whose routine of work, volunteerism and socializing keeps a smile on her face at all times.

 

Yet research shows that even busy people, even married people, can be lonely. A full calendar and many friends are no guarantee against loneliness. The issue is, at root, psychological – by which I mean pertaining to the soul (the root word for "psychology" means “soul”.)

 

“My God, why have you abandoned me?” was the cry of Christ from the cross. Putting aside some of the deeper theological problems of how the Second Person of the Trinity can be separated from God, it is helpful to remember that even Jesus felt abandoned, at least in his human nature. It is also good to consider how he resolved this sense of loneliness. “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my Spirit.”

 

Even when he felt no consolation from his Father, Jesus trusted, and offered himself into his Father’s hands.

 

Trust.  To enter into a deep and meaningful relationship with another, we must trust. We should not trust that a person will never hurt us – two people in close friendship will almost surely hurt one another at times. Trust means the willingness to suffer occasional pain and still persist in friendship.

 

Such trust is also the basis of love, something deeper: the willingness to offer one’s very self into the hands of another. Love is the ultimate sacrifice of self for another, the “new commandment” that Jesus gave his disciples.

 

Neither trust nor love is possible without forgiveness. Because we are human and hurt others and are hurt by them, we must be willing to forgive and to be forgiven. The latter is as important as the former. Many people are quick to forgive the hurts they suffer from others, imagining themselves large hearted. Yet they are slower to ask forgiveness for the wrongs they have done. In the Our Father, Jesus instructs us to ask for forgiveness (“forgive us our trespasses”) in the same measure that we forgive others (“as we forgive those who trespass against us”).

 

Trust. Love. Forgiveness.

 

If we truly exercise these virtues, these strengths of character and soul, loneliness will never be a companion for long. What’s more, we will be well on the road to heaven.

Only the Lonely -- Part III

If you are lonely, you’re in good company.

 

I don’t mean to sound glib about such a personal issue. But in this third blog on the topic, I think it’s important to keep in mind that all of us go through periods of loneliness due to unavoidable circumstances in our lives. Relatives or friends move away. We are traveling on business. We have an argument and our lunch partner avoids us. We’re so busy at work we have no time to talk. Or, more profoundly, a spouse passes away. Loneliness and grief can be a strong double punch.

 

These are normal occurrences and should not cause us to feel anxiety over feeling lonely. That would be self-defeating. The real problems come not when we lose a friend, but when we no longer have a friend to lose. Today, it seems, many people are in that situation in our nation, with 25% percent of survey respondents saying that they have no one close with whom they can talk about personal matters.

 

I think it is fair to say that the high divorce rate has much to do with this fact. When a family breaks up, so do the lines of communication. Spouses no longer talk and may become suspicious of new commitments. Children close in on themselves and grow wary of love and trust. True feelings are suppressed.

 

With up to half of marriages ending in divorce, and almost everyone being touched by the breakups in some way, a swath of separation has cut through our nation, and the seeming silence about it comes from the fact that we are not supposed to notice broken marriages for fear of offending. Or else we are prone to think that divorce is normal or at least acceptable.

 

Another cause of loneliness may be our culture’s focus on sexual relationships. How’s your love life? The message is that if you’re not sexually gratified with one or more partners, you are not really living. But there are many other forms of gratifying and satisfying relationships that don’t involve sex or thoughts of sex, even between men and women, even between spouses. With all attention on one area, the wholesomeness of everyday friendships and the joys of simple laughter can be missed.

 

Then there’s the hyper-sexualization of popular media and the internet, through which anyone can receive a physical thrill in the solitude of his or her living room, and wind up feeling even lonelier by bedtime.

 

This is not meant to be a self-help or advice column, but the Catholic Church does offer some insights on the issue. After all, as the Second Vatican Council declared, the Church is “an expert in humanity.”

 

We begin by citing the age-old wisdom dating back to Aristotle and baptized by Augustine and others through the centuries; that is, man is a social creature. In our day, Pope John Paul II developed a whole thesis on the social nature of mankind, based on his reading of the first chapters of Genesis and a common sense observation of human nature. It is called “Theology of the Body.” He writes that all humans are meant for communion, a sacred interrelation, and that the only adequate response to the person (made in the image of God) is love.

 

(Those who are rolling their eyes and thinking get real, should try reading the Fathers for Good article "Love -- It's a Guy Thing.")

 

To fully realize his or her potential, a person must be in relationship with others. We do not fully know ourselves or our capacities without feedback from others. This is evident in the cooing love between a mother and her child, and it holds true in various ways at different stages of our lives.

 

Rugged individualists we may be, yet we cannot escape what I call the “interpersonal imperative.” We care what other people think, know and say about us and to us. I need you to become fully me.

 

Yet, as we know, things can go wrong as we live out the interpersonal imperative. Miscommunications, misunderstandings, misanthropic attitudes, envy, anger, greed, lust and the other Seven Deadly Sins intrude into what we want to be an edenic garden of sharing of caring.

 

We know what can go wrong, and what has gone wrong, in our own lives. We know the broken homes, the bad blood, the bitter regrets.

 

Think: who are the true friends in my life? Who lifts me up, moves me forward, offers a reflection, a suggestion, or even a correction?

 

If you can’t think of anyone that open and that trustworthy in your life, don’t panic. The Incarnation of Christ has changed the whole landscape of relationships, a topic we will discuss next time. We are not locked in loneliness -- there's a way, there's a voice.

We will also look at the qualities I mentioned in my last blog that can open up or reopen avenues of friendship: trust, love and forgiveness.

 

I have received much feedback on this blog on loneliness, and am persuaded to keep the conversation going, with Part IV to come.