Father Tommy King ofm: Navigating a Missionary Vocation

August 23. The Feast of St. Rose of Lima-- an auspicious date for our interview. Here in Sacramento, Father Tommy King is at the tail end of his fourth annual visit from Tierra Blanca, Peru (population 4,500). During his month-long stay, he’s been able to spend time with friends, family, friars, and dentists. He leaves the day after tomorrow, so this is a good time to sit down and have a relaxed conversation. No mean feat when it concerns Tommy. At age 51, he is still a ball of energy, only part of which is fueled by caffeine. The rest is pure Tommy: alive, alert, full of Irish wit (his puns are deadly), and in a state of constant, cheerful commotion.

So I asked Tommy: "What does it take to be an effective missionary, especially a Franciscan missionary in Latin America?" He and Brother Gerard Saunders, for example, live and minister together in the Peruvian Amazon (an hour northeast of the capital city of Lima as the jet flies, but in reality, sometimes up to a week away via boat, bus, and prop plane). Tommy becomes uncharacteristically quiet when the question is posed: “Well, I guess it’s something in the heart that attracts you to working with another culture…. Plus, if (like myself) you’ve enjoyed a simple apartment, enjoy camping—being outdoors. The contact with nature that is so conducive to contemplative prayer…the tremendous freedom to love people who would normally be left out of the reach of God’s love. All that comes into play.”

In Tommy’s case, the call began as an attraction—“a churning”— he calls it, that he experienced while still in his twenties: “Before I became a (Franciscan) postulant, I was thinking about priesthood and language study.” This San Francisco Bay Area native—eighth in an Irish-German family of nine kids— soon found himself working among people from Latin America. He followed language studies in college with an intensive immersion experience in Spanish in Cuernevaca, Mexico. This, in turn, led him to dive into ministry as a Franciscan student friar and subsequently as an ordained priest ministering among Latinos in California. His present stint in Peru, where he has been stationed since 2003, is his second tour as a missionary. Previously, Tommy spent four years as a formation director of Franciscan students from our province and was based in El Mezquital, a marginal area of Guatemala City, Guatemala.

While Fr. Tommy mentions interest and passion as elements essential to a missionary vocation, there are other components which, though unnamed, are very much a part of his own story and life. Physical and spiritual stamina, for one thing. Fr. Tommy’s “parish” extends over an area of 3400 square miles, most of which is accessible only by motor boat (in this case, the Grenada, purchased with the help of American benefactors) or ferry. While Brother Gerard focuses his energies in teaching—he is principal of the high school in Tierra Blanca—Tommy spends much of his year visiting the 60-odd villages scattered throughout this part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Requeña, one of three such dioceses in Peru entrusted to the care of the Franciscan order. The present bishop, Monsignor Juan Oliver Climent ofm, is a native of Valencia, Spain, and has been in Peru just two years.

Fr. Tommy describes a typical experience in an email to family and friends: “In a wonderful fraternal gesture of support, (Fr) Ed Shea (a friar from the Sacred Heart province in the US Midwest) came... to help me with the last three weeks of the gira pastoral (pastoral visitation)… Because we often baptized in two villages each day, we are able to visit 23 villages in 21 days. We often registered the children and gave pre-Baptismal talks at 3 and 5 in the afternoon and then baptized… the following morning. We had lunch… then proceeded to another two villages in the afternoon to repeat the routine...."

Back home in Tierra Blanca, Fr. Tommy has time for some r&r and contact with community life. He and Brother Gerard have regular morning prayer and lunch together most days. Wednesday evenings are for social time, which sometimes includes the viewing of a dvd, thanks to the house generator. Most evenings—there is electricity from 7-9pm, there is Internet access at the school: “After years of empty promises, “ Tommy writes, “(Brother Gerard) finally got the Peruvian Ministry of Education to install a satellite dish in the local high school!” An inveterate soccer fan, Tommy is also an active member of the veteranos, one of two soccer teams in town for men over 50. Town and village fiestas—with processions, music, food, and dance—provide the indispensable accent of Latino exuberance and joy!

