Jan 26

Justin eating cucumbers (pepinos) at the guys' orphanage 

                One new ministry is helping with early childhood psychological evaluations. We missionaries put on a 2-3 hour class to occupy the kids while a psychologist observes them. I love these kids because I used to be “prickly” and “difficult” at this age; ask my mother.

                One girl told the class “look, she’s upset (enojada)”, drawing attention to her neighbor.

                “No she’s not, she’s smiling-look” I said smiling really big and leaning across the table towards her neighbor. Of course she starts to smile behind her hands, so then I say “Ha-look” and then started laughing embarrassingly loud. She couldn’t resist any longer, she dropped her hands and started laughing hard too. My mother told me the best type of humor is when we use ourselves as the end of the joke instead of making fun of others.

                I was playing with Barcie, our beloved cat, the cat whom we love, before leaving for the Missionaries of Charity with Omar. I would bat her paws and she my hands with her sharpened nails. This had me thinking about how much I would like to cut her nails. Well, at the convent/nursing home/orphanage of the Missionaries of Charity we trimmed the older men’s nails. How much more joy there is in serving one of our brothers than a pet cat!

                The last time I wrote about the men here I mentioned Juan José, who is suffering advanced eye cancer. I shared about shaving his beard and him trusting me. Trust is a beautiful thing! Several months later now  he let me cut his finger nails. Ha! They were very long; no one has been able to cut his finger nails. Toe nails were off limits, maybe another time…

                When I first met Juan José in September he was lying on the floor by his reclining chair. Everyone walking past him let him be. If lying on the floor is what hurts less, then no one is moving him. Here’s the critical part. Something does hurt more than advanced eye cancer. He started telling me how his father chased him out of the family with a machete when he was a boy. How he ran out of his house and his home with the clothes he was wearing and several hours later had to cross a wide river, and thought for sure he was done for.

                Referencing his eye he tells me as an aside, “this is going to kill me. I know it, this is going to kill me,” and then continued telling his story. Cancer might be killing us, but the wounds that cover our minds, the effect of man fallen from grace, of sin hurt more. This is where Jesus wants to meet us. “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven,' or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk'? (Mark 2:9)”

                So Juan José wanted to show me his cancer when the nurse changed the bandage. Except that’s as far as I go; I’m not a priest and Jesus hasn’t given me authority to forgive sins, only to His Priesthood. Speaking to the Apostles (first bishops) after the Resurrection; “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. (John 20:23)”

                One man Don Luis’ time is almost up. He was lying in the infirmary when one sister brought in twelve orphans to sit on his bed and sing songs. I was impressed by how many kids’ songs the MOC sister knew.  How beautiful! One girl sitting next to him put her hand on his wrist. She closed her fingers and they touched. Then she moved her hand up his forearm, still able to touch her fingers along the way. She got to his bicep and gave me a surprised look. She wanted someone to explain that to her.

                When the orphans left Omar prayed a Chaplet of Divine Mercy (Jesus promised to St. Faustina to come to man as the God of Mercy, not of Justice when we pray this) and Omar sang to him too. I put my hand on his leg and prayed. I’m sure my fingers could have touched. May God Bless the Missionaries of Charity abundantly.

               

                Parables reflect life; it’s worth leaving the 99 for the sake of the one lost. It’s worth seeking out the isolated girl or the old man.

                “Why do you speak to them in parables? (Mt 13:10)” The apostles confronted Jesus, “the people do not understand you.” When Jesus would finish telling a parable the crowd would break up and walk away. The apostles would run up to Him and say “explain what you just said, I don’t understand.” Like the girl by Don Luis’ bed; explain this. Others would walk away.

                “I speak to them in parables so that, seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear (Mt 13:13)” So that their freedom, what they have already decided in their hearts might emerge.

This was an epic game of Jenga!