The simple way of Brother Herman

Two weeks ago I was in Houston, Texas, with my wife and daughter attending a Cajun cookout in honor of my wife's cousin's high school graduation. While I was socializing with people who gathered for the celebration I had a conversation with one of my uncle-in-law’s relatives- an African-American Catholic friar known as Brother Herman. Brother Herman is a minister and a professor of Spanish who lives in a monastery with other friars in New Orleans. He was among those who survived Hurricane Katrina and the flood that it brought about in New Orleans. We talked for a while about the effect of the flood on his city and his vocation as a language professor. But our longest discussion was about faith.

He told me about what drew him into ministry and I told him about the experiences that led me to enroll in seminary. We talked about the current Pope and the offense he caused in his recent visit to Latin America when he praised the Portuguese missionaries for bringing civilization to people of Latin America (In response to this, Brother Herman said, "Civilization was there before those colonial-minded missionaries ever landed on shore...and so was God"). He told me about the mystic bent Pope John Paul II took as he got older in regards to the idea that there may be other paths to God. He encouraged me in my theological studies and advised me to keep a critical eye and to engage in a respectful critique of other faiths as well as my own. I asked him about his personal prayer life and he told me how he maintains his communion with God by attending Mass, taking communion and spending time in prayer every morning. We discussed how important it is for humans to really seek an ongoing and thriving connection to God and to not allow for rituals to lose their meaning because of routine.

We then shared our understandings of ministry and evangelism. He reminded me that ministry (a word so commonly and carelessly thrown around and attached to anything church-related) is really just another word for “service” and that ministry is not limited to the roles of priests, preachers and chaplains. He noted that while many feel called to such professional roles, those are not the only opportunities for service that exist in God’s kingdom. He said that we are all ministers in the sense that we all can be of service by using our gifts and abilities to help others. To illustrate this point, he told me a personal story of how he had low self-esteem until a priest helped him discover his own gift for languages by teaching him how to speak Spanish when he was 13 years old. Young Herman went through school, got better grades and honed his language skills until he became a language professor himself. He told me that he now lives out his ministry in and out of the classroom by "treating people nice" and "showing hospitality to them."

He shared his opinion on evangelism by saying, "I don’t believe that it is our place as Catholics to make other people Catholic. I believe our mission as Catholics is to do what Catholics do...serve others." His words we so simple yet they summed up what I've been trying to articulate for quite some time now. Years ago, I used to think that having witty answers to a skeptic’s questions was the best way to convince an unbeliever that the gospel was true. Nowadays, I find myself leaning towards the belief that our most effective and faithful witness to the world might be our everyday acts of service, hospitality, compassion and kindness. This is the witness that I think truly moves people to connect with God and others. MaybeI'm going too far in making it an either/or type of situation, but I at least want to do more to incorporate the latter approach in my relationships with others.

Ultimately, my conversation with Brother Herman left me to wonder: Perhaps our goal shouldn't be to pressure others to follow Jesus, but to do what a follower of Jesus does in the Spirit by which Jesus did it. A way of life where we do good for others - not as a means of getting a heavenly reward or avoiding an eternal punishment- but because that is what we do as followers of Jesus.

I wonder: Could the gospel really be that simple? Yep. Simple enough for a child to understand it and apply it.

Loving Imaginary People

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image.
Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
--Thomas Merton

It is so easy to love people that don’t exist. Do you know what I mean? I’m referring to those abstract, vague, submissive, glossy, harmless people that we think of when we use words like “humanity” and “humankind.” These are the people I think of when I talk about loving both my neighbor and my enemy. They don’t bother me and don’t demand anything of me. They don’t argue with me and they appreciate everything I do for them at my own convenience. These individuals embody all the ideals that we would like to be true about our fellow human beings. These are the people you have in mind when you buy gifts for others or write a check for a charity. And these types are quite easy to trust and forgive.

When I was a kid, I had two imaginary friends because they were so easy to get along with. As an adult, I excel at loving these kinds of people. These individuals are the frequent targets of my prayers, concerns and good deeds. This is mainly because they are far easier to deal with than those smelly, irritable, apathetic, offensive, bothersome, hypocritical, hyper-sensitive, and unfaithful creatures called humans.

And that’s the sad part. These people don't exist.

You see, I am an idealist and my idealism often fools me into believing that love is easy to apply. But then reality sets in and I realize that while “love” is a feather of a word it also carries a heavy demand. Real people disappoint you and are often disappointed by you. Real people hold grudges and are often the targets of our own vengeful imaginations. Real people have keen memories of your mistakes and often come down with a severe case of selective amnesia when it comes to recognizing your virtues. These real people are the ones we ignore and then turn around and get upset with when they don't support us in our time of need. As you can see, real people make for a pretty frustrating bunch of weirdos. But the thing is these real people are just…like…me. I often find those qualities that I find most irritating in others are the same irritable qualities I discover in myself. Why is that?

Here is the paradox that I struggle with constantly. I love people that don’t exist and I suck when it comes to loving the ones that do. It takes too much energy and requires a level of attention that I would rather reserve for my own interests. Real people always call when I’m involved in something else. They always have a problem they are dealing with. They always need something. You can never satisfy them. They are too clingy and needy. Why do they act so selfishly sometimes and why do they bother with me when I am so often a jerk towards them?

Spirit of God, help me to let go of imaginary people and help me to dig deep and use my energy and patience to show sincere love to real people despite their shortcomings, inconveniences, and faults.