Although they live in a remote area, Tommy and Gerard are not isolated in their Franciscan identity. Tommy looks as the Mision franciscana in Tierra Blanca as an “umbrella”: Gerard helps in the parish, but is full-time in the school. Three Franciscan Sisters of the Nativity of Mary —all Peruvian natives— minster in the town. Sisters Gloria, Guadalupe, and Esther are busy with the medical diapensary, a vocational training center, religious education, and youth ministry. Collaboration with the laity is promoted through the training of animators throughout the parish, who are authorized to assist in faith formation and in the administration of the sacramento of baptism. “I am trying to give a sense of ministry broader than that of the priest, “Tommy stresses. He presently teaches four formation courses per year for animators from both the southern and northern regions of the parish. Training sessions are offered in Tierra Blanca over a three-day period. Happily, the Parish Center is able to accommodate upwards of 30 participants during that time.

So how does it feel working in such an intense and demanding environment? “I’m excited. As a friar, I’ve never done anything for more than four years. It feels great to have established some relationships. People trust me a bit more (now)…. I know their names and the names of their dogs, too!.... Gerard and I have a shared conviction that this is where we belong. We Franciscans do our best work among marginalized people…. My hope for the future would be that the Church would affirm the dignity of all people as sons and daughter of God. That people will...push for better schools, health centers, etc. This comes from a sense of faith and joy, not of burden.”

Any words of wisdom for men in discernment? “If this is your call, it’s a tremendous freedom to love people who would normally be left out of the reach of God’s love. The freedom of Franciscan celibacy allows you to go to those places. If you feel the draw, the churning, pray with it and see what surfaces.”

Fr. Tommy King welcomes contact with anyone who would like more information about the Franciscan presence in Tierra Blanca. You can reach him at: tommykofm@yahoo.com

Vietnamese Marian Days in Carthage, Missouri (August 2-5, 2007)

“Mot, hai, ba”—“One, two, three”! “Cheeezzz”! As the shutter snaps, the row of rumpled Franciscans begins to stand at ease and breathe again. It’s been a hot and humid day in Carthage, Missouri at the 30th Annual Marian Day celebrations / Ngay Thành Mau XXX (August 2-5). Ninety-five in the shade and 90% humidity. Sweating and sweltering in our habits, we friars are trying to put a happy face on things. Liters of bottled water splashing down parched throats; hand fans waving furiously in the still heat. Here in the Ozarks we’re far from the California shore, but trying not to think of it. Besides, it’s worth it.

Since 1978, the Vietnamese Congregation of the Mother Coredemptrix (CMC) has sponsored this annual event which now draws upwards of 75,000 Vietnamese American Catholics from the South and Southeast for a four-day festival of faith and culture. The town of Carthage (population 12,000) swells with tents pitched throughout the congregation’s 28-acre campus and spilling over to the front and backyards of accommodating neighbors. This is the event of the year, a real Catholic Woodstock.

When the Marian Days first started in 1978, just three years after the fall of Saigon, fewer than 2,000 people attended. Townspeople in this Bible Belt region were initially hesitant to permit the event, not knowing quite what to expect. But after the organizers proved that they would be no trouble or nuisance, but on the contrary, a real boon to the area and it’s summer tourist economy, minds and hearts began to change. These days, everyone in southwest Missouri knows about Marian Days; visitors are universally accorded a gracious welcome. Local families and churches have joined forces to assist in accommodations and services in a truly ecumenical spirit.

We Franciscans came in full force this year—two of us (Brother Nghia Phan and myself) from California—and a half-dozen friars from our Midwestern province of the Sacred Heart, including friars Mike Fowler and Duc Phan. Father Hung Nguyen, the Capuchin Franciscan vocations director from Berkeley, made our entourage complete. We set up tables and manned tent booths offering vocations literature, holy cards, badges and smiles to everyone who passed by. The place was jammed with thousands of Vietnamese-American youth, to be sure. But most folks were more interested in checking out the food and music (and each other, of course!) than in asking about religious life.

No matter. We knew the score from past experience. This time we came, along with representatives of more than a dozen men and women’s religious congregations, to offer a ministry of presence and support. Many young people had never seen a sister or male religious before and were curious. Others just wanted someone to chat with about what was going on in their lives: (“How do I tell my mom I’m dating someone who’s not Vietnamese?” ….“I work in a nail salon in Flint, Michigan, and send all my money to my family in Vietnam. I feel so lost and depressed here sometimes What can I do?.”…. “At first I came here because my parents insisted. Now that I have a family of my own, I want my kids to know about their Vietnamese culture and be proud of their faith.”)

All of it—the food, the music, presentations, the liturgies, the splendid procession of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima through the neighborhood streets—was more than worth it. Marian Days was and is living proof of the vitality and durability of the Catholic faith among the Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans. (Vietnamese now number about 1.5 million in the US. About one-third of them are Catholics).

When we weren’t talking with folks who strolled by in a steady stream, we took some time for fraternal check-in and fun among ourselves, catching up on each other’s lives and asking about the different brothers we knew from each other’s provinces. During meal breaks, we headed off to the cafeteria where the CMC (Chi Dong Dong Cong) brothers and an army of volunteers provided complimentary food (pho!) and beverages in air-conditioned comfort!

The culminating event of the four-day celebration of faith was the Saturday evening procession followed by fireworks and balloons and an outdoor Mass with an ocean of attentive and devout faces of all generations. Here one felt: yes, the Church is vibrant and strong. And the faith these people have brought with them, following decades of struggle, social displacement, and personal suffering is a true gift to the Catholic community in the United States and the world. //

Chapter of Mats: Meeting of Young Friars in the Holy Land July 1-8, 2007

Brothers,. I hope you've had a wonderful summer. I've been traveling for most of the past six weeks, and am now just settling in again. Most recently, I attended an international meeting of friars in the Holy Land. No one who has ever been there can ignore the compelling power of that experience. There were moments during our time together when the Chapter as an “official event” receded into the background and we simply traveled together as brothers—awestruck and awkward, vulnerable and profoundly moved, all of us—by the experience of being able, literally, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

We Franciscans (Order of Friars Minor) recently concluded our third international Chapter of Mats of the Young Friars Minor in the Holy Land. (July 1-8, 2007). More than 200 “young” friars representing nearly 50 countries around the world, gathered to pray, listen, and share as together we traversed its “geography of salvation”. The Chapter (another term for an “official meeting” ) was a rich, complex, and multi-faceted event: part international conference, part pilgrimage, part retreat, and part family reunion. Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem served not simply as arresting backdrops for our meetings, but as compelling sources of inspiration. Though quite safe ourselves, we were acutely aware of the fact that the Holy Land itself is still a divided land and landscape whose peoples have yet to achieve lasting peace.

Organized under the auspices of our General Curia (i.e., international leadership team) as part of the run-up for the 800th anniversary of our Order’s founding in 2009, the Chapter served as an authentic prism for the expression of fraternal aspirations and concerns in our time. FriarLuis Alberto Guzman and I represented the Province of St. Barbara. (While at age 57, I am not exactly chronologically young, I have been solemnly professed as a friar for just nine years. My brother Luis is a more credible example of Franciscan ‘youth’ at age 41!) We were welcomed by confreres Friars Garrett Edmunds and Leo Gonzales who are stationed in the Holy Land. According to our Rule, any friar may request to spend part of his life in ministry to the Holy Land. Presently, more than 300 men from around the world are present to offer hospitality to pilgrims in shrines throughout the Middle East.

The challenge of communicating effectively was evident from the outset, since sessions were conducted primarily in Italian. Nevertheless, some basic level of communication was established by simultaneous translation at the plenary sessions. Other times, we just improvised.

From the outset, our Minister General, Br. Jose Maria Carballo, invited a frank and open dialogue, and that is what by and large took place. As we assembled in Nazareth for three days of plenary sessions, friars were organized into small faith sharing groups. Each group was asked to select a secretary who, in turn, reported to the body as a whole. Opportunities to speak were also offered in ‘open mike’ sessions. Friars did not shrink from the task of naming the challenges facing us. Amazingly, most of the groups came up with virtually the same list of concerns:

• The need for spiritual renewal. Friars called for a revitalized common prayer and for more regular faith sharing to be structured into our fraternal life.
• Concern for the poor. Friars from emerging nations, in particular, were most passionate in expressing their concern that we not lose sight of our identification with the poor of the world. Similarly, brothers representing more affluent nations expressed their fear of our becoming too middle class and of losing our identity.
• Aging fraternities. The decline of vocations was both felt and expressed by almost all of the friars. Younger brothers expressed their concern and frustration in this regard: Will I be the only one left? If I am the only young friar in the fraternity, how can I get support for my identity and work? How can the few younger ones best take care of the great number who are now elderly?
• Collaboration and cooperation. Friars here were speaking about cooperative endeavors on an interprovincial and/or international level within the Order.
• Multiculturalism. Not a few friars present represented minority groups within their own provincial entities. Brothers from provinces embracing vast geographical areas in Asia and Africa spoke about the difficulty of communicating with each other across political, linguistic, and cultural boundaries.
• Formation. Brothers spoke of the “chasm” between the experience of initial formation and that of friars in solemn vows.
• Laic versus cleric. Many brothers, especially from provinces where the difference in status and authority between ordained and nonordained friars is most persistent and pronounced, expressed concern for greater equality within the fraternity.

Issues percolated upward from the small groups, were addressed in summary reports given by group secretaries, then refined in successive dialogue sessions. In this regard, the Minister General and other members of the General Definitorium were present, responsive, and proactive. Friars met with confreres of their language group for morning prayer. Formal liturgies were arranged at each of the major venues. According to the norms of the Holy Land, we celebrated the Annunciation at Nazareth, the Nativity of Jesus at Bethlehem, and Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem!

At the conclusion of the Chapter, friars worked together to craft a final statement which is to be further honed and sent to all of the houses in the Order. Finally, the Minister General provided his own “sense of the meeting” in his homily at Bethlehem, in which he reaffirmed our identity as “a contemplative fraternity with a mission” and recognized the historic dimension and implications of our meeting: “Our Chapter was above all a powerful time of encounter with ourselves and with the Lord, who continues to look upon us with love and to call us by name to follow Him more closely each day. . . . Our life is beautiful, very beautiful,” he added. “ Live your vocation joyfully…. We are, as men and Franciscans, the fruit of the limitless love of one person: Jesus. Keep a grateful memory of this gift; it will help you to keep it ‘young.’ …

Note: A complete record of the Chapter of Mats proceedings, including major homilies and presentations, can be found on the Curia’s website: www.ofm.org.

Trust God and Jump! The Franciscan Mission to Kazakhstan

Friar David Gaa writes:
I came to the friars as an “older vocation” at age 32, after having completed the university and worked for some years. If anyone had told me when I was first discerning my vocation as a friar that one day I would end up living and working in Kazakhstan I would have laughed. It certainly wasn’t part of my plans for my life. I think it was while I was a novice in 1991 that the old Soviet Union fell apart and Kazakhstan became an independent country.

What do I do and how did I end up where I am? Well, the Franciscan Mission to Kazakhstan is part of the Order’s larger project known at the St. Francis Foundation for Russia and Kazakhstan. The Foundation, like all projects of the Order of this type, is international in make up, with brothers volunteering to serve coming from many different provinces. In all of Russia and Kazakhstan there are six friaries and about 25 friars. In Kazakhstan I live in a city called Taldikorgan (population 125,000) which is located in the upper northeast part of the country, not far from the Chinese border. There are three of us in the friary, two of whom are ordained priests.
But we Franciscan brothers do much more that just staff a parish. Our Franciscan life in Kazakhstan is really more of a life of quiet presence. This is what St. Francis told us to do in the first Rule of 1221-- just to go and live among others, and when we were able, to preach the Gospel. The reality is that we are quite restricted by the government in terms of what we can actually do for ministry. So we do what St. Francis suggested we do-- we just live and work among the people and witness to our faith by the way we live our lives. Most of our neighbors are Kazakh Muslims. There are also many Russians who are Orthodox Christians. The entire Catholic population is less than 1% of the total population of Kazakhstan, so you can see how small we are. The overall goals of the Foundation have been set by Rome: implantation of the Order, service to the existing Roman Catholic population, and dialogue with our Muslim and Orthodox brothers and sisters.

I ended up here in Kazakhstan because after my solemn vows I read in one of our Franciscan newsletters about the International projects of the Order directly under the Minister General in Rome. These projects are in Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Russia and Kazakhstan, and perhaps some other places that I have forgotten at the moment. At that time I was working as a parish priest in the Southwest of our province (Tucson, Arizona) when Rome was asking for volunteers for our project in Morocco. In my heart the international projects of the Order kind of struck a cord, and so with the blessing and permission of my local Minster Provincial of the St. Barbara Province, I applied. A letter came back from Rome asking if I would be available to work in Kazakhstan instead of Morocco. I wasn’t even sure where Kazakhstan was located, except somewhere in Central Asia! But I took that leap of faith and said “yes”, and have never really regretted my decision.

In my life as a friar I have tried to be open to the Holy Spirit working in my heart , so I agreed, with a little nervousness in my heart, to serve in Kazakhstan. I was somewhat apprehensive. Could I learn Russian? Would it be too cold?, What would the ministry be like? and so on…. It reminded me of when I was first looking at religious life. I was full of questions and had many reservations then, too. Could I live as a celibate friar? Would I be happy living with so many guys? When I took my vows, could I live them? But my life here in Kazakhstan has proven, like my life as a friar, that if God is calling, He will give you the grace to live the life. I have found great joy and fulfillment as a friar and I have found great joy and fulfillment living and working in Kazakhstan.

So I am starting year five here in Kazakhstan. I am still a member of the St. Barbara Province, but on loan to Rome to serve in the St. Francis Foundation. Currently we are trying to build a little church (see photo) since we currently celebrate Mass in a house. The “parish” is on the first floor and we friars live on the second floor. Thanks to generous support of my Franciscan brothers in the province and the generosity of others, our new church is becoming a reality. The grandmothers are overjoyed to be seeing an actual church building rise!

Please pray for the Franciscan Mission in Kazakhstan and may God Bless all of you discerning our way of life. Trust God-- and jump!

Walking the Walk Along The Migrant Trail

CT: What was the original impetus for the Migrant Trail Walk?
Friar Adrian Peelo (AP): I believe it started with a group of friends who decided to walk in solidarity with the migrants and who decided they would continue to walk until the issue was settled.
Friar David Buer (DB): That’s right. When the walls were put up along the border in urban areas, it created a "funnel effect" which has lead to deaths in the desert. It is estimated that last year (2006) alone, between 200-250 migrants died in the Tucson sector alone. A total of about 4000 have died along the entire border in the last ten years. And these are only the known deaths, where the bodies have been found.
CT: Who were the sponsors of this year’s event?
DB: This year’s event was supported by a wide range of groups, both faith-based and others, including Derechos Humanos, Humane Borders, No More Deaths, Phoenix, and Borderlinks. Faith-based groups included the Casa Maria Catholic Worker, Catholic Relief Services, and the Franciscans’ JPIC (Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation Office) for the Province of St. Barbara. The Mennonite Central Committee (West Coast Region) was also involved, as well as one wonderul Buddhist monk.
CT: A Buddhist monk?
Adrian Peelo (AP). Yes, his name is Arjahn Sarayut. He’s from Thailand and works in Tucson. He told us he came out of his own curiosity and because of his work with border issues. You know, it was quite extraordinary. I had come to help as a support person for the group. So as the friars were getting out of the car, I said, “ You know, wouldn’t it be great to have Buddhist monks in this?” Then, just as they went off, I looked out the window, and there was a Buddhist monk in his saffron robes was standing right there!” We started chatting and he ended up cooking several meals for the group himself and bringing food to the marchers. We were like a little community together. He had a Franciscan humility, a generosity about him. He wanted to help, to do as much as he could.
CT: Adrian, how did you get involved in the Trail Walk?
AP: You know, people on the margins, on the periphery of society are often so desperate/. They can be hurt or even killed—exploited so easily because they have so few resources to serve them. ….The receiving community needs to be more sensitive and welcoming to them.....I can’t help thinking of my own country’s history—of people fleeing Ireland during and after the Famine in the 19th century. People crossing the Atlantic, desperate for opportunities, Many of them traveled in the notorious coffin ships and never made it to America. So, for myself, I wanted to be there for others in my own lifetime. also wanted to be with the brothers, as part of the Franciscan witness. It was not a question of just hanging out; I felt a moral imperative.
CT: What about you, David? You walked for four days and helped out with the organizing committee.
DB: I remember back to 1979. I was in Chicago when Pope John Paul II was there. He told the half-million people gathered in Grant Park: “Your ancestors came here for a better life. Today, people coming from the South and the West for the same reasons.” That really affected me. Now that I live right at San Xavier, I realized—here we are giving people water, fresh clothes. (The migrants) are literally at our doorstep…. Also, my own background has been working with homeless people over the last 25 years. I've led six pilgrimage groups the 65 miles from Las Vegas to the Nevada Test Site, so I undertstood the importance of pilgrimage. When I got settled in Tucson, I got involved with human rights groups like No More Deaths and Samaritans.
CT: What did people do during the Walk?
DB: The walkers had their own daily routine: They usually got up at 5:00 AM, and were on their way by 6:00 am. It was higly disciplined. They had to take down tents, pack their gear and get it into trucks, grab a quick bite and a cup of coffee, all within an hour. Then they walked all morning until noon, stopping to camp at a prearranged site. Along the way, we had a water stop every evey 1.5 miles. And every 3 miles, there was a rest stop with snacks. The marchers averaged 10-12 miles per day.
AP: I can tell you from my experience marching last year. It’s a mixture of conversation, sharing, getting to know each other. You see, we were people of all sorts of backgrounds, in it together. There were also quiet times, as well. Times for silence, meditation, walking in a single file as well. It was very moving, very contemplative. The walk itself became a spiritual practice.
CT: How did you see your role as Franciscans?
AP: I tried to make the entire experience a spiritual practice. We talk about the preferential option for the poor (until) it is almost a cliché, but the Walk is a real testimony to that. It’s very much in keeping with our Franciscan tradition of being should to shoulder with people of different backgrounds, people of all kinds in a humble way. Here we were, inserted into the community, not looking for privileges or attention. Pitching our tents, queuing up, sharing the hardships with everyone else. It was eminently Franciscan. I reflected about St. Francis, when he moved out of the town of Assisi into the Portiuncula, near the leprosarium, beyond the safety of the city walls.
DB: I agree. It was a taste of the migrant experience. The temperatures were in the high 90s, there were rattlesnakes. Days without being able to take a shower. But the Walk itself was peaceful, nonviolent, and in solidarity with the immigrants. We Franciscans weren’t in charge, though sometimes called to say a prayer once in a while. It was definitely a ministry of presence.
CT: What did you learn from your experience?
DB: On the humility side-- even from the beginning in Sasabe-- people on the Mexcian side of the border hosted us with a delicious meal. Other groups of people lovingly provided our meals along the way, often bringing them to us in the desert wilderness. We carried three coffins to the border: representing the children, men, and women who had died crossing. At the border itself, a Native American man gave us his blessing as we entered the US.
AP: I learned the value of our being together. What unites us is our common humanity. Jesus blessed our humanity by becoming one of us. When we are united together in a common cause-- coming from different ethnic, religious backgrounds-- it begins to dawn on us what really unites us. The way we have all been created and blessed by God. We are connected to each others, responsible for each other.
CT: How this experience reinforce your own sense of vocation at Franciscans?
DB: The Franciscan presence and witness is a gift to the world. Often times the world responds positively when it sees that witness It has to do with a spirit of prayerfulness, peacefulness, and solidarity with the poor.
AP: Every time I got out of the car, people just came over to me to talk, to be blessed. I remember that at one place, the Serenity Baptist Church, the pastor called out to me: “Oh Brother!” And some of his flock came out to shake hands, I was very moved; I didn’t have to explain that I was a friar, or what that meant. It was humbling. This year I was in the background like David, but when I saw Luis and Martin all covered with dust and perspiration, I felt a huge sense of pride in the friars for giving this witnesss. It’s a wonderful way to preach the Gospel.
DB: Yes, it was great. The fraternal support of our brothers coming together, sharing this witness.
CT: Any words of encouragement to our inquirers and discerners?
Both: Come!
DB: We’ll be marching next Memorial Day weekend, too. Join us!

Pictures from an Ordination: Father Ed Sarrazin ofm

Take some time.
Listen to your heart.
What does your heart tell you?
What does God tell you when you pray and listen?
Are you willing to say ‘yes’ to what God is asking you?

(Tucson, June 16) “So what advice would you give to someone discerning a call to priesthood or religious life?”, I asked. It was just about 1:00 pm when I had the chance to sit with our brother Ed Sarrazin for a couple of minutes to chat. Friars, family and friends had already wolfed down a generous portions of chili, beans, potato salad, fruit salad, soft drinks and a big gooey sheet cake. The Wa:k Traditional Dancers from the Tohono O’odham nation had just finished their performance here in the wonderfully cool school cafeteria at Tucson’s historic Mission San Xavier del Bac. Everyone was about ready to mosey on home—slowly, slowly, slowly—in the ferocious desert heat.

Ed, now Father Ed, had been a priest for all of ninety minutes. Yet he seemed to have been born to the manner. Here, in the midst of all the hoopla of his own ordination, Ed himself was the picture of serenity. I was amazed. “I’m usually pretty calm in situations like this. But later on, when everyone’s gone home, I know I’ll start to crash.” Thank goodness for that! Ed was human, after all; just like the rest of us.

The truth, though, is that Ed is a pretty calm and patient man. Both our Provincial Minister, Father Mel Jurisich, and the ordaining bishop, Gerald Kicanas of the Diocese of Tucson, noted as much during the liturgy. In presenting Ed to the bishop for the rite of ordination, Father Mel spoke of Ed’s “sincerity…(and) kindness…. (his) calming presence” as a friar. He also spoke of these and other gifts Ed would bring to ministry, including his “ simplicity and humility…. his acceptance of people as they are… and his particular interest in the needs of the Native Peoples.”

So was this an ordination or a canonization? Bishop Kicanas was not to be outdone in his affirmation of Ed’s personhood and gifts: “I can just imagine why these two carved lions (in the sanctuary) are smiling today,” he began. “And I can just imagine why two other lions in the sanctuary (Father Mel and Vicar Provincial Father Tom West?) must be smiling as well.” The bishop went on to tell us some things about our brother that many of us, his Franciscan brothers, had never known ourselves:

“Ed was born to Irene Sarrazin in July, 1960,” the bishop started. “John F. Kennedy was running for president that year…. And the Pittsburgh Pirates (did the impossible and ) beat the New York Yankees!” A few years later, Ed with his French Belgian and French Canadian roots, headed off to public school and CCD (“Christian Combat Duty”) classes for religious instruction. Somewhere around Confirmation, Ed got the call and later spent a college year with the Benedictines in Shawnee, Oklahoma. But it didn’t take. A teacher later reminded him that St. Augustine had a circuitous journey in his vocation as well and urged Ed not to give up. A later stint with the Vincentian community in Perryville, Missouri didn’t work out as he had hoped, either. Still, Ed didn’t give up his search.

The bishop fast forwarded to Ed’s move, with his mother, to Oceanside, California, where he spent still more years in discernment-- thirteen years total, according to his own reckoning. Father Michel Gagnon, ofm, pastor at Old Mission San Luis Rey at the time, vividly recalls Ed’s journey with the friars:

“I remember Ed when he first came to us. He was selling shoes in the mall. He was shy-- bit of a wallflower. He came to me and told me he might like to be a Vincentian brother. So he started to work as a sacristan at the Mission and we discovered he had all kinds of organizational skills and talents we never knew about.

“After that he said he’d like to work with the Confirmation preparation class—about a dozen middle-school kids. So I told him: ‘Are you sure you want to do that? Those kids will eat you alive.’ ‘So what do I have to do?’, he asked me. I told him: ‘You have to lift up your head, stick our your chest, and show them that you have confidence in yourself. And if they give anything to you—you give it right back at them! And he did! Six months later, he had the kids eating out of his hand. He came to me and said: ‘I don’t want to be a Vincentian brother anymore. I want to be one of you guys, I want to be a Franciscan friar!” And by golly, he did!’

I asked Ed himself what was the final tipping point in his own decision to become a Franciscan. He was characteristically sanguine in his response: “Someone had given me a copy of the Constitutions and Rule of the Franciscan Order,” and as I was going through it, I thought: ‘This is the life I’m already living right now. So why not try it in community?’” Ed entered postulancy in Portland in 1999 and started his novitiate at Old Mission San Miguel, California, the following summer. By 2005, he had finished his theological studies at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, and was ready for a mission insertion experience in Baja California. As Bishop Kicanas reflects, “It was in Cabo San Lucas that Ed realized that he was (like St. Paul) an ambassador for Christ…. He saw the face of Christ in the people he served there.” Ed took that same sense of engagement to his Clinical Pastoral Experience (CPE) hospital training—and to his most recent assignment at Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson, accompanying the Tohono O’odham people.

At the conclusion of the Mass, Father Mel announced that Ed would remain at Mission San Xavier as his first priestly assignment. “And by the way, you have the 8:30 Mass tomorrow morning!” he chuckled. And the congregation roared.

Ed Sarrazin’s path toward religious life and priestly ordination has been, by his own description, a circuitous one. Yet all along the way, it is clear that this very down to earth man has followed his heart and committed himself to the same quietly disciplined way he now urges upon others: Take some time. Listen to your heart. What does your heart tell you? What does God tell you when you pray and listen? Are you willing to say ‘yes’ to what God is asking you?" …. Well? How about it?//

Peter Phan on Multiculturalism: Consulting Confucius (and Francis) Amid The Confusion

In a trio of lectures offered June 5-6 at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California, Georgetown University professor and author Peter Phan provided a much needed Asian Catholic perspective on the Church and its ministry in a multicultural society. The Vietnamese-born Phan spoke to more than a score of friars from throughout the St. Barbara Province—students, pastoral ministers, and academicians alike —about the opportunities and challenges facing the Church in the age of globalization. In doing so, he suggested both strategies and skills essential to ministering effectively in the emerging multicultural context. Strategies and skills, by the way, which are totally consistent with the Franciscan vision. The two-day event was sponsored by the St. Barbara Province Multicultural Council and hosted by the Multicultural Institute (www.mionline.org), headed by Rigoberto Caloca-Rivas ofm.

Phan laid the groundwork for his audience by providing an historical and contemporary overview of the Asian Catholic experience in the United States. “You’ve come a long way, baby!,” he quipped, quoting a Virginia Slims cigarette ad from the early 1970s and proffered it as a mock motto of the Asian experience in America. “To understand US Asian Catholics, one must first know something about the history of Catholicism in Asia itself,” he continued, stressing that for the first five hundred years of its existence, the Christian community had its epicenter not in Rome, but rather in Baghdad, demonstrating the Church’s deep roots in the Asian continent. Primary among the gifts that Asians have brought to the US church and society today, Phan stressed, is a strong sense of community identity. Simplicity of life and a sense of frugality, he suggested, are other attributes which offer a counterpoise to American society’s rampant consumerism. In addition, a longstanding tradition of nonviolence held in many Asian communities brings with it attendant values of harmony and reconciliation—values of particular salience to the American situation.

Asian Catholics in particular, Phan noted, offer a new narrative, “a new way of understanding what it means to be fully human,” to the American context. The role of the laity in initiating ministry to the immigrant community, the contributions of religious women and laypeople, the preservation of language, customs, and rituals such as the veneration of ancestors all speak of an Asian way of “being” Church.

A tiny, yet strategic minority on both continents, Asian Catholics nevertheless are bearers of a vital tradition of Christian witness, Phan observed. The Asian Church is a church of martyrs; the sense of dying for one’s faith is an integral part of both its historical and even contemporary experience. Significantly, both laypeople and women religious have been instrumental in the establishment of religious education programs in both their home and immigrant communities. By virtue of being a minority imbedded among peoples of a variety of faith traditions, Asian Catholics understand that inter-religious dialogue is not primarily about talk, rather is descriptive of an entire way of life.

Both at the onset and throughout his lectures, Phan was quick to emphasize that the Asian Catholic experience is one in which ecclesiology has emerged from spirituality and not the reverse. It is an experience rich in possibilities for ministry in a multicultural setting. In his second talk, Phan emphasized that church leaders need to readjust their vision and strategies in order to respond to the emerging reality of global culture. In this new world, “the passport you hold in your hand says nothing about who you are.” One’s identity is no longer determined or limited by traditional geographic or ethnic boundaries. Consequently, the minister must become adept at “border crossing”— and at dismantling the unjust “fences” erected in society that deny full participation to all.

“Jesus is the border crosser par excellence,” Phan emphasized. The Incarnation, the Word of God made Flesh, is the consummate act of border crossing as “God steps out of God’s self and enters into the ‘otherness’ (of human experience.” Throughout his ministry Jesus crossed borders repeatedly: He was an itinerant, himself, wandering through and throughout country and countryside. He spoke to women, touched the ritually impure, engaged foreigners, outsiders, political enemies, and collaborators alike. His death outside the city gates of Jerusalem, followed by his Resurrection redefines the very status of border as barrier or fence to that of a marker of a new frontier.

“As multicultural ministers,” Phan continued, “we have to cross borders all the time.” Consequently, one needs to embrace new expressions of spirituality in order serve others effectively. The minister needs to understand the importance of developing a ministry of presence—“to know how to be present to others as they are, not as I expect them to be.” The minister must be prepared to engage in meaningful dialogue with others, not from a position of power but rather from the stance of giving witness. Adopting a stance of self-emptying or kenosis, the minister acknowledges that s/he “comes as a guest to the other and (is prepared to) respect and follow the rules of the new environment.” Not coincidentally, this list of “new’ ministerial virtues resonates with the lived experience of Asian Catholics.

In his final lecture, Phan challenged his audience to learn from the Asian experience “not as a set of techniques or strategies… but ultimately as a way of life.” The Asian context is one marked by chronic and persistent material poverty in spite of the vaunted material blessings of globalization. It is also marked by a richness of cultural diversity and religious expression. Interest and concern focus not on the intramural, structural issues that often preoccupy Catholics in the West, but rather on the “reign of God as the center around everything the Church does.” By the year 2050, Phan predicted, both the vast majority of the world’s population as well as the vast majority of the world’s Christians will be living in the Third World. It is a context, he asserted, in which the Penecostal movement as will be the principal source of growth in the Christian community at the expense of mainline, historical churches. At the same time, multiple religious membership will become normative for many people. This changing reality calls us to be a church in dialogue with the world rather than simply proclaiming to it.